Mary "Mollie" Garfield

Quick Facts

Significance:

Daughter of President James A. Garfield

Place of Birth:

Washington, D.C.

Date of Birth:

January 16, 1867

Place of Death:

Pasadena, California

Date of Death:

December 30, 1947

Place of Burial:

Cleveland, Ohio

Cemetery Name:

Lake View Cemetery

Mary Garfield, named in honor of James Garfield’s sister but always called Mollie, was born in Washington, D.C., on January 16, 1867. Her father nicknamed her “Whack.” Her early years were spent in the nation’s capital where her father served in Congress, and in northeast Ohio. As a little girl, her grandmother Eliza described Mollie as “merry as a cricket. . .smart as steel. . .very saucy.” She was also a real tomboy; she probably needed to be if she ever wanted to be included in her brothers’ fun.

Mollie was educated by her parents. She started to learn French at the age of five. In 1876, when Mollie was nine, an English governess named Martha Mays became a part of the Garfield household. She taught Mollie French, Latin, mathematics, and English. “Aunt Patty” Mays was also a companion and chaperone for the young Garfields. At age twelve, Mollie began to attend Madame Burr’s School on New York Avenue in Washington. In September 1880, while James Garfield was campaigning from the family’s home in Mentor, Ohio, Mollie was enrolled at Miss Mittleberger’s School in Cleveland. During the week, she stayed with her friends (and distant cousins) the Masons and went to school with May Mason. Each weekend she took the train back to Mentor.

Mollie was in Mentor with her parents, grandmother, younger brothers, and Aunt Patty Mays on Election Day, 1880. She served as waitress at the celebratory dinner served late that evening to family and friends who had awaited the news of her father’s election as the 20th President of the United States. Mollie celebrated her 14th birthday six weeks before the Garfield family left Mentor for the White House. She continued at Miss Mittleberger’s until the end of February. After the inauguration, she returned to Madame Burr’s School. On March 20, 1881, the New York Tribune reported, “Mollie may be seen any morning hastening to school with her books under her arm, as pretty a picture of youth and health as can be found in Washington.”

After her father’s death in September 1881, the family returned to Mentor, and in January 1882, Mollie returned to Miss Mittleberger’s School in Cleveland. For three years, Lucretia Garfield, Mollie, Irvin and Abram lived in Cleveland while the older boys were at Williams College in Massachusetts, the younger sons prepared to go to St. Paul’s in New Hampshire, and the Memorial Library addition was constructed at Lawnfield.

In December 1882, Mollie confided in her diary, “I believe I am in love.” The object of her affection was Joe Brown, who had been her father’s private secretary, and was nine years older than Mollie. After Garfield’s death, Joe helped Mrs. Garfield collect and organize the late president’s papers. In the fall of 1885, he went to the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University with the financial support of Lucretia Garfield. After finishing her studies at Miss Mittleberger’s, Mollie spent one semester at Miss Porters’s Finishing School in Farmington, Connecticut. Being in close proximity to Yale (and Joe Brown), Lucretia Garfield felt that it was wise to bring Mollie back to Mentor, and then complete her education by a tour of Europe. In the fall of 1887, they met Hal then studying at Oxford, and the Mason family, and traveled around Europe that winter. Mrs. Garfield and Mollie returned in March 1888. Joe met them at the dock in New York City and presented Mollie with a diamond solitaire engagement ring. He graduated from Yale shortly before the couple’s June wedding. Mollie was 21, Joe was 30.

The wedding was a grand affair—a double wedding in the recently completed Memorial Library. On the same day, June 14, 1888, that Mollie married Joe (who had recently changed his name to Joseph Stanley-Brown), Harry wed Belle Mason, older sister of Mollie’s friend, May. One ceremony followed the other and then a wedding supper, including two wedding cakes, was served. Mollie and Joseph honeymooned in Europe, where the groom continued his study of geology at the University of Heidelberg.

When they returned to the United States, the couple settled in Washington, D.C., where Stanley-Brown went to work for the U.S. Geological Survey. They had three children. The first, Rudolph, known as Lad, was born at Lawnfield in Mentor, Ohio on April 9, 1889. Two daughters followed: Ruth, born August 3, 1892, also at Lawnfield, and Margaret (Peggy) born October 2, 1895 in Washington, D.C.

Around the turn of the century Mollie and Joseph moved to Pasadena, California, where he became an assistant secretary of the Union Pacific Railroad. He later joined a New York bank as director of its railroad properties. Mollie and Joe split their time between homes in Pasadena and Cold Springs Harbor (Long Island), New York.

On June 14, 1938, Harry and Belle Garfield and Mollie and Joseph Stanley-Brown celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary together at Harry and Belle’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Mollie Garfield Stanley-Brown died December 30, 1947, in Pasadena. She was eighty years old. Like her husband, who had died six years earlier, Mollie was cremated, and her ashes are interred in the Garfield Monument at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

Click here to find out more about Mollie's husband Joseph Stanley-Brown.