While you might be able to name a lot of first ladies, you might not know a lot about their personal lives. While plenty of them held beliefs that were mostly in line with their husbands, others were thought of as quite strange. A few of them were into things like astrology or contacting the dead, which might have been more controversial if the president was known to be into them as well. From the way Betty Ford modernized the position to Nancy Reagan's obsession with horoscopes, let's take a look at some first ladies who were actually really strange people.
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00:00The First Lady has a complex job.
00:03She isn't paid, and doesn't even really have an official position, but she always has to
00:07look perfect, represent her country well, and champion her own causes.
00:11We expect a lot from a person who only got there because of someone else's ambitions.
00:16But not all First Ladies have toed the line.
00:18Some of them found ways of being themselves in a manner that was a little…un-First Lady-like.
00:23And some of them were just plain weird.
00:25Here's what you might not know about the former First Ladies of America.
00:29Party animal
00:31James Madison's wife, Dolly, would prove to be one of the 1800s' biggest party animals.
00:37And while it might seem silly now, throwing huge shindigs like she did was a little taboo
00:41at the time.
00:43Every week, she hosted her so-called Wednesday Night Squeezes, and invited everyone from
00:47politicians to celebrities to shoemakers off the street.
00:51Dolly wanted to include a true cross-section of her countrymen.
00:56By the end of the day, it was like, the more, the merrier.
00:58On top of that, she also tended to dress a little provocatively at her soirees.
01:03Dolly Madison might not have been the first society woman to live in the White House,
01:07but she was perhaps the busiest.
01:10Ghost hunter
01:12Of all the First Ladies, Mary Todd Lincoln is perhaps the most famous for being odd.
01:17After losing two of her children, she turned to spiritualism, as she was sure that their
01:21ghosts showed up at the end of her bed every night and were trying to contact her.
01:26Her seances were led by a variety of mediums, and took place at the White House, and President
01:31Lincoln attended at least one of them.
01:33"...on an endless journey of wonder and discovery!"
01:38Amazingly, if Lincoln had listened to the warnings of one medium, he might have escaped
01:42his fate.
01:43Ordinarily, telling a president people are out to get him might be worth a shrug, but
01:47Charles Colchester had more reason to know the truth than most people.
01:52He just so happened to be drinking buddies with John Wilkes Booth, who wasn't shy when
01:56it came to talking about his desire to harm Abe.
01:59Forget ethereal spirits, it was the sharing of earthly spirits that might have saved him.
02:04After her husband's untimely passing, Mary Todd became even more into her rituals, attending
02:09a spiritualist commune for a few days.
02:11She eventually visited a famous ghost photographer, who superimposed an image of her late husband
02:17behind her, but made it look like his spirit was lingering around her, just as she would
02:21want.
02:23Bad medicine
02:24When it came to the occult, Florence Harding was all in as well.
02:28She grew up surrounded by people who put hexes on their barns to ward off evil spirits, so
02:32when she got to the White House, she hired a clairvoyant to sniff out anyone in the administration
02:37who was out to get her husband.
02:39In addition to her belief in mediums, she also bought into homeopathy.
02:43When she had a kidney issue, she was so impressed with her treatment that she had her husband
02:47bring her doctor to Washington and appoint him as the official presidential physician.
02:52This would prove fatal, however, when that medic misdiagnosed President Warren G. Harding's
02:58heart attack as mere food poisoning, and the flub cost him his life.
03:02You idiot!
03:05Groovy chick
03:07Betty Ford might have become First Lady suddenly due to the resignation of Richard Nixon, but
03:11she wasn't going to let her new role cramp her style.
03:15She was a true child of the 1970s, no matter what her real age, and she indulged in many
03:20of the fads.
03:21This involved wearing a mood ring and dancing around the halls of the White House.
03:25She even spoke in radically modern terms about people using marijuana and having premarital
03:29relations, and she wasn't shy when it came to talking about her progressive political
03:33positions.
03:34I think I'm a feminist, really.
03:37The Equal Rights Amendment is a necessity of life.
03:42But her biggest cliche 70s thing was using a CB radio.
03:46In 1976, the First Lady was dealing with chronic arthritis and couldn't join her husband on
03:51the campaign trail, so she got her own license and campaigned for him through the CB.
03:55Her handle was Big Mama.
03:57Of course, despite her quirks, Ford is perhaps best known for her very candid experience
04:02battling addiction, which led to the foundation of the Betty Ford Center and made her name
04:06forever associated with alcohol recovery efforts.
04:10Astrology addict
04:12Nancy Reagan came from Hollywood, so it is not too surprising she brought some strange
04:16habits to Washington.
04:17But instead of following fad diets or signing on to ad campaigns, she picked up astrology,
04:23and she picked it up hard.
04:24What had been a mere pastime became an absolute obsession after Ronald Reagan was shot.
04:29From then on, she had her astrologer plan virtually every event in the president's life
04:33in order to keep him safe, even though she only ever met her once.
04:37I timed most of the speeches.
04:39I timed when he would take Air Force One, when he would take off, and when he would
04:44land.
04:45Nancy tried to hide her reliance on the controversial calendar maker by paying through a third party,
04:50but the public still found out, and she was mercilessly mocked for the rest of her life.
04:55I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any seances.