OCTOBER 4 will mark the 110th anniversary of Grace Goodhue’s marriage to Calvin Coolidge, future President of the United States. Held in the parlor of Grace’s parents’ house on Maple Street in Burlington–now Champlain College’s Goodhue Coolidge House–the wedding was a small affair, with only fifteen family members and close friends attending.
The Goodhue Coolidge house, c. 1899
Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, MA
Mrs. Coolidge later recalled,
The wedding ceremony has seldom united two people of vastly different temperaments and tastes than on the fourth of October, 1905, when Mr. Coolidge and I made our marriage vows standing in the bay window in the parlor of my father’s home. The afternoon sun shone in through the lace curtains and the fragrant clematis which some of my friends had brought in and arranged so that it trailed over the windows.
Calvin and Grace Coolidge’s Wedding Invitation, Champlain College Archives
None of the wedding guests likely realized that eighteen years later, Calvin Coolidge would become president of the United States.
For more on the Coolidges and the history of the Goodhue Coolidge House, view the new exhibition in the Coolidge Reading Room in the Coolidge House at 312 Maple Street.
