Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb__ A Tour of Presidential Gravesites - Brian Lamb [48]
Vetoing any Washington services, the Roosevelt family instead planned a simple ceremony, without music or eulogy, in a nearby Episcopal chapel. Arriving late, William Howard Taft was put in a pew with family servants before Roosevelt’s son, Archie, spied him. “You’re a dear personal friend and you must come up further,” the young man told Taft, who had more or less reconciled with Roosevelt following their bitter 1912 falling out. Afterwards, mourners made their way to a nearby hillside flecked with snow. Here Taft remained a long while as his friend’s body was lowered into the ground. Some thought they saw tears streaming down his face. Perhaps; that night he attended a New York theater performance. Today TR lies near a Long Island bird sanctuary, a fitting end for the great conservationist who had ruffled congressional feathers by unilaterally preserving wetlands and other habitats filled with the creatures he had loved, and slaughtered, since childhood.
The Roosevelt family plot at Young’s Memorial Cemetery
—RNS
William Howard Taft
Buried: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia
Twenty-seventh President - 1909-1913
Born: September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio
Died: March 8, 1930, in Washington, D.C.
Age at death: 72
Cause of death: Heart disease
Final words: Unknown
Admission to Arlington National
Cemetery: Free
William Howard Taft, our twenty-seventh president, is probably best remembered for two things: he was the only president to serve as Chief Justice and, at 6’2” and 332 lbs., he was our largest president—so large that he reportedly got stuck in a White House bathtub. An outsized tub was created specially for him.
He also had the distinction of having the first presidential funeral to be broadcast to the nation via radio.
Taft was not a particularly happy president. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt challenged his former protégé for the Republican nomination. When that effort failed, Roosevelt waged a third-party challenge on the Bull Moose ticket, splitting the Republican vote. Defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Taft retired from the White House to a career in law.
In 1921, President Harding appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
William Howard Taft’s granite monument
Taft spent nine vigorous years on the court, stepping down in February 1930 when the strain of his excess weight began to seriously affect his health. Diagnosed with heart disease and high blood pressure, Taft failed quickly. By March, he was drifting in and out of consciousness. With his wife Nellie at his side, he died in his sleep at their home on March 8. Taft was seventy-two.
President Hoover paid a condolence call to Taft’s widow at the couple’s home on Wyoming Avenue in Washington, D.C., and issued a proclamation honoring him. For burial, Nellie dressed her husband in his black judicial robe. A military procession escorted the body from the Taft home, past the White House and to the Capitol. Taft’s body lay in state while thousands of mourners waited in torrential downpours to pay their respects.
A memorial service for the ex-president was held at All Soul’s Unitarian Church on Sixteenth Street in Washington; a six-horse caisson carried the body to the church while an army band played Chopin’s funeral march. President and Mrs. Hoover were among the guests for the simple service with no eulogy. A string quartet and an organist played hymns and the Reverend Ulysses Grant Pierce read some of Taft’s favorite poems, including Wordsworth’s “Character of the Happy Warrior.” A radio microphone hidden among the flowers broadcast the tribute to listeners across the country.
Taft’s funeral procession was as outsized as he. A hearse carried Taft’s flag-draped coffin to Arlington National Cemetery escorted by 120 cars. A large truck carried hundreds of flower arrangements. A thousand soldiers presented arms before a bugler sounded taps. A minister read the 23rd Psalm.