Latest / Ridiculous History / First Ladies Who Weren't Wives, Part Two, Part Two: Some Folks Didn't Want The Job

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First Ladies Who Weren't Wives, Part Two, Part Two: Some Folks Didn't Want The Job · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
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Speaker 1: fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. That's our super producer, mister Max. Welcome back, Williams,
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Speaker 1: Welcome back, Welcome back, Welcome back. I love that theme
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Speaker 1: song for that, mister, Yes, yeah, you nailed it. Who
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Speaker 1: just nailed that? That's mister Noel Brown. They call me
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Speaker 1: Ben Bolden. This is our continuing series on the first
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Speaker 1: Ladies who weren't wives. Please check out our previous episodes
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Speaker 1: on this. And I'm excited about this one, NOL because,
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Speaker 1: as our research associate Jeff factor G. Bartlett revealed to
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Speaker 1: us fairly recently in his research, there's one first lady
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Speaker 1: who just didn't want the job.
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Speaker 2: And that's right.
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Speaker 3: Indeed, he found this one particularly interesting, as did we.
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Speaker 2: As Jeff puts it, she was there, but she didn't care. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: She is called by various historians one of American histories
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Speaker 1: more obscure first ladies. Mary Arthur mice Elroy. She became
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Speaker 1: the executive hostess in eighteen eighty one because her brother
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Speaker 1: Chester A. Arthur was a widower, and he only became
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Speaker 1: president because James A. Garfield was assassinated, so she said, look,
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Speaker 1: I am not familiar with all the to dos and
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Speaker 1: the customs and the legacy requirements of the White House
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Speaker 1: when she got there. She's a middle aged mother of four.
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Speaker 1: She eventually does assimily, you could call it, and she
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Speaker 1: becomes known favorably for her New Year's galas and her
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Speaker 1: open house dinner receptions. She also gets by with a
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Speaker 1: little help from her friends. I had not heard of
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Speaker 1: this before. She enlists former first ladies to help her
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Speaker 1: figure out all the social norms and the fancy cues.
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Speaker 1: And those first ladies that she crowdsources with are Julia
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Speaker 1: Tyler and the aforementioned Harriet Lane.
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Speaker 2: So Mary Arthur McElroy or maybe McElroy either one, it's fine.
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Speaker 2: Her brother Chester A.
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Speaker 3: Arthur, was a widower when he became president in eighteen
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Speaker 3: eighty one, and his wife Ellen Nell Lewis Herndon, had
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Speaker 3: passed away sadly from pneumonia in eighteen eighty. Missus McElroy
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Speaker 3: agreed to become the White House hostess, though I don't
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Speaker 3: believe she was given the designation of First Lady right
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Speaker 3: off the rip out of respect for the passing of
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Speaker 3: Arthur's wife.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was doing everything that a first lady
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Speaker 1: would do. But you're right, there was a matter of
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Speaker 1: There was a matter of necessity and a matter of respect.
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Speaker 1: They needed someone to fill that role during the busy
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Speaker 1: social season of the winter months, and in spring she
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Speaker 1: went back to i'll say it, her real family. She
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Speaker 1: was considered a general favorite at the White House. She
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Speaker 1: had to assume these social duties just really just to
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Speaker 1: help out her brothers. So we don't have to say
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Speaker 1: too much more about her, except one thing that stood
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Speaker 1: out to all of us. She did not want women
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Speaker 1: to vote.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I thought I misread that when I first
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Speaker 3: started going through the brief, but it's true, and it
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Speaker 3: is indeed a bit of a head scratcher.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she was. Also she was against temperance, which
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Speaker 1: makes her an interesting character. She was for the drink,
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Speaker 1: but against the vote. Yes, for the drink, against the vote.
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Speaker 1: She thought it was fine for lady and lad alike
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Speaker 1: to get soused in the White House, but she did
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Speaker 1: not want the ladies to vote, and it was part
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Speaker 1: of her extremely active civil life. She was notably active
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Speaker 1: in the Albany branch of the New York State Association
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Speaker 1: opposed to women's suffrage or as anyone knows, Missalves.
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Speaker 2: That's where I thought.
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Speaker 3: I made a little whoopsie when I was reading through it,
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Speaker 3: But that opposed very much part of this organization's mission.
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Speaker 3: Although mcelray served as her brother's first lady, she was, not,
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Speaker 3: of course, as we mentioned, given that formal recognition out
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Speaker 3: of respect for his wife. However, this did not hurt
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Speaker 3: her reputation. She was popular. Like he said, she was
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Speaker 3: a local favorite and quite the hostess with the mostest.
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Speaker 3: Her duties, however, were somewhat limited as the Arthur administration
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Speaker 3: wasn't as big on the social season as other administrations,
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Speaker 3: and this was out of deference to the late President Garfield.
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Speaker 1: And as we moved through history, we'll jump around a bit,
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Speaker 1: jump around, jump around.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, see, that's fine, right, We'll.
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Speaker 1: Introduce you to another reluctant first lady, one who did
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Speaker 1: not care for the job, and that would be Andrew
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Speaker 1: Johnson's wife. Okay, Jeff woots it this way. She was there,
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Speaker 1: but she didn't care. She was also pretty sick, not
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Speaker 1: in the hip hop sense, and that didn't help. She
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Speaker 1: eventually passes the torch of first ladyship to their daughter
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Speaker 1: because she at some point, Eliza Johnson just doesn't want
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Speaker 1: to do it. She's just fed up with it.
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Speaker 3: And this is not to mention that his administration was
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Speaker 3: particularly fraught. Uh even refer to it as our buddies
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Speaker 3: at history dot Com do as embattled. She however, was
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Speaker 3: so publicly outwardly shy and kind of weedy and sickly
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Speaker 3: that she passed along most.
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Speaker 2: Of her duties.
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Speaker 3: Again, like you said, to her eldest daughter, Martha Johnson Patterson,
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Speaker 3: and there was this kind of pall of mourning over
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Speaker 3: the whole proceedings, especially in the years leading up to
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Speaker 3: the Civil War and after Lincoln was assassinated. So Martha
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Speaker 3: kind of adopted, you know, conformed to the times and
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Speaker 3: took on this of restraint, modesty, and I don't know,
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Speaker 3: a little bit dourness, you know in the White House.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because post Civil War, the nation is in mourning.
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Speaker 1: Many people have lost loved ones, and people are also
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Speaker 1: not too sure about the stability of the American experiment.
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Speaker 1: She did choose her words wisely. When she spoke in
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Speaker 1: public in eighteen sixty five, she said, look, we are
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Speaker 1: playing folks from Tennessee cold here by a national calamity.
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Speaker 1: I hope not too much will be expected of us.
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Speaker 1: She did some things that would speak to their Tennessee heritage.
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Speaker 1: In addition to managing social receptions, Martha installed milk cows
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Speaker 1: on the White House lawn. She redecorated the interior, which
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Speaker 1: seems to happen every time there's a new First Lady.
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Speaker 1: She got paintings of past presidents into a gallery. One person,
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Speaker 1: a member of staff, would later describe the President's daughter
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Speaker 1: as quote the real mistress of the White House. She
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Speaker 1: made no pretenses of any sort, but was always honest
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Speaker 1: and direct.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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Speaker 3: She was the eldest child of Andrew and Eliza Johnson
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Speaker 3: and born in Tennessee on October the twenty fifth of
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Speaker 3: eighteen twenty eight. Her father served in Congress, and she
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Speaker 3: attended school in Georgetown, occasionally visiting the Polk the administration
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Speaker 3: the Polk White House. On December thirteenth of eighteen fifty five,
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Speaker 3: she got married to a gentleman by the name of
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Speaker 3: David Trotter Patterson, and they had two kiddos, Andrew Johnson
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Speaker 3: and Mary Bell.
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Speaker 2: In the preceding years and when her father did become
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Speaker 2: president somewhat unexpectedly, of course, not someone very much unexpectedly.
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Speaker 2: After Abraham Lincoln had that really rough night at the
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Speaker 2: theater that we always talk about in eighteen sixty five,
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Speaker 2: Martha was able to help out with some of these
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Speaker 2: first lady duties and responsibilities because her mother was so chronically.
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Speaker 1: Ill, and a lot of what they're doing at this point,
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Speaker 1: we could think of it as cleaning up the mess
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Speaker 1: after the bloody party of the Civil War. The White
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Speaker 1: House is in disarray, it's wrecked. It was a very
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Speaker 1: stressful time. Interesting note here and a bit of nepotism.
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Speaker 1: You'll notice that Martha's last name is Patterson. That's because
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Speaker 1: she married David Trotter Patterson, who himself was a member
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Speaker 1: of Congress. He served as a Senator from Tennessee from
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six until eighteen sixty nine, and this was
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Speaker 1: after Tennessee became the volunteer state became the first Confederate
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Speaker 1: state to be readmitted to the Union. Senator Patterson's duties
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Speaker 1: during the trial of Andrew Johnson's impeachment made the process
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Speaker 1: made the political process and the marriage process difficult for
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Speaker 1: the couple. Their relationship was fraught again to reuse that word,
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Speaker 1: because Martha was certain that the charges against her father
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Speaker 1: were false. By the time the Senate vote fell too
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Speaker 1: short to convict Johnson on these impeachment charges, the Patterson
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Speaker 1: family was just tired of the circus we call Washington
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Speaker 1: d C.
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Speaker 2: She didn't what the job.
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Speaker 1: She helped clean up she left, which brings us to
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Speaker 1: another one. I think we're excited to talk about. Imagine
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Speaker 1: a first lady who felt like she didn't need a
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Speaker 1: husband at all. This is Rose Cleveland.
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Speaker 2: She was born in New York in eighteen forty six,
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Speaker 2: the youngest of Richard and Anne Cleveland, the youngest of
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Speaker 2: nine children, and the sister of future President Grover Cleveland
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Speaker 2: is a great name who is nine years older than
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Speaker 2: she was. Cleveland attended school at Houghton Seminary Religious School,
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Speaker 2: of course, and she taught school in Pennsylvania and New York.
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Speaker 2: And she was particularly interested and invested in literature.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So her unmarried older brother becomes potus in
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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five President of the United States. Miss Cleveland
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Speaker 1: moves to Washington, where she's going to serve as first
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Speaker 1: Lady in practice, the White House hostess. She She spearheads
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Speaker 1: the traditional receptions, the dinners all that almost said flim
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Speaker 1: flammery will keep it, all that all that high to do.
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Speaker 1: And while she's doing this, she also finds time to
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Speaker 1: pursue her primary love, which is literature. By the time
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Speaker 1: she's been First Lady for just fifteen months, she's written
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Speaker 1: two books, one study of George Eliot's poetry and one
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Speaker 1: called You and I Moral Intellectual and social Culture. She
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Speaker 1: would much rather be someone who hangs out at a
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Speaker 1: book club or a salon instead of the you know,
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Speaker 1: sitting through the mindnus nattering of social gatherings. But when
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Speaker 1: she was called to serve, she did. Her receptions were
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Speaker 1: well attended, she was well liked, and she didn't have
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Speaker 1: to be First Lady for too long because our buddy
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Speaker 1: Grover gets hitched on June Tewod eighteen eighty six. He
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Speaker 1: marries Francis Fulsome and she takes over as the first
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Speaker 1: Lady proper. Everybody looks back on Rose Cleveland and unanimously agrees.
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Speaker 1: Contemporary accounts as well as the work of later historians.
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Speaker 1: They all agree that she had very little interest in
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Speaker 1: becoming the first Lady. She did it mainly to be
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Speaker 1: a good sister, to help out her older brother. And
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Speaker 1: she and she and she was so ready to scdattle.
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Speaker 1: She was probably the one pushing him into marriage, right
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Speaker 1: because she wanted to leave and write more books.
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Speaker 3: Yep, that is correct. Wasn't she one of the original
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Speaker 3: Bluestocking into it? Like folks that the whole blue Stocking society,
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Speaker 3: which I believe was like a literary circle.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was more much more interested, we're
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Speaker 1: being honest, in pursuing scholarship and reading than she was
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Speaker 1: in hanging out with the crew of wives and the
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Speaker 1: wives of foreign dignitaries. I guess the best way to
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Speaker 1: say it candidly is it sounds like she was really
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Speaker 1: bored and she would just literally sit through these long
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Speaker 1: foreign meetups or these you know, these galas, and she
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Speaker 1: might not talk that much. She would just sit staring
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Speaker 1: off in the distance, and apparently she would conjugate Greek
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Speaker 1: verbs in her mind to pass the time.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: It's like it's a much more intelligent version of like
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Speaker 3: playing sadoku or like tigging around on your phone, you know.
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Speaker 3: And during these meetings, she was not present, she was
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Speaker 3: miles away.
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Speaker 1: If there was a phone available at the time. If
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Speaker 1: smartphones were a thing, she would have been that person
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Speaker 1: who was on the phone during the conversation, which is,
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Speaker 1: by the way, huge rude, social social faux pa.
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Speaker 2: Folks, no question about it. Ben.
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Speaker 3: It was during these years that she started to work
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Speaker 3: on some books, some nonfiction works, George Eliot's Poetry and
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Speaker 3: Other Studies, which did go on to be published in
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Speaker 3: eighteen eighty five, as well as You and I, Moral,
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Speaker 3: Intellectual and Social Culture, which.
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Speaker 2: Was published in eighteen eighty six.
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Speaker 1: And here's a little bit of sauce with this historical sauce,
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Speaker 1: a little bit of us with the historical laudrey. Here
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Speaker 1: three years after Rose leaves the White House and is
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Speaker 1: no longer pinch hitting as first Lady, she meets a
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Speaker 1: wealthy thirty two year old widow named Evangeline Mars Whipple.
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Speaker 1: As you can tell, that's a name that commonly comes
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Speaker 1: with money. She's vacationing in Florida and they connect. They
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Speaker 1: begin exchanging love letters. In April eighteen ninety. We're getting
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Speaker 1: this from Smithsonian Magazine. By the way, her love letters
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Speaker 1: are donated to the Minnesota Historical Society. In nineteen sixty
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Speaker 1: nine by a relative of someone in Evangeline's family, Bishop
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Speaker 1: Henry Benjamin Whipple, and that's Evangeline's second husband. They didn't
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Speaker 1: get published until twenty nineteen, in a collection called Precious
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Speaker 1: and Adored. The Love Letters of Rose Cleveland and Evangeline
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Speaker 1: Simpson Whipple eighteen ninety to nineteen eighteen. We don't know
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Speaker 1: what Evangeline wrote to Rose, but we do know that
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Speaker 1: Rose quotes Evangeline a lot in those letters, and maybe
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Speaker 1: we could read just an excerpt of what the kind
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Speaker 1: of stuff Rose wrote to Evangeline.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we definitely must. You are mine, she said,
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Speaker 2: and I am yours, and we are one, and our
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Speaker 2: lives are one. Henceforth, please God, who can alone separate us?
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Speaker 2: I am bold to say this, to pray and to
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Speaker 2: live it? Am I too?
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Speaker 3: Bold?
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Speaker 2: Eve? Tell me I shall go to bed Eve with
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Speaker 2: your letters under my pillow. Okay, got some longing being
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Speaker 2: expressed here, A little bit of longing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's classy longing. It's not James Joyce longing.
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Speaker 2: Oh God, it's like party princess things.
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Speaker 4: Side note.
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Speaker 2: Can I do a quick tangent here, guys? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us what you had a Garfield tangent.
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Speaker 2: Correct.
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Speaker 4: No, this is actually a tangent about something I texted
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Speaker 4: you all about. But when I was out West, I
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Speaker 4: met my my buddy Kev's longtime girlfriend Lizzie for the
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Speaker 4: first time, and within an hour I was telling her
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Speaker 4: about the James Joyce love letters.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you mentioned that.
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Speaker 2: Yes, BARTI Pourrincess Chris.
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Speaker 1: But what poetic descriptions of parts?
17:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's true. Very good fart pros, yeah, very good.
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Speaker 2: Can't deny that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, but we don't want to leave you without a
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Speaker 1: dope beat the step two. We have more that we
17:27
Speaker 1: should get to. But Maxwell, we've got you on the
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Speaker 1: horn for some tangents. I believe there was also a
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Speaker 1: Garfield tangent you wanted to share.
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Speaker 4: Sure, and if you are willing, I have a bunch more,
17:38
Speaker 4: but I'll rapid fire them, okay, because, as you guys know,
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Speaker 4: I'm the President's guys, so most importantly I want to stay.
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Speaker 4: This just looks at someone I've learned while working on
17:46
Speaker 4: the show that Garfield was a really cool guy. Like
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Speaker 4: he really was, like his story is cool. He was
17:51
Speaker 4: like really, like I have a resource brief coming up,
17:55
Speaker 4: but he's like, you know, people always say, like you
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Speaker 4: should only elect a president who doesn't want the job.
18:00
Speaker 4: There's flaws in that philosophy that.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 4: Garfield was actually kind of that, like everyone was throwing
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Speaker 4: him under the bus for him to become president while
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Speaker 4: he was trying to get his friend to become president.
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Speaker 2: It's kind of.
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Speaker 4: Sad how he got how he got murdered in assassinated.
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Speaker 4: On the other hand, Arthur was a very unlikable guy.
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Speaker 4: Everyone hster Arthur. They his own party didn't put him
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Speaker 4: out for reelection. Talking about Andrew Johnson, he was a
18:25
Speaker 4: survivor I believe of a try assassination attempt between him, Lincoln,
18:29
Speaker 4: and mister Alaska himself, Sue Old, the Secretary of State,
18:32
Speaker 4: because at the point they only went up three ways,
18:35
Speaker 4: they took all three of them.
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Speaker 2: There will be no president.
18:39
Speaker 4: Johnson gave him success because he was the only senator
18:43
Speaker 4: of a succession state to show back up at.
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Speaker 2: A work after his state with the country.
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Speaker 4: And the last one about Johnson and I'll let you go.
18:51
Speaker 4: It's true fact that we want to know how bad
18:53
Speaker 4: of a person says. He is one of only two
18:56
Speaker 4: presidents to not have a known pet.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, out of only two, and you can guess
19:02
Speaker 1: the second one. Imagine, yeah, you there's three now, yeah, okay,
19:09
Speaker 1: Well be that as it may. The American experiment continues.
19:13
Speaker 1: Everything you just heard Max say is factually accurate.
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Speaker 2: With what exception.
19:18
Speaker 1: You were not the sole president guy here, mister Williams,
19:21
Speaker 1: I would say we were all the President's Men.
19:24
Speaker 2: You are nerds, We certainly are. You see the movie
19:29
Speaker 2: All the President's Men. I haven't seen it. Hurt's great.
19:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. I don't recall
19:33
Speaker 1: it in full clarity because it's been a while. You
19:37
Speaker 1: know what I've been really on a kick on recently,
19:40
Speaker 1: guys is spy films. John leckare just like Roald Dahl
19:45
Speaker 1: is a fascinating character. He's the guy who wrote the
19:47
Speaker 1: novels that inspired things like Teinker Taylor, Soldier Spy.
19:51
Speaker 2: If you've seen that one for sure, and if you're
19:53
Speaker 2: into that kind of stuff.
19:54
Speaker 3: Ben and I'm not sure if we talked about this
19:56
Speaker 3: or if you've seen it, but a recent movie that
19:59
Speaker 3: kind of flew under a lot of people's radars but
20:01
Speaker 3: was one of my favorite of the year. Black Bag, Yes,
20:04
Speaker 3: a Steven Soderberg film that is very much in the
20:07
Speaker 3: realm of a more modern.
20:08
Speaker 2: Kind of tinker tailor thing.
20:10
Speaker 1: Oh I love it. I've been on that kick so
20:13
Speaker 1: hard for different reasons. You know, you fall in love
20:16
Speaker 1: with the genre and it continues. And folks, we have
20:27
Speaker 1: one more story to share with you. This is a
20:31
Speaker 1: story that kind of makes up for our anti suffragette person.
20:36
Speaker 1: We want to introduce you to Margaret Wilson, the daughter
20:40
Speaker 1: of Woodrow Wilson, who actually was a suffragette, Thank goodness.
20:45
Speaker 1: She did like the idea that all people should be
20:48
Speaker 1: able to vote.
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Speaker 3: And Max has real feelings about Woodrow Wilson, if I
20:53
Speaker 3: remember correctly, also a bit of a turd of a president.
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Speaker 4: He is a complicated president. He is he's all gas,
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Speaker 4: no breaks. Everything with his history is either really good.
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Speaker 2: Or really awful. I thought you hated his guts for
21:06
Speaker 2: some reason. I do. I hate him as a person, yeah, but.
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Speaker 1: He's got a touch.
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Speaker 4: He was very influential in getting women the right to vote,
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Speaker 4: which was, if I remember quickly, in the amendments came
21:18
Speaker 4: after the ability to elect senators, which also is in
21:22
Speaker 4: the last one hundred plus years we became able to
21:24
Speaker 4: elect our own senators.
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Speaker 1: He was also Yeah, he was also able to get
21:28
Speaker 1: stuff done. So he was an effective navigator of at
21:32
Speaker 1: times labyrinthine politics.
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Speaker 4: Which was even worse at that point in time because
21:36
Speaker 4: he was a minority president elect because Teddy Roosevelt split
21:41
Speaker 4: the Republican Party and he got in despite not being
21:45
Speaker 4: like basically, if it would have been Teddy Roosevelt or
21:47
Speaker 4: Taster run against him, he wouldn't have got elected. But
21:50
Speaker 4: since it was both, he didn't get elected.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, because third parties have a troubled history here in
21:57
Speaker 1: the United States, and good lucky lot, keep it in,
22:04
Speaker 1: keep it in.
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Speaker 2: So this.
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Speaker 1: Person, Margaret Wilson, as we noted, she is not the
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Speaker 1: spouse of Woodrow Wilson. She is his daughter. She assumes
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Speaker 1: the role of White House hostess after her mother passes
22:21
Speaker 1: away in nineteen fourteen. So again we see a lot
22:24
Speaker 1: of family members having this position foisted upon them due
22:29
Speaker 1: to tragedy, right, due to a spouse dying. So she
22:33
Speaker 1: is twenty eight years old picture picture almost like an
22:38
Speaker 1: Oma Lee esque character. She's known for being free spirited
22:43
Speaker 1: and she doesn't like authoritarianism. She doesn't love the patriarchal
22:49
Speaker 1: rules of the day. She only holds the post of
22:52
Speaker 1: first lady for a few months, and eventually she says, Ugh,
22:57
Speaker 1: this is too stuffy, this is not for me. I'm
23:00
Speaker 1: gonna pursue my dream of being a soprano vocalist.
23:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. Exactly.
23:07
Speaker 3: When President Wilson became engaged to his second wife, Edith
23:10
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifteen, Margaret stepped aside to follow that very
23:14
Speaker 3: dream right and began traveling the world across Europe to
23:18
Speaker 3: perform for the troops in World War One. She also
23:22
Speaker 3: later worked in advertising and lobbied for several social causes
23:27
Speaker 3: that were near and dear to her, but she is
23:29
Speaker 3: best known, most likely for her love of Eastern philosophy
23:35
Speaker 3: and in Hinduism and meditation and mindfulness. So before she
23:39
Speaker 3: passed away in nineteen forty four, she got so obsessed
23:43
Speaker 3: with the work of a particular guru named Shri Aro
23:46
Speaker 3: Bindu that she moved to India to live in his
23:50
Speaker 3: commune or astrom.
23:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was very I'm so interested in the
23:57
Speaker 1: fact that not only was she a social activist with
24:00
Speaker 1: a lot of daring do for a person or position
24:03
Speaker 1: at the time, but she also had that madman's streak
24:06
Speaker 1: where she's working in advertising. That's crazy cool. As of
24:10
Speaker 1: this point in history, she's only the second first lady
24:14
Speaker 1: to explicitly support women's suffrage, the first being, of course,
24:19
Speaker 1: Helen Heron Taft. And with that, folks, we see that
24:24
Speaker 1: despite the narrative that the United States tells itself, there
24:29
Speaker 1: are a lot of quote unquote first ladies who were
24:32
Speaker 1: not in fact spouses. And that's cool, that's kind of
24:36
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's hidden history necessarily, but it is
24:39
Speaker 1: history that we forget and it's important to remember, especially
24:42
Speaker 1: as the country continues. Spoiler, folks, we all reside in
24:48
Speaker 1: the US most of the time. Where as a nation,
24:51
Speaker 1: we're looking at a world where there may be a
24:53
Speaker 1: first gentleman, right, We're looking at a world where the
24:57
Speaker 1: old constraints of marriage and the so called nuclear family
25:02
Speaker 1: are increasingly being interrogated, and perhaps or I would argue
25:07
Speaker 1: this is for the betterment of society overall. It's weird.
25:11
Speaker 3: It is one of those things that has kind of
25:13
Speaker 3: maintained that sort of stuffy, you know, historical tradition kind
25:19
Speaker 3: of thing. But with a lot of current politics, we
25:22
Speaker 3: certainly see a lot of tradition getting thrown out the window,
25:25
Speaker 3: not always for the better.
25:26
Speaker 2: So I would love to see a world where we
25:27
Speaker 2: have a first gentleman, Ben.
25:30
Speaker 1: I'm with you there, Noel, I don't want the job,
25:33
Speaker 1: but I would also.
25:35
Speaker 2: You know, you're my first gentleman, you're.
25:37
Speaker 1: By first gentleman, and.
25:42
Speaker 2: Oh god, he's nobody's first anything kid. It's fun.
25:49
Speaker 1: I also just decide. Note, since we're at the end
25:52
Speaker 1: of the show, I also wonder what would happen if
25:55
Speaker 1: there was ever like a polyamorous president elected. A lot
25:59
Speaker 1: of them were polyamorous in practice but not a name.
26:03
Speaker 2: So what if they're like president? Right, we've had those,
26:07
Speaker 2: We've definitely had us.
26:08
Speaker 1: What if there's a thruple? What if a president is
26:11
Speaker 1: part of a thruple? And then they have to do
26:13
Speaker 1: they rock scissors?
26:14
Speaker 2: Paper?
26:15
Speaker 1: Do they do a Rochambeau for who gets to be
26:17
Speaker 1: the first lady? H story for another day. Big thanks,
26:21
Speaker 1: of course to our super producer mister Max Williams. Big
26:26
Speaker 1: thanks to Jonathan Strickland aka the Blister, as well as
26:30
Speaker 1: the legendary Alex Williams who composed.
26:32
Speaker 3: This bop indeed, and huge thanks to Christopher Haciotis and
26:36
Speaker 3: Eves Jeff Coates here in spirit.
26:39
Speaker 1: Big big thanks, of course to the rude dudes over
26:42
Speaker 1: a ridiculous crime. If you dig our show, you'll dig
26:45
Speaker 1: theirs like a grave kidding.
26:47
Speaker 2: It is one of the.
26:48
Speaker 1: Only true crime shows out there that is ninety nine
26:52
Speaker 1: percent murder free, so check it out. It's fun for
26:55
Speaker 1: the adults and some of the older kiddos alike. In
26:59
Speaker 1: the meantime, tune in next week we're going to be
27:02
Speaker 1: exploring even more ridiculous history. No did you? I think
27:07
Speaker 1: we talked about it offline, but one of my favorite
27:09
Speaker 1: recent classic episodes we published was the story of Old
27:14
Speaker 1: Knife Hands.
27:15
Speaker 2: Old Knife Hands, the knife test of hands. Did he
27:18
Speaker 2: have It's true? Yeah?
27:20
Speaker 3: D check that one out. Was he like a mummy
27:23
Speaker 3: or something?
27:23
Speaker 2: What was this? Superhor It was.
27:25
Speaker 1: A corpse discovered where his hand had been amputated and
27:28
Speaker 1: they put a knife on it.
27:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, why not? Let's see next ep focus. For
27:41
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
27:45
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.