History is sometimes not kind to one’s reputation. A case in point is that of Lucy Ware Webb Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes. Before Hayes became President of the United States, Lucy was known as “Mother Lucy” by the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, her husband’s unit. She visited the command during the war, administered the sick and comforted the dying. After Hayes was elected, she often accompanied him on visits to prisons, asylums, and reform schools, a change which, for her time, labeled her as having a “semi-public life.” Today, her reputation is somewhat sullied by her support for Temperance and that she did not allow liquor to be served in the White House – a far cry from the indulgent atmosphere of the Grant Administration. On one occasion, Secretary of State, William M. Evarts, was asked of the liquid served at an official dinner. “It was a brilliant affair,” Evarts stated. “The water flowed like champagne.” It was not until she was long gone from the White House she was called “Lemonade Lucy.”