What do you think of when someone says President Herbert Hoover? Well, I didn't think so much because I didn't know so much. His name has always been attached to either the Depression or Hoover Dam. How exciting is that? But our recent trip to President Hoover's Presidential Library left me with some great impressions about him that I'd love to share.
Herbert Hoover was born in the small Iowa town of West Branch, a Quaker community. He spoke highly of his childhood and the first six years were carefree as he learned to know the fishing streams and developed his love of rocks.
Life took a serious turn for "Bertie" when he was 6 and pneumonia took his daddy. His mother became a Quaker minister to provide, but she died of typhoid fever when the president was 9. Bertie and his older brother and younger sister had to be split up to live with relatives. Mr. Hoover ended up being sent to Oregon on a train to live with an uncle. He traveled by himself and he was 11 years old. Imagine the relatives sewing two dimes into his coat so that he could buy food along the way.
Bertie Hoover's circumstances improved. His guardian uncle worked for a new college called Stanford where Bert worked to pay his way through school. Both the President and his older brother Theodore graduated with geology degrees from Stanford. College was also where he met the love of his life, Miss Lou Henry. After graduation, Mr. Hoover was hired as a mining engineer. He grew the mustache to look old enough for the position. The company sent him to Australia and he made them so much money, the company offered him a job in China for $10,000 a year. That was pretty good for 1899 and so he immediately cabled a proposal to Lou and she sent a one-word-answer back to him: "yes".
Miss Lou was the first woman in the geology program at Stanford. They met and realized that they had rocks and Iowa and fishing and camping in common. Lou had been born in Iowa, but she was raised in California. Her daddy was a banker who thought he was getting a boy (hence her name) and he gave her a love for the outdoors and taught her to fish and to camp. Described as "robust", she brought her adventurous spirit into their marriage. They married in 1899 and left for China the next day.
They loved their time in China...except for the part about the Boxer Rebellion. They were caught up in the seige of Tientsin and the American compound was under heavy gunfire for a month. Check out Miss Lou's fearless stance with her hand on her hip. They said she would daily sweep the porch to clear away the shell casings.
Miss Lou was already fluent in Latin (translating a geology book that still is in publication). She and her new husband both learned Chinese and even when they were in the White House, if they wanted to communicate just between themselves, they spoke Chinese. She was "Loo" and he was "Hoo".
During his career as a mining engineer, the Hoovers traveled the world and took their two boys with them. I loved one picture of her on a steamship deck with one of the boys as a toddler. She had devised a harness with a leash that she tied to the ship. She was determined her little one would not fall overboard. They lived in London and many places around the globe as his career flourished and they became millionaires.
But when WW1 broke out, Mr. Hoover left business to serve his country. There were 120,000 Americans who were stuck in Europe at the onset of war and HH was charged to organize their return. He always used volunteers, noting "Every time the government is forced to act, we lose something in self-reliance, character, and initiative."
As WW1 progressed, Belgians were starving and Mr. Hoover coordinated relief efforts. Then, when America entered the war, he encouraged people in this country to avoid eating particular foods to save them for soldiers' rations. "Hooverizing" was a term for meatless Mondays and wheatless Wednesdays.
When the Mississippi River overflowed in 1927, people asked for HH to organize relief efforts. He also served for Presidents Harding and Coolidge as Commerce Secretary. His name was a household name. When he ran for President, he was so loved that he won 60% of the vote. Seven months later, the Depression hit. His policies did not move the country as fast as they would have liked, and he lost to Roosevelt in the next election.
I had no idea what a humanitarian Herbert Hoover was. After WW2 he was back in Europe again. President Truman asked him to coordinate relief to the starving people there. The Presidential Library has a collection of things that people from all over the world have sent him in gratitude. Women took the flour sacks they received and embroidered them and sent them back to him. Children would write him poems. There is a map of the world with sheaves of wheat on each country that he served. There are 57 sheaves of wheat! I watched a video of American immigrants who had lived through the hardships of the war as children. Their testimonies were so moving. One older man with a heavy Russian accent explained through tears that he lived in an orphanage that gave only dark, moldy bread. One day he saw Mr. Hoover come with relief supplies and smelled "white bread" for the first time. Clearly, Herbert Hoover understood how an orphan felt.
I especially loved reading about the relationship between Hoo and Loo. Miss Lou married a very shy man who did not like publicity. His Quaker upbringing caused him to keep his feelings close to the vest. The public may have misread that as being "aloof". But she understood his need to be alone and together they camped and fished and enjoyed family. While they were in the White House they bought a tract of land in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia at the headwaters of the Rapidian River. They built cabins and spent time trout fishing together. When he left office they gave it to the country for successive presidents.
Herbert Hoover earned a lot of money and he gave lots of it away. He served his country without taking any pay for all those humanitarian efforts he organized; the government required that he take a salary, but he used it creatively. "I made up my mind when I entered public life that I would not make it possible for anyone ever to say that I had sought public office for the money there was in it. I therefore kept the money that came to me as salary in a separate account and distributed it where I thought it would do the most good. Part of it went to supplement the salaries of men who worked under me and whom the government paid less than I thought they were worth. Part of it went to charities."
This president was devoted to international service, wrote numerous books, and showed his heart for children by helping to organize Boys Clubs and co-founding UNICEF and CARE. He put his time and money to good use. Isn't that what true religion does? What a fine man!
This president was devoted to international service, wrote numerous books, and showed his heart for children by helping to organize Boys Clubs and co-founding UNICEF and CARE. He put his time and money to good use. Isn't that what true religion does? What a fine man!
I tried to think what it would be like if my life had been spent in efforts to help others...and I didn't take money for my service...and then I ended up losing my good name. How painful that must have been! The next time someone uses "Hoover" as a negative adjective, I will wince.
In the last blog, I wrote about how the Lord provides for us in our leaders. That brought to mind a time when President Hoover was a toddler. He was very sick with pneumonia...so sick that the extended family was called in to pray over him. They thought he had died and even took him to the kitchen table to lay him out and put two coins on his eyes. Then someone noticed his chest move up and down a bit. His Quaker grandmother exclaimed that God had saved Bertie Hoover for a special purpose. I don't know what you think, but I think his grandmother was right.
He was the picture of American opportunity: little Bertie Hoover, an orphan from rural Iowa...and Herbert Clark Hoover, the thirty-first President of the United States. I love this quote framed over the door of his Library...
"I have had every honor to which any man could aspire. There is no place on the whole earth except here in America where all the sons of man have this chance in life...Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream, but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world."
P.S. If you have ever watched a segment on Fox News called "Culture Warriors", there is a contributor named Margaret Hoover who is the president's great-granddaughter. She narrates a great twelve-minute video that can be found at
Just scroll down to the bottom center to click on the video.
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