JFK was poor at Latin, Carter homesick in naval academy

An exhibition in Washington takes a peek at the growing up years of 13 presidents, celebrates their ordinariness

They were normal, everyday kids—not so different from you. That’s the message of a small gem of an exhibit called School House to White House that’s at the National Archives. On display are 152 items—report cards, letters, school photos and such—that peek into the childhood of 13 kids who would grow up to hold the highest office in the land.

“All of these boys dreamed big dreams and became men of large visions,” said Timothy Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa.

But they were, at the start, fairly ordinary kids. And that’s what this display

celebrates.

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Example 1: A 1930 report card for 13-year-old John Kennedy: “This report is not quite so good as the last one. The damage was done chiefly by ‘Poor’ effort in Latin. … He can do better.”

Example 2: 18-year-old Franklin Roosevelt writing home after getting a part in his school play when another student fell ill: “I suppose it is criminal to rejoice but I can’t help it! I’ve got his part, and it’s one of the best in the play!!!!”

Example 3: A homesick Jimmy Carter writing to his mother back in Georgia from the US Naval Academy in 1943: “Dear Ma, I don’t know what’s the matter, but I haven’t heard from you yet, and I’ve been up here 9 days.”

The exhibit “puts the presidents in a whole new light,” said Jennifer Nichols, who helped assemble the material. “We don’t usually see them as homesick boys or students struggling.”

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The exhibit’s visual delights include film clips of a youthful Ronald Reagan high-diving into a lake, George H W Bush in a snowball fight, and John Kennedy chasing his brother Bobby across a lawn.

Eleven of Gerald Ford’s Boy Scout merit badges are included, along with his Eagle Scout card, on which he’s called Junior Ford. There is a 1935 letter from the Green Bay Packers inviting the athletic Ford to join the pro football team. “We will pay you $ 110 per game,” it says. (Ford declined and went to law school instead.)

Bill Clinton is shown playing his saxophone. Richard Nixon’s violin is displayed, as is some of Harry Truman’s piano music. (He would get up at 5 am to practice. Seriously!)

The material, much of it never seen before by the public, comes from the presidential libraries of every president since Herbert Hoover, who was in office from 1929 to 1933.

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Some of these 13 men grew up wealthy, but others were dirt poor.

Some had fine educations, but one (Hoover) didn’t attend high school, while another (Truman) didn’t have a college degree. Hoover did graduate from Stanford University, however. And Truman, who claimed to have read every book in the Independence, Missouri, library—including encyclopaedias—by the end of high school, later studied law for two years.

What all 13 shared, though, was the desire to learn new things and then do something with that knowledge. And that’s something we all have in common.