A Mighty Long Time

If you were to be asked who was the earliest-serving United States president to still have living grandchildren, who would you pick?

Given that it's grandchildren and not children, you might figure you could safely go back into the 1890s, maybe even the 1880s. Garfield? Cleveland? Hayes? Well, it seems that would be shooting too late in the game -- by almost forty years. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr., (87) and Harrison Ruffin Tyler (83), can look at a picture of our tenth president, John Tyler, and say, "That's my grandpa." Tyler, born in 1790, served as president from 1841 to 1845. He died in 1862, but not before becoming a father (for the 13th of 15 times) at 63 to Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Sr, in 1853. The elder Lyon welcomed his namesake in 1925, when he was 71, and his younger brother Harrison in 1929. So although Pres. Tyler is their grandfather, they obviously never met him.

Tyler was the first president to take the office when it became vacant. His predecessor, William Henry Harrison, was the man who wouldn't wear a coat to his cold and damp inauguration, caught pneumonia, and died a month after taking the oath of office. Tyler set the precedent that a vice-president taking the presidential office became president in his or her own right, rather than serving as an acting president in between elections. The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution established that precedent as law when it was passed in 1967.

The story notes that the oldest living presidential grandchild is Jane Garfield, granddaughter of James Garfield. She's 99. The oldest living presidential child is John Eisenhower, 89, son of Dwight Eisenhower.

For those who still have a little room for the trivial in their heads, the Tyler family has a long history with the College of William and Mary, stretching back to John Tyler -- the grandfather of the president -- who attended it in 1704, 11 years after it was founded.