12/28/2025
Read more about President McKinley at the Halstead Heritage Museum and Depot. Our namesake, Murat Halstead, was a very good friend of President McKinley. He wrote books about the President both before and after his death.
She had seizures at state dinners and inaugural balls. In the 1890s, most husbands would have institutionalized her. He sat beside her, covered her face with a handkerchief during seizures, and changed presidential protocol to care for her.
In 1871, Ida Saxton married William McKinley in Canton, Ohio. She was 23, beautiful, educated, from one of the wealthiest families in town. He was a young lawyer and rising politician. Their wedding was the social event of the season.
She wore white satin. He promised to love her in sickness and in health.
Neither could have imagined how much that promise would be tested.
In 1871, Ida gave birth to their first daughter, Katherine—called Katie. The young family seemed blessed. Then, in 1873, Ida gave birth to their second daughter, also named Ida.
Baby Ida died at five months old.
Ida McKinley, still grieving her infant daughter, then watched her mother Katharine Saxton die the same year.
In 1875, four-year-old Katie contracted typhoid fever and died.
Within four years, Ida McKinley had lost both her daughters and her mother. The vibrant, social young woman collapsed under the weight of grief.
She never recovered.
Her health deteriorated rapidly. She developed epilepsy—or perhaps had a latent condition that trauma triggered. She suffered from phlebitis, causing chronic leg pain. She became bedridden for weeks at a time. Depression consumed her.
This was the 1870s and 1880s. Victorian America had very clear ideas about what husbands should do with sick wives, especially wives with epilepsy.
Epilepsy was considered a shameful condition, possibly hereditary, a sign of moral or mental deficiency. Women with epilepsy were routinely institutionalized, hidden away in asylums where families wouldn't be embarrassed by their seizures.
Political wives were supposed to be assets—charming hostesses, gracious social figures, enhancers of their husbands' careers.
Ida McKinley was none of these things. She had seizures in public. She couldn't host elaborate dinners. She spent days in darkened rooms, unable to function.
She was, by all conventional measures, a liability to her husband's political ambitions.
William McKinley didn't care.
When he was elected Governor of Ohio in 1891, Ida had a seizure at his inaugural ball. In front of Ohio's political elite, the new First Lady of Ohio seized, lost consciousness, and had to be carried away.
The scandal could have destroyed his career. Political opponents and newspapers could have used it as ammunition—how could a man govern a state when he couldn't even manage his own household?
William McKinley's response was simple: he loved his wife, and anyone who had a problem with that could find another candidate to support.
When he became President in 1897, he faced White House protocol that had been established for over a century. At state dinners, the President sat at the head of the table, the First Lady at the opposite end—maximum visibility, proper decorum.
McKinley changed it.
He insisted that Ida sit directly beside him at all formal dinners. When advisors objected that this broke tradition, that it looked improper, that it sent the wrong message, McKinley was unmoved.
His reasoning was practical: Ida had petit mal seizures that could happen at any moment. If she sat across the room, she would seize in front of foreign dignitaries, congressmen, and diplomats with no one to help her. The humiliation would be unbearable.
If she sat next to him, he could help.
And he did. Dozens of times. Hundreds of times over their years in the White House.
In the middle of a state dinner, Ida would freeze. Her eyes would glaze. She would lose consciousness while sitting upright.
William McKinley would calmly reach over, place a handkerchief or napkin over her face to shield her from view, and continue his conversation as if nothing was happening.
When the seizure passed—usually after 30-60 seconds—he would remove the handkerchief. Ida would blink, confused, not remembering what had happened. And McKinley would gently reorient her to the conversation, never drawing attention to what had just occurred.
Dinner guests were instructed by White House staff before every event: if Mrs. McKinley has a seizure, continue your conversation. Pretend nothing is happening. The President will handle it.
And he always did.
One Washington insider reportedly said: "President McKinley has made it pretty hard for the rest of us husbands here in Washington."
Because McKinley's devotion made every other husband look inadequate by comparison. While other men of his era were discreetly institutionalizing inconvenient wives, McKinley was rearranging the entire White House around his wife's needs.
He spent hours with her daily when she was bedridden. He had a wheelchair installed in the White House. He limited his work schedule to be available when she needed him. He protected her fiercely from newspaper gossip and political attacks.
Ida McKinley was often difficult—her illness made her depressed, demanding, sometimes irrational. She required constant attention. She couldn't fulfill the traditional First Lady duties.
William McKinley loved her anyway.
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was shot by an assassin at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. As he lay dying, his primary concern was Ida.
"My wife," he said to his secretary. "Be careful how you tell her."
He died eight days later. Ida collapsed completely at his funeral, requiring sedation.
She lived until 1907, dying at age 59—six years after her husband. In those final years, she was sustained by one thing: the memory of a man who'd loved her without conditions, without embarrassment, without ever treating her illness as a burden.
She had epileptic seizures at state dinners. In the 1890s, most wives with epilepsy were institutionalized. He changed presidential protocol, sat beside her, and calmly covered her face with a handkerchief during every seizure—for years.
His devotion was so extraordinary that other Washington husbands complained he made them look bad.
He could have hidden her. Institutionalized her. Let his career matter more than her dignity. He chose love instead—publicly, consistently, for 30 years.
