2311001
William McKinley
Scroll down to see images of the item below the description
McKinley writes to his wife, Ida, interestingly signing with an uncommon full signature
William McKinley, 1843–1901. 25th President of the United States, 1897–1901. Partial autograph letter signed, William McKinley, one page, 2⅜” x 5½”, on plain stationery, no place, no date.
This short but rare note, with an uncommon full signature, is the closing of a letter that President McKinley wrote to his wife, Ida Saxton McKinley. It has been removed from the rest of the letter. In this closing, McKinley writes, in full: “Am very well this morning and I hope you and your guests are well and happy, will be with you tomorrow / William McKinley.”
McKinley rarely left Ida’s side. Following the deaths of her mother and her two young daughters within a short time, Ida fell into deep depression and later developed epilepsy, after which she was totally dependent on her husband. When she would have a seizure in public, McKinley would quietly cover her face with a handkerchief or a napkin in order to hide her facial contortions until the seizure passed, after which he would remove it and proceed as though nothing had happened. Ida was with the him in Buffalo, New York, when he was shot by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz. Wounded by the bullet that would eventually kill him from gangrene and accompanying septic shock, President McKinley told his secretary George B. Cortelyou, “My wife—be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her—oh, be careful.”
McKinley has written and signed this piece in pencil. An old dealer’s pencil note on the back shows that the piece was removed from a handwritten letter to the First Lady. The piece has been cleanly but slightly irregularly removed from the larger letter. It has flattened crossing folds, and there is a diagonal wrinkle above the signature that does not affect the signature and touches only one letter of the text. There is also some toning around the edges from prior framing. Overall, the piece is clean and is in fine condition.
This is a nice example of McKinley’s holograph. His stiff use of his formal full signature rather than the “W McKinley” that he more often signed in letters—and, interestingly, anything besides just “William” or a nickname to his wife—makes the piece particularly desirable.
Unframed.
Click
here to see more Presidents and First Ladies autographs.
|
