Faded Memory

Julia Boggs Dent was born in 1826, the daughter of a St. Louis plantation owner. All her life she suffered from strabismus (crossed eyes). A prominent surgeon offered to remedy the situation, but she declined. Julia fell in love with a young man her brother brought home from West Point, and they were engaged. Neither of their parents approved the match: his because her father owned slaves, and hers because the groom’s prospects as a career soldier seemed dim. For 25 years the Dents were right about their son-in-law. But Ulysses gained notoriety as a victorious civil war general, and in 1869 he became the eighteenth president. Julia thought she was too plain to be first lady, and considered having the surgery she’d rejected as a girl. President Grant wouldn’t hear of it. “Did I not fall in love with you with these same eyes?” he asked. “I like them just as they are!”