Talk:Letitia Tyler Semple
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Deletion
[edit]The tag says the article should should be deleted because it is 'non-notable'. I disagree, I think a First Lady, offical or not, is notable.
--Coingeek (talk) 23:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that she is probably notable, now that the article has been referenced. However, how do you define a "unofficial" first lady ? Presumably you have to be married to the president to be a first lady of any sort, not just host parties at the White House ? &dorno rocks. (talk) 09:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- Not really. A number of sources (including a couple added to the article) explicitly refer to her as "First Lady", presumably meaning the White House hostess. Examples of other sources using the term "First Lady" (acting as, unofficial, etc) in relation to her are[1][2][3][4][5][6]. These sources routinely describe her as "the first lady of the land", so I think the point is rather moot. Since she is referred to by multiple sources as first lady, it is appropriate to describe her in the article as such. Nsk92 (talk) 11:46, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- In fact the article First Lady of the United States defines the First Lady as "the title of the hostess of the White House" and explicitly mentions that "However, several women who were not presidents' wives have served as first lady, as when the president was a bachelor or widower, or when the wife of the president was unable to fulfill the duties of the first lady herself. In these cases, the position has been filled by a female relative or friend of the president." Nsk92 (talk) 12:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- Ok, thanks for the links, that's sorted. &dorno rocks. (talk) 12:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- In fact the article First Lady of the United States defines the First Lady as "the title of the hostess of the White House" and explicitly mentions that "However, several women who were not presidents' wives have served as first lady, as when the president was a bachelor or widower, or when the wife of the president was unable to fulfill the duties of the first lady herself. In these cases, the position has been filled by a female relative or friend of the president." Nsk92 (talk) 12:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- Not really. A number of sources (including a couple added to the article) explicitly refer to her as "First Lady", presumably meaning the White House hostess. Examples of other sources using the term "First Lady" (acting as, unofficial, etc) in relation to her are[1][2][3][4][5][6]. These sources routinely describe her as "the first lady of the land", so I think the point is rather moot. Since she is referred to by multiple sources as first lady, it is appropriate to describe her in the article as such. Nsk92 (talk) 11:46, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that she is probably notable, now that the article has been referenced. However, how do you define a "unofficial" first lady ? Presumably you have to be married to the president to be a first lady of any sort, not just host parties at the White House ? &dorno rocks. (talk) 09:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Letty Semple is notable; article should not have been deleted
[edit]From http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=10 :
The spring 1844 social season at the White House was presided over by President Tyler's daughter Letitia "Letty" Semple, born on 11 May, 1821. Although Letty Semple and her sister Lizzie Tyler (previous to her February 1842 wedding), and on at least once occasion their eldest sister Mary Tyler Jones were on hand at White House social events to welcome guests, the President had specifically designated his daughter-in-law Priscilla Tyler as his official hostess. When she moved toPhiladelphia, the social responsibilities briefly fell to Letty Semple.
In February of 1839, eighteen year old Letty Tyler had married Captain James Semple, U.S.N. of Virginia. From the start their marriage was stormy and the President sent Semple on a three year assignment at sea as a means of postponing any potential divorce between Semple and his daughter. Tyler implored Letty and her sister Elizabeth and Alice to "Show no favoritism, accept no gifts, and receive no seekers after office.” Dolley Madison advised the Tyler women to return all social calls in person - as she had done, thus temporarily restoring her own custom which had been done away with by her immediate successor Elizabeth Monroe; accordingly three afternoons a week. Letty Semple, Lizzie Tyler and their sister-in-law Priscilla Cooper Tyler devoted themselves to this duty. Despite the financial straits of theTylers, the President insisted on entertaining lavishly, and so they held two dinners each week in the social season for about forty Congressional guests, and one public reception. Letitia Tyler Semple. (Virginia Historical Society)
The three months that Letty Semple presided as the sole hostess of the White House (March to June 1844) for her widowed father was unremarkable. She was shocked and hurt when, in June 1844, her father remarried and she was no longer the hostess of the White House, replaced by a woman her own age. While the other Tyler children soon took to their new stepmother, Julia Gardiner Tyler, Letty Semple never did. Refusing to show her the most basic civility, Letty Semple forever resented her stepmother and there would be no reconciliation. Later, when the widowed Julia Tyler helped James Semple during a difficult financial period in his life, Letty Semple wrote her estranged husband that while they would not divorce, she no longer considered him her spouse. It is not clear at what point following her father's remarriage Letty Semple moved out of the White House; since the new president's wife was in Virginia and then New York with Tyler in the summer months following their elopement, and did not take up full residence in the mansion until the fall of 1844, it is likely that Letty Semple returned to her father's home in Williamsburg during that period. John Tyler managed never to alienate his daughter permanently but after his death, Letty Semple struggled on her own.
During the Civil War, Letty Semple lived in the town of Chatham, Virginia in the log kitchen dependency of the Col. Coleman D. Bennett property, located behind the Bennett home on North Main Street. Entrusted with the care of three nephews and nieces after the war, and destitute financially, she moved to Baltimore and managed to find enough financing to open a school, the Eclectic Institute for young women. The concluding page of a letter in which Letitia Tyler Semple bemoans that she is the last of her family to live. (private collection, used with permission
In the 1870's Letty Semple was given free room and board for the rest of her life by her friend, Washington entrepreneur W. W. Corcoran, at the Louise Home, which he created for elderly women of distinguished background who found themselves in genteel poverty. He was her escort to the numerous White House events she was invited to by Lucy Hayes, and the First Lady befriended and often visited Letty Semple at the Louise Home. She was a frequent White House guest of the President and Mrs. McKinley, and Ida McKinley often put her horse and carriage at Letty Semple's disposal.
Mrs. Semple denounced what she called “the atrocious butchery” of the 1902 White House renovation and would not enter the mansion during the Theodore Roosevelt Administration. Letty Semple prominently hung the only life oil portrait of her mother over the mantle in her bedroom at the Louise Home, always considering Letitia Tyler to have somehow been the only legitimate wife of her father, the tenth President. She died on 28 December, 1907, during a trip to Baltimore, Maryland.