When [President] Coolidge was Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, he had occasion to give a talk at a dinner in Boston celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Chickering Piano Company. Mrs. Coolidge attended the dinner, for she loved music, and was amazed to hear her quite unmusical husband talk knowledgeably about the great composers and their masterworks. After the dinner, when she laughingly asked him where he had acquired all the musical information, he looked embarrassed and quickly changed the subject.
Mrs. Coolidge decided the Chickering speech was the only ghostwritten speech her husband ever delivered. Years later, she observed, he omitted it from a collection of speeches he approved for publication.
Source:
Boller, Paul F. "Grace Coolidge." Presidential Wives: An Anecdotal History. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. 266. Print.
Original Source Listed:
G. Coolidge, “The Real Calvin Coolidge” (May 1935), 39.
Further Reading:
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