Other names Trot (nickname) Name Eliza Garfield | Parents Lucretia Garfield | |
Full Name Eliza Arabella Garfield Born 3 July 1860 ( 1860-07-03 ) Hiram, Ohio Role Lucretia Garfield's daughter Died December 3, 1863, Hiram, Ohio, United States Similar People James A Garfield, Lucretia Garfield, James Rudolph Garfield, Harry Augustus Garfield, Charles J Guiteau | ||
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Eliza Arabella "Trot" Garfield (3 July 1860 – 3 December 1863) was the first child and first of two daughters born to James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States and his wife, Lucretia Garfield (née Rudolph).
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Life
The first child of the couple, Eliza was born while her father was a Hiram, Ohio lawyer. Nicknamed "Trot", after the character of Betsey Trotwood from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, the child was named after both Eliza Ballou, James's mother, and Arabella Mason, Lucretia's mother. She soon became the center of their letters.
As an infant, Eliza was not an object of interest for James. A few days after Eliza was born, Lucretia fell ill with a breast infection that resulted from nurturing the infant, but James went on a pleasure cruise to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Usually, James could not be with Trot anyway, as she and Lucretia lived with her maternal grandparents, Zebulon and Arabella. Trot completed James's picture of a perfect family: mother, father and an energetic child, always in demand of attention. A few days after the family bought their first house, Trot died of diphtheria. James came back from Washington to help care for the sick child in her final hours. She was buried the same day she died on Hiram Hill, Ohio.