"Lemonade Lucy" Hayes

The press jokingly called her "Lemonade Lucy," because no alcoholic beverages were served in the White House while she was First Lady.  But Lucy Hayes, wife of the 19th President, was widely respected as a kind an intelligent woman.  She was, her husband Rutherford B. Hayes said, "the Golden Rule incarnate."  

A doctor's daughter, Lucy Ware Webb grew up in Ohio.  She graduated from Wesleyan Female Seminary, a college, in 1850.  Two years later, she married "Rud" Hayes, who became a congressman and governor of Ohio.  Lucy had a keen interest in politics and helped her husband in his career.  


She worked to outlaw slavery and alcohol, and raised money for the poor.  Because President and Mrs. Hayes came from Ohio, the rule that no liquor could be served in the White House was called “the Ohio idea.”

President Hayes and his wife had seven sons and one daughter.

Lucy Hayes was a thoroughly modern First Lady.   She was the first one to hold a college degree.  And during her time in the White House, a host of new inventions were introduced there.

These included indoor plumbing, telephones, typewriters, and record players.  But Lucy Hayes also had traditional values.  She held family prayers each morning, as well as frequent songfests around the sitting-room piano.   And she introduced the Easter egg roll on the White House lawn, an event that has been held ever since.