Best Presidential Love Stories in US History
Most love stories sound a little different depending on who’s telling it. But when you’re in the public eye as, for example, a top-ranking government official, you learn to get your how-we-met story down to a science with your spouse. In recent decades especially, presidential candidates have used their home life, marriage, and story of how they met their partner as a way to connect the public to their human side and give a sense of what they’re about on a personal level. Over the years, we’ve fallen in love with the love stories behind President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill, Barack and Michelle Obama, or JFK and Jackie Kennedy. And it seems as though a history of bold romantic gestures goes back almost as far as the presidency itself.
When it comes to current President Joe Biden, his love story with Dr. Jill Biden is so well-known in part because the tragedy that preceded it is so well-known: the death of first wife Neilia and their 1-year-old daughter Naomi years before he met Jill. But it’s also well-known because of its larger-than-life, boombox-in-a-window show of devotion: Joe proposed five times before Jill accepted, much like Barack Obama had to prove himself to convince Michelle to go on date with him. When they did finally go out, a date turned into all day spent together: just like the Reagans’ first date, and the Johnsons’ too.
Becoming President of the United States is no small task to embark upon with a life partner, and these marriages point to the bonds that made much of American history possible. “Coming home to Nancy was like coming out of the cold into a warm room with a fireplace,” Ronald used to say of Nancy Reagan.
Read on for the best presidential love stories this country has seen.
A version of this article was originally published on March 2021.
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James Madison & Dolley Payne (m. 1794)
Dolley Payne was 25 when she first caught the eye of future President James Madison in Philadelphia, and he was smitten from the very first look. After having Aaron Burr introduce him to the young widow, Madison fell deeply in love, with Payne’s cousin accounting for his feelings like this in a 1794 letter: “he has Lost his Tongue, at Night he Dreames of you & Starts in his Sleep a Calling on you to relieve his Flame for he Burns to such an excess that he will be shortly consumed …he has Consented to every thing that I have wrote about him with Sparkling Eyes.”
Andrew Johnson & Eliza McCardle Johnson (m. 1827)
They met, and married, in 1827, after meeting by chance at Greeneville, Tennessee, when Andrew moved to town and met her when she was with her friends. They were together until his death in 1875, and even after his death, Eliza spent the rest of her life preserving his legacy.
Per Business Insider, she taught him how to read, run their tailor shop, and his days “seemed to revolve around Eliza.”
Ulysses Simpson Grant & Julia Grant (m. 1848)
Ulysses Grant met his wife Julia through her brother, and they had known each other since they were children. They married in 1848, and had such a romantic love, per the Smithsonian. They read poetry, rode horses together, and he sent her beautiful love letters when he was in the military.
And apparently, when he heard that Julia was insecure about her lazy eye, and tried to correct it, he said “that he had fallen in love with her the way she was.”
They were together until his death.
Theodore & Edith Roosevelt (m. 1886)
Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Carow met as children, and while they drifted in and out of each other’s lives for a bit, they did fall in love young. They got engaged in 1885, and married a year later in 1886. Per Business Insider, while their lives were crazy, “Theodore Roosevelt adored Edith Roosevelt and she was devoted to him.”
Calvin Coolidge & Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge (m. 1905)
Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge fell in love with Calvin Coolidge instantly after seeing him in a window. They married in 1905 and while they were opposites, they were truly in love until their passing, per the Coolidge Foundation.
Harry Truman & Bess Wallace (m. 1919)
Young Harry Truman and Bess Wallace famously went to Sunday School at the Baptist Church together as young children and continued their schooling together through high school — though their paths would then diverge before they reunited and married. Truman described growing up with his future wife, writing: “She had golden curls and has, to this day, the most beautiful blue eyes. We went to Sunday school, public school from the fifth grade through high school, graduated in the same class and marched down life’s road together. For me, she still has the blue eyes and golden hair of yesteryear.”
Richard & Pat Nixon (m. 1940)
Richard Nixon married Thelma Catherine “Pat” Ryan in 1940 after meeting at a community theater production in high school. They attended Whittier College together, and Richard continued to write her love letters throughout.
They celebrated their wedding anniversary every year, and enjoyed their quiet moments together, per Richard Nixon Foundation.
George H.W. & Barbara Bush (m. 1945)
President George H.W Bush and wife Barbara met at a dance when they were teens in 1941, and instantly fell for one another. They married in 1945 after he returned from the war, and were together, devoted to one another, until their deaths after celebrating 73 years together.
Ronald Reagan & Nancy Davis (m. 1952)
Before she was first lady, Nancy Davis was an aspiring Hollywood actress who needed a favor from Ronald Reagan. When Davis suspected she had been blacklisted as a suspected communist, she reached out to the President of the Screen Actors Guild for help, who just so happened to be Reagan himself. He agreed to meet her for dinner, and stayed for so long talking that he didn’t get home until 3 a.m.
John F. Kennedy & Jacqueine Bouvier (m. 1953)
In 1952, Jacqueline Bouvier was working for the Washington Times Herald as a “Camera Girl” when fellow journalist Charles Bartlett invited her over for a life-changing dinner party — to meet future President John F. Kennedy. Though Bouvier was engaged to someone else at the time, there was no denying sparks flew at their early meeting.
“Members of the family knew right away that she was very special to him,” brother Ted Kennedy later said. “He was fascinated by her intelligence: They read together, painted together, enjoyed good conversation together and walks together.”
Joe Biden & Jill Tracy Jacobs (m. 1977)
In 1975, widower Joe Biden was set up on a blind date by his brother with Jill Jacobs (then Jill Stevenson, from a prior marriage). It only took them two years to marry, but Joe was convinced earlier than that, famously proposing to Jill five times before she agreed to marry him. Jill has since said it was her intense connection to Joe’s young sons, Beau and Hunter Biden, that made her take the extra time before committing.
Barack Obama & Michelle Robinson (m. 1992)
At law firm Sidley Austin LLP, Michelle Robinson was assigned to mentor the new summer associate: Barack Obama. A few weeks into the job, Barack had the bright idea that they should go out on a date, but Michelle took some convincing. When she did meet him, she later thought she’d be spending a night with just another “good-looking, smooth-talking guy” — but between a meeting at the Art Institute of Chicago, a screening of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, and some Baskin-Robbins ice cream, she found herself pleasantly surprised to meet her match.
