First Ladies Reign With Cattleya Orchids
New book tells how father-son orchid growers from Virginia revived the tradition of naming orchids for America’s first ladies.
It was the recently widowed Edith Bolling Galt in 1915 during the golden era of corsages that may forever be credited for entwining America’s first ladies with cattleya orchids.
As the story goes, Galt, had a chance encounter with President Woodrow Wilson in the White House not long after his wife, First Lady Ellen Wilson, died from kidney disease. The president, smitten with Ms. Galt, sent her a fresh orchid every day. The two would be photographed later that year at the World Series where she wore a quadruple cattleya corsage pinned to her coat that cascaded from her shoulder to above her elbow. By Dec. 28, the two wed and Galt became the next first lady of the United States.
The large corsages worn by women at the time were fashionable. In fact, it was Woodrow Wilson who remarked about the notable size of the corsage worn by his new wife.
“Usually the orchid wears the woman, but to the contrary with my dear Edith,” he said.
The storied past of cattleya orchids and first ladies has been chronicled in the newly released book First Ladies and Their Orchids: A Century of Namesake Cattleyas by father-son orchid growers Arthur A. Chadwick, who died in 2021 at 90, and his son Arthur E. Chadwick. The Chadwicks are the founders of Chadwick & Son Orchids in rural Powhatan County, Virginia. Inside the 285-page coffee table book, Chadwick describes how a bustling orchid growing industry in the United States during the first half of the 1900s led to growers, and eventually the younger Chadwick, to embark on creating a series of namesake cattleya orchids for presidential spouses.
At first, orchid growers didn’t think to honor first ladies with namesake orchids. Records show, according to Chadwick in the book, that President Woodrow Wilson had three cattleya orchids named for him from 1916 to 1918. And his successor, Warren G. Harding was honored four times with namesake cattleya orchids from 1920-1921. It wouldn’t be until 1929, several months before the great stock market crash, that a new cattleya hybrid was introduced and honored a first lady—Lou Henry Hoover, the wife of President Herbert Hoover (1929 to 1933).
“This hybrid would make history as it started a tradition of First Lady namesakes that continues today,” Chadwick writes in the book.
Chadwick remembers the moment he discovered the connection between cattleya orchids and first ladies. He was flipping through magazines dating back to the 1920s when he saw a write up about First Lady Bess Truman’s namesake orchid.
The younger Chadwick asked his father at the time, “Dad, what is all this first lady business?”
His father explained how popular the corsages were at the time and some growers had named them after first ladies serving in the White House.
“It was great publicity for their company, and it was great publicity for the first lady,” Chadwick told East Wing Magazine in a recent phone interview.
The practice faded once corsages became unfashionable. But the idea stayed with Chadwick who went into the orchid growing business with his father in 1989. When the younger Chadwick suggested to his father that they should revive the practice of naming cattleya orchids for first ladies, it didn’t go over well.
“No! Absolutely not,” his father told him at the time, advising him to stay out of politics.
But the warning didn’t dissuade him, and, against his father’s wishes, he did it.
In the book, Chadwick describes how he and his father came across a particularly stunning unnamed cattleya orchid in 1993. It was so notable that when they entered it in the Eastern Orchid Congress show, it was awarded Best Semi-Alba Cattleya. Not long thereafter, the Chadwicks contacted the original breeder of the orchid, Carmela Orchids of Hakalau, Hawaii, and was given permission to name the cattleya for then sitting First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton—the Chadwick’s first namesake First Lady cattleya orchid.
Then, the young Chadwick set his sights on presenting the orchid to Clinton, a process that, perhaps, proved harder than naming the orchid. Chadwick recalls receiving several rejections to meet from the former first lady’s office at the time.
“I was kind of discouraged,” Chadwick says. “I was like, this is crazy. Why wouldn’t anybody want to accept an orchid that someone had named after them?”
Eventually, it took Chadwick three years to get the opportunity to present the orchid to Clinton. In 1995, he presented the flowers that were made into a corsage to Clinton while she was scheduled to speak at the annual Kennedy-King dinner in Alexandria, Virginia. The first lady was truly moved by our efforts, Chadwick writes. His persistence paid off to which Chadwick says, “Growers are inherently patient.”
From there, Chadwick would go on to name cattleya hybrids after the last six presidential first ladies, from Dr. Jill Biden to former First Lady Barbara Bush. He has personally presented the flowers to most of them. The namesake flowers are officially registered with the United Kingdom-based Royal Horticulture Society, an organization that tracks all the orchid names ever used.
The Chadwicks’ First Ladies and Their Orchids goes beyond the history of each namesake First Lady cattleya. Chadwick pays tribute to his father in their personal history while intricately weaving together the First Lady namesake orchids’ lineage and the growers who brought them into existence in a stunning collection of color and historic photographs.
The book is a companion, Chadwick says, to his father’s first groundbreaking book The Classic Cattleyas.
Recognizing former First Lady Edith Wilson’s popular public persona where orchids were concerned, Chadwick in 2016 (about 100 years after Edith Bolling Galt was photographed at the World Series with her cattleya corsage) worked with Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Museum to honor Wilson with a First Lady namesake orchid.
“The museum selected a fall blooming purple from our stock to honor Mrs. Wilson,” Chadwick writes.
Wilson seems to be the first, first lady to have worn cattleya orchids so prominently, says Chadwick. And, not just one. She would wear three or four massive cattleyas arranged in a corsage on her lapel.
“All the photographs you see she’s just laden with these cattleyas,” Chadwick says. “But, she had never had one named after her.”
In all, 19 first ladies have cattleya orchids named for them.
At the time this interview took place, the 2024 presidential election was in flux. Chadwick had expected the first lady after this election cycle was going to remain Dr. Jill Biden or that former First Lady Melania Trump would re-enter the White House. Either way, Chadwick had already named two cattleya orchids for them. In a stunning turn of events, President Joe Biden stepped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris was named the democratic presidential nominee earlier this month. Chadwick recognizes things are dynamic and the chance for a first, first gentleman seems plausible. But for now, Chadwick and his orchids standby as history and horticulture wait to bloom.
“I’m ready for anything,” Chadwick says.