Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, wife of James Garfield, 20th president of the United States, died March 14, 1918. She was 85.

Mrs. Garfield was born Lucretia Rudolph on April 19, 1832 in Hiram, Ohio. She graduated from a Baptist high school and then attended a Disciples of Christ college in Hiram. There she met her future husband, James Garfield, who was one of her teachers when Lucretia was a student in 1853.

They began a courtship in late 1853, but did not marry until five years later, in November of 1858. Her husband was president of what is now Hiram College when they married. They had seven children, five of them living to adulthood.

Mr. Garfield began a political career in 1859 with his election to the Ohio State Senate. During the Civil War he served in the Union army, and from 1863-1880 was a U.S. Representative. In 1880 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but he also became a dark horse candidate for president, winning a razor thin victory over Civil War hero Winfield Scott Hancock.

Meantime, Mrs. Garfield raised her children and in later years became her husband’s constant companion. The two appeared inseparable. When he wasn’t attending to affairs of government, he and his wife read together, attended functions together and ate together. They had the same intellectual interests and enjoyed discussing current events.

Upon Garfield’s election to the presidency, Mrs. Garfield took to her First Lady tasks with enthusiasm. She is said to have enjoyed making people feel at ease, but exhibited a discomfort with having to perform the social duties required of First Ladies.

Mrs. Garfield had been planning to redecorate the White House, but two months after her husband took office, she was afflicted with malaria. She convalesced at a New Jersey resort. The First Lady was still at the facility when she got news her husband had been shot by a deranged man in Washington on July 2, 1881.

Although still weak from the malaria, she traveled to Washington to be by her husband’s side while he recovered. With her support, he seemed to be on the way to recovery, but an infection and internal bleeding three months into his recuperation caused his death on September 19 in Elberton, New Jersey.

Mrs. Garfield would live another 36 years without her husband. A public drive to raise money for the widow and her family was initiated. She and her children moved to their Ohio farm where she died on March 14, 1918.