# Who was the last person to die in the White House?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 30, 2007, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490 "2007-08-30T13:23:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@solkoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solkoe)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/1 "2007-08-30T13:23:43Z")
and has anyone died through violent means?
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### Author:  [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/2 "2007-08-30T14:21:39Z")
Covering both questions with the same answer, I’d say it was [Frank Eugene Corder](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9903E1D6173BF930A2575AC0A962958260) who crashed a Cessna into the White House on September 13, 1994.
(NY Times article, registration may be required.)
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/3 "2007-08-30T14:25:05Z")
The last I can find is Ellen Axson Wilson, First Lady, August 6, 1914.
[source](http://www.presidentbenjaminharrison.org/Collections/2006/Nation_Mourns.htm)
Edit: never mind.
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### Author:  [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/4 "2007-08-30T15:03:41Z")
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
The last I can find is Ellen Axson Wilson, First Lady, August 6, 1914.
[source](http://www.presidentbenjaminharrison.org/Collections/2006/Nation_Mourns.htm)
Edit: never mind.
[/QUOTE]
Did the Cessna guy die _in_ the White House or merely on the grounds?
So far, I have Louis Howe who died in the White House in 1936.
Here’s my list:
Rebecca Van Buren (infant granddaughter of Martin Van Buren) 1840
William Henry Harrison 1841
Letitia Tyler 1842
Zachary Taylor 1850
Willie Lincoln 1862 (son of Abraham Lincoln)
Frederick Dent 1873 (father in law of Ulysses Grant)
Elisha Hunt Allen (lawyer and diplomat who died after midnight at Chester Arthur’s New Year’s Eve reception)
John Witherspoon Scott 1892 (father in law of Benjamin Harrison)
Caroline Scott Harrison 1892 (wife of Benjamin Harrison)
Ellen Wilson 1914 (wife of Woodrow Wilson)
Louis McHenry Howe 1936 (friend and advisor to FDR)
Calvin Coolidge’s 16 year old son, Calvin, died in 1924, but I’m not sure if he died in the White House.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/5 "2007-08-30T15:30:42Z")
[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa]
So far, I have Louis Howe who died in the White House in 1936.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it depends how you defined “died in the White House”. Howe had been living in the White House, but he got sick and moved to the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where, 8 months later, he died. So, does he still count?
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### Author:  [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/6 "2007-08-30T16:04:37Z")
Aha. I was misinformed.
What do you know about Calvin Jr.?
Tabby
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### Author:  [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/7 "2007-08-30T16:08:55Z")
[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa]
Aha. I was misinformed.
What do you know about Calvin Jr.?
Tabby
[/QUOTE]
And, it looks like young Calvin Coolidge died at Walter Reed.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/8 "2007-08-30T16:52:43Z")
[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa]
Did the Cessna guy die _in_ the White House or merely on the grounds?
[/QUOTE]
I guess it may depend on how much force it takes to get through the ceiling (or the wall, I don’t know where he hit).
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### Author:  [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/9 "2007-08-30T17:18:04Z")
From the link in post #2:
> [@](#):
>
> Gliding over the treetops, the Cessna passed the fountain and the red cannas blooming on the South Lawn, bounced off the grass just short of the White House, crashed through the branches of a magnolia tree planted by Andrew Jackson and came to rest in a crumpled heap two stories below the Clintons’ unoccupied bedroom.
and:
> [@](#):
>
> The wreckage sat next to a set of white, wrought-iron patio furniture, across from the wide lawn where bleachers had been set up in anticipation of an afternoon ceremony today for the National Service plan, a ceremony that was moved. The cockpit was reminiscent of a crushed beer can, and the tail was tilted up, mostly intact. A tarpolin had been hung over the plane to conceal its identification numbers. A twisted brown aircraft seat rested in the dirt just left of the wreckage.
If the only noteworthy casualty was a magnolia tree, with a mention of a near miss for the patio furniture, I tentatively conclude that the Cessna Guy died in the grounds of the White House and not inside the building.
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### Author:  [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/10 "2007-08-30T18:48:40Z")
Harry Truman’s old friend and press secretary (whose name I cannot recall) keeled over from a fatal heart attack during a press conference.
Garfield and McKinley may have died in the White House but, of course, the violence that led to their deaths was done elsewhere.
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### Author:  [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/11 "2007-08-30T18:59:19Z")
McKinley died in Buffalo, NY and Garfield died in New Jersey.
But, yes, we may have a winner – or a winner, so far. Charles Griffith Ross, press secretary to Harry Truman, did, according to Wikipedia, die “at his desk in the White House in December 1950 after giving a press conference and as he was preparing to make some comments to the television news.”
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### Author:  [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/12 "2007-08-30T19:29:08Z")
[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa]
McKinley died in Buffalo, NY and Garfield died in New Jersey.
But, yes, we may have a winner – or a winner, so far. Charles Griffith Ross, press secretary to Harry Truman, did, according to Wikipedia, die “at his desk in the White House in December 1950 after giving a press conference and as he was preparing to make some comments to the television news.”
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the details! (Right now I’m too busy swapping one crappy virus/firewall program for another to do research.)
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/13 "2007-08-30T21:19:46Z")
I’m pretty sure this topic or a related one came up a few years ago, but I can’t find it now.
I recall that Truman’s mother-in-law, Madge Gates Wallace, also died in the White House. According to [this page](http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=34) it was on Dec. 5, 1952, two years after the death of Ross.
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### Author:  [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/14 "2007-08-30T21:36:12Z")
Here’s the Madge Gates Wallace obituary from TIME:
[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,820527-2,00.html](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,820527-2,00.html)
Sure enough, we have a new frontrunner, so to speak.
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/15 "2007-08-30T21:36:49Z")
“… below the Clintons’ unoccupied bedroom…”
There’s a joke in there, right?
😉
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### Author:  [@solkoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solkoe)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2007, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/16 "2007-08-31T02:23:51Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Well, it depends how you defined “died in the White House”. Howe had been living in the White House, but he got sick and moved to the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where, 8 months later, he died. So, does he still count?
[/QUOTE]
No, it must be in the house.
It sounds like it has been over 50 years. I find that incredible. Aren’t there tons of people working in there everyday?
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2007, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/17 "2007-08-31T05:11:19Z")
[QUOTE=solkoe]
No, it must be in the house.
It sounds like it has been over 50 years. I find that incredible. Aren’t there tons of people working in there everyday?
[/QUOTE]
Not just that, but thousands of people going through on tours almost every day. In 55 years, nobody’s had a heart attack?
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2007, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/18 "2007-08-31T05:40:37Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight]
Not just that, but thousands of people going through on tours almost every day. In 55 years, nobody’s had a heart attack?
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps, but they wouldn’t have Wikipedia articles about them. And unfortunately, this sounds like the sort of topic whereon a casual inquiry might result in your getting a Visit from some Large Gentlemen.
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### Author:  [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2007, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/19 "2007-08-31T09:42:47Z")
If someone had a heart-attack in the White House, I imagine it’s unlikely they’d be officially declared dead at the scene.
Would they not be whisked off to hospital and either declared dead-on-arrival, or worked on for a while and then declared dead?
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### Author:  [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2007, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-person-to-die-in-the-white-house/417490/20 "2007-08-31T17:47:57Z")
Obviously not in contention but LBJ’s two dogs, Him and Her both died on the White House grounds from unusual means (not simply getting old and dying).
Her died in 1964 (possibly in the house) after swallowing a rock.
Him died on the grounds in 1966 after getting hit by a car while chasing a squirrel.