(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)
FDR, Ike, Harry Hopkins, George Marshall, Joe Kennedy and Bernard Baruch. Those are just some of the Americans Churchill was eager to meet and learn more about. Today we’ll add two other Americans to that list: William Cody and Ulysses S. Grant.
In the summer of 1887, “Wild Bill” Cody was bringing his “Wild West Show” to London. Naturally the twelve year old Winnie Churchill, considered by some teachers and relatives “wild” himself, was eager to see the show. Biographer Martin Gilbert tell us about what happened next:
[Cody’s] advertisement in The Times trumpeted its attractions in capital letters.” GRANDSTAND FOR 20000 PEOPLE. BANDS OF SIOUX, ARAPAHOES, SHOSHONES, CHEYENNES, AND OTHER INDIANS, CCOWBOYS, SCOUTS AND MEXICAN VACQUEROS.”In the beginning Jennie said no, but Churchill, always a persistent campaigner, kept at it until he got a “Yes.” Needless to say, he enjoyed the show hugely and talked about it into old age.
There would be riding, shooting, lassoing and hunting, attacks on a stagecoach and on a settler’s cabin. […]
Churchill, then at boarding school in Brighton, wrote several times to his mother, urging her to write to the two sister who ran the school to let him go up to London.
Ulysses S. Grant? That Christmas, Churchill, having just turned 13, told his mother that one of the gifts he most wanted for Christmas was Grant’s recently released 2 volume memoirs. What an extraordinary request from any 13 year old, but particularly from one who was seen by many schoolmasters as not very bright and a problem student.
I’ve always found the following a good predictor with young students who “have school problems:” If they’re independent readers of serious material there’s a very good chance theyll turn out OK in the end even if they’re always failing spelling tests and not turning in many homework assignments.
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill and America (pgs. 8-9)
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