First of All, A Wife: Sketches of America’s First Ladies.

By Anne Adams.

Batavia, NY: PC Publications, 2007. e-book 194 pages. $9.99.

http://www.pcpublications.org/proddetail.php?prod=FIRSTL
Houstonian Anne Adams brings our attention to America’s First Ladies, several pages each of actually interesting reading. But our focus here is Texana. While Julia Dent was secretly engaged to Ulysses Grant, he was sent off to the Texas border, not by Julia but by the military. Mamie Dowd’s family had a winter home at San Antonio a hundred years ago. In 1915 while in that city Mamie met Ike, a lieutenant at the time. Later began the Texas dynasty Claudia Taylor, Barbara Pierce, and Laura Welch. But, if you are wishing to inspire the little girls of your neighborhood, don’t forget that Lou Henry Hoover was an astonishing person; I’ve read her … and she was no Texan.