I called her to ask what we know about how presidents express grief, and she told me about Lincoln commuting on horseback from the cottage where the rest of the family went in part to escape being in the house where his son had died. She wrote back in February about some of the many tragedies that have befallen presidents. sharing their painīarbara Perry is co-chair of the presidential oral history program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. But hearing his discussion with Cooper, conducted in the White House, feels unique for an American president – all of whom have been men and all of whom, to varying degrees, have tried to exude invulnerable power, working to hide their maladies rather than relate to people through them.įeeling Americans’ pain vs. Hearing Biden talk about vulnerability – his own vulnerability – is not new in terms of his political life. Biden talked with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about working through those losses in a new episode of the “All There Is” podcast. His son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. His first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, died in a car crash in 1972, shortly after he was elected to Congress as a senator from Delaware. Bush.īiden’s own personal list of tragedies is well known and predates his presidency. Bush lost a daughter, the sister of George W. John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams both saw children die.

So many presidents lost children and siblings, often before they were elected. His wife was inconsolable, and Pierce ended up being a notoriously bad president. MPI/Archive Photos/Getty Imagesįranklin Pierce’s only living son was cut down in a train accident between his election and inauguration. Calvin Coolidge with his wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, and their sons, Calvin Jr.

Joe biden lost first wife