Jenna Bush, the 25 year old twin daughter of the president, married longtime boyfriend Henry Hager of Virginia on May 10, 2008. The couple was married at the Bush family ranch in Crawford, Texas. The announcement of a Texas event ended speculation that she would have a White House wedding
Photo by: Kimberlee Hewitt / The White House / AP.
Jenna, considered the “more outgoing” of the president’s twins, was known for her partying ways as a young adolescent but in recent years gained some critical acclaim as an author and humanitarian. Her book, Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope, became a bestseller. It tells of a 17-year-old single mother who is HIV positive.
Henry Hager, who has been a White House aide and worked on President Bush's re-election campaign, is the son of John and Maggie Hager of Richmond, Va. His father is chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia and a former Virginia lieutenant governor.
The last child of a president to marry while the father was in office? Tricia Nixon? Wrong. The answer would be Dorothy Bush, the daughter of George Herbert Walker Bush and sister to George W. Bush. After divorcing her first husband, Dorothy was quietly married for the second time on June 26, 1992 at Camp David. The media learned about it after the event.
The wedding of Jenna Bush and Henry Hager was hardly as quiet as the Dorothy Bush affair but the story reveals how strongly the Bush family feels about privacy and how they were able to keep the Jenna Bush event under control. The wedding was small, and it was held deep in the Crawford Ranch compound, away from the prying eyes of the media. There were no tabloid helicopters overhead, presidential security saw to that. Nor was their honeymoon the circus that attended the honeymoons of other presidential children.
Another presidents' child, FDR, Jr. and his bride, Ethel DuPont, decided that they would avoid the media attention of a White House wedding and buried their ceremony deep in the DuPont compound in Delaware. 650,000 uninvited guests showed up and lined the roads leading into the property. The local governor called out the National Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of engineers were called in to help with logistics.
Other significant weddings of presidential children not held in the White House include the wedding of Luci Baines Johnson, which was held at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. And the small, private wedding of Julie Nixon, shortly after her own father had won the presidency, to Dwight David Eisenhower II, himself the grandson and namesake of a president, prompted widespread public interest and curiosity.
The wedding of Fanny Hayes, daughter of Rutherford B. Hayes, was an extraordinary event in its time. Though her father was dead, the sitting president, William McKinley and all of his cabinet took trains to Ohio to attend the event.
Dorothy Bush, daughter to one president and sister to another, was the only presidential child married at Camp David.
In marrying Henry Hager, a former aide to the President, Jenna Bush was following a long line of presidential children before her. Like the rest of us, they marry whoever is around. Presidential sons and daughters have fallen in love with White House or congressional staffers and, in more recent times, military aides or secret service agents assigned to protect them.
Eleanor “Nellie” Wilson married Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo, thus overnight becoming a Cabinet officer’s wife in her father’s own administration. Dorothy Bush, the last presidential child to marry while her father served in office, married a congressional aide of the opposing political party.
Doug Wead is a respected presidential historian and New York Times bestselling author. He has been an advisor to two presidents and served on senior staff at the White House of George Herbert Walker Bush. Recent titles include The Raising of a President: the Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation’s Leaders.
Other great sites about the White House Families
