Today is the birthday of President John Tyler.
He was born in 1790, and he served as US president in the 1840s.
And he has a grandson who is alive in 2022.
It’s not common for three generations of a family to stretch over 230 years, but it’s not impossible either.
Here’s how the Tylers did it.
To start, know that President Tyler was married twice; his first wife, Letitia, passed away in 1842.
That was the year after he became the 10th US president upon the death of William Henry Harrison.
Tyler was the first vice president to move up to the presidency in this way.
In 1844, Tyler remarried at age 54.
The new First Lady, Julia Tyler, was 24.
They had seven children together, and John Tyler had eight kids from his first marriage.
One of his kids with Julia, Lyon Tyler, was born in 1853, when his dad was in his sixties.
Lyon’s trajectory as a husband and father has some parallels with John Tyler.
He had children later in life with his second wife, Sue.
Two of them, Lyon Jr. and Harrison, both born in the 1920s, both lived into their nineties.
And, as of this episode, Harrison is still with us.
A man in 2022 whose grandfather was born in the 18th century and was president in the first half of the 19th century.
In a lot of ways the US is still a pretty young country.
This week in Columbia, Tennessee, it’s Mule Day.
(Yes, they know that Mule Day takes place over more than a single day.)
Columbia calls itself the Mule Capital of the world, and so they celebrate for four days, with parades, music, Appalachian food and of course lots of mules.
Grandpa President (Now I Know)
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Photo by Matthew Brady – United States National Archives: Identification Number : 528302 [1], Public Domain, via Wikicommons
