Charles G. Ross

Charles G. Ross, press secretary under President Harry Truman, was often publicly flagged by the members of the press corps, who claimed that he lacked much-needed administrative experience. It became increasingly evident that Ross was not always aware of everything that was going on in the presidency, nor did the man, who was a poor public speaker, coordinate news releases with government departments and agencies in a timely fashion.

Nevertheless, Ross’s position in the White House was secure, given his close friendship with the president. The two men had known one another since their childhood in Independence, Missouri, where they both graduated, along with Truman’s wife Bess, from Independence High School in 1901. When Ross was called upon by Truman to be his press secretary in 1945, it would be a position he would hold until his unexpected death five years later.[5]

After giving a press conference on the morning of December 5, 1950, Ross returned to his office in the White House to prepare for his upcoming televised news statements scheduled for that afternoon. Moments later, White House staff received a summons that Ross had collapsed at his desk, dying of a heart attack. President Truman said of his friend, “We all knew that he was working far beyond his strength. But he would have it so. He fell at his post, a casualty of his fidelity to duty and his determination that our people should know the truth, and all the truth, in these critical times.”

Frederick Dent

Before becoming the 18th president of the United States on March 4, 1869, Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia faced grave financial hardships for well over a decade. Struggling to produce an income from the 60-acre farmland he inherited from Julia’s father, Frederick Dent, the bleak future Grant foresaw for him and his family was becoming an incessant and debilitating mental strain. Grant’s hardships were only made worse by the unremitting belittling of his father-in-law, who openly chastised him as a failure, sending him falling into deeper despondency.

Frederick Dent’s relentless disparaging of his son-in-law continued even into Grant’s presidency. On the cold winter evening of December 15, 1873, Grant found a respite from the struggles of office and his insufferable in-law by dining out with his wife and son, Fred. The three returned to the White House close to midnight only to discover that a physician had been summoned to Dent’s bedside. Dent was found to be in a “quiet slumber.”

At 11:45 PM, Dent passed away, relieving Grant of the heavy burden he had fruitlessly carried for all those years trying to please an impossibly difficult man. Following his funeral in the Blue Room of the mansion, Dent’s remains were shipped back to St. Louis for burial. Grant, along with his son, accompanied the casket, while his distraught wife remained in Washington, DC.[6]

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