It's amazing to me that her sparkle stood out to him in the midst of the glitz and glamour of the Roaring Twenties, the culture that the previous presidential family, the Hardings, fully participated in. They drank during Prohibition, had crooked friends, and relied on fortune tellers. Warren went to house parties with lots of ladies and had affairs with many women. Florence's best friend was filthy rich and even owned the Hope Diamond. Reading Florence Harding was like reading The Great Gatsby.
In contrast, Grace Coolidge, First Lady from 1923-1929, did not participate in the lifestyle shared by so many Americans at the time. She was frugal, quiet (although not as quiet as her husband "Silent Cal"), and a faithful churchgoer. She spent two years crocheting an intricate bedspread for the bed in the Lincoln bedroom. Calvin Coolidge did not want her to bob her hair or do adventurous things like drive or fly. So she didn't--at least not until he passed away.
She was caring and compassionate and worked as a teacher for the deaf before her time as First Lady.
For the biography, I read Grace Coolidge and Her Era: The Story of a President's Wife by Ishbel Ross. The biography was written in 1962. It was boring. Perhaps that was because of Grace Coolidge's normal, average life and perhaps it was because in 1962 biographies accentuated the positive and the plain facts instead of analyzing the character of the person being written about. I expected the biography to be this way since I had already read Ishbel Ross' biography of Julia Grant. Although the Grant's live was more adventurous so there was a little more to that book.
The biography also did not delve into the political happenings of the time so I feel ill-prepared to understand the whys behind the stock market crash which I will read about next in Lou Hoover's biography.
However, Grace Coolidge sounded like a wonderfully sweet woman, faithful wife, and loving mother--certainly an endearing sparkle in a time of flashy glitz and glamour.
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