Volume 8 — Issue 4 — August 2021

 

The 1969 edition of the Golden Book of the Presidents of the
United States pictures Irvin with his siblings in the White House,
but mistakes him for his younger brother Abram [misidentified as
“Dan”].

Library of Congress

Poor Irvin, he was constantly misidentified

Aug. 3 marks the birthday anniversary of Irvin McDowell Garfield, the third son and fifth child of James and Lucretia Garfield, born at their home in Hiram, Ohio, in 1870. In a letter written from Washington to his older children, Harry, Jimmie, and Mollie, soon after Irvin’s birth, James Garfield related a conversation he’d had with one of his children’s young friends.

Here is an excerpt, written on Sept. 8, 1870:

“... Mattie said, when I told her that we had a new boy baby, ‘Why didn’t Mrs. Garfield get a girl baby? She told me she wished she had two girls and one boy – rather than one girl and two boys.’ ... Then she said to me [in] a very reproving way, ‘Mr. Garfield, you got that boy baby, didn’t you? For I know Mrs. Garfield would have got a girl.’'

 

2021 Civil War Leaders and Legacies Program

Sept. 8 at noon: Learn about Gen. John S. “Jack” Casement. He served with the Seventh Ohio and then the 103rd Ohio from 1861-65. Call the Mentor Public Library at 440 255-8811 or visit their website for reservations.

 

Postcard of Peter Bent Brigham Hospital

Yes, the baby that Mr. and Mrs. Garfield “got” was a boy, soon named after General Irvin McDowell, a Civil War comrade of Congressman Garfield.

Poor Irvin! Throughout life, the press never got his name right. He was often referred to as Irving or Irwin. In later years, he was mixed up with his younger brother.

Like his brothers, Irvin Garfield attended St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, and like his father and brothers, he was also a graduate of Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.). In common with his brothers, he enjoyed athletic pursuits – track and football in his school days, and tennis and golf later in life.

Irvin trained for a career in law and attended Harvard Law School. He then established his practice in Boston.

Irvin Garfield devoted some thirty years of his life as a board member of what is today Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Irvin Garfield was the last of the Garfield children to marry. At age 36, Irvin wed Susan Emmons of Boston. They had three children: Eleanor, Jane, and Irvin, Jr. This lawyer-athlete-community leader died in 1951.