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Helen Taft biography

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Helen Taft was a schoolteacher, political adviser and U.S. First Lady who was the wife of President William Howard Taft.


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Perhaps Helen Taft's greatest legacy was arranging the planting of 3,000 Japanese cherry blossom trees along the Tidal Basin, south and west of Independence Mall, in Washington, D.C.

After William Howard Taft lost his bid for re-election in 1912, the couple moved to Connecticut, where Taft taught law at Yale University. In 1921, when Taft was confirmed chief justice of the Supreme Court, the couple returned to Washington, D.C.,

where Helen would remain until her husband's death in 1931. After returning to the nation's capital, Helen traveled and supported moderate Republican causes, as well as her son Robert's career as a U.S. senator.

Helen Taft died on May 22, 1943, in Washington, D.C. She is buried next to her husband at the Arlington National Cemetery.

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