Just one U.S. president had a foreign-born wife

Q: In the history of the United States, how many of our first ladies were foreign-born?

A: The answer depends on how you define “foreign-born.”

Technically, the nation’s first nine presidents along with their wives were all foreign-born because, many historians argue, the United States was not recognized as a sovereign country until the Treaty of Paris was signed on Sept. 3, 1783. As a result, all entered the world as British subjects. (If you’re a Yankee Doodle Dandy and accept July 4, 1776, as the nation’s birthday, you can take Martin Van Buren off the list.)

Of course, once the nation gained its independence, they were all grandfathered in as American citizens from birth to pass the constitutional requirement that all presidents be natural-born citizens.

If you simply mean first ladies born outside of what would become the United States, here’s a fascinating (and probably somewhat ironic) fact for you: Despite his often controversial views on immigration, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has had twice as many foreign-born wives as the 43 men who have sat in the Oval Office put together.

Yep, over the 240 years of American history, only one president — John Quincy Adams — married a woman who hailed from outside U.S. borders. Born Feb. 12, 1775, in London, Louisa Catherine Johnson was the daughter of Joshua Johnson, who was originally from the Maryland colony, and Englishwoman Catherine Nuth Johnson. In 1790, Louisa’s father was appointed as the U.S. consul general in England. It was only natural that Adams would run into him and his daughter as Adams hopscotched back and forth to London and The Hague after being appointed minister to the Netherlands in 1793 by George Washington.

It wasn’t love at first sight. Joshua had seven daughters, and Adams was first smitten by an older sister. Soon, his attentions turned to Louisa, and, on July 26, 1797, Adams, 30, took the 22-year-old woman as his wife. It reportedly took his father (and, by then, President), John Adams, some time to get over the shock of his son marrying a “furriner.” He eventually welcomed her into the family even though they did not meet for several years, according to Lewis Gould’s 2014 book on the history of first ladies.

Their marriage often was filled with hardship and sorrow. Of their four children, two sons died in their early 30s and their only daughter lived just over a year. (Louisa also had several miscarriages.) When her husband was called to Ghent and London in 1814 as part of peace negotiations, Louisa had to make a 40-day coach ride across war-ravaged Europe with a 7-year-old son, filling her full of “unspeakable terrors.” As first lady, she was seen as largely reclusive and depressed, plagued by migraine headaches and fainting spells.

“Our union has not been without its trials,” Adams once said, noting the couple’s philosophical differences, “(but) she always has been a faithful and affectionate wife, and a careful, tender, indulgent, and watchful mother to our children.”

After her husband died in 1848, Louisa remained in Washington until she suffered a fatal heart attack in 1852 at age 77. On the day of her funeral, both houses of Congress adjourned, marking the first such gesture for a woman in U.S. history, according to the History Channel.

If Donald Trump takes the oath in January, his wife, Melania (born Melanija Knavs), will become the first foreign-born first lady in nearly two centuries. She was born in 1970 in Novo Mesto, Slovenia (then Yugoslavia), to Amalija and Viktor Knavs. He managed car and motorcycle dealerships for the Communist state-run government. The fashion model met Trump in 1998 during a Fashion Week party while Trump was separated from his second wife, Marla Maples, and on a date with Celinia Midelfart, according to The New Yorker. They eventually married on Jan. 22, 2005. Trump’s first wife, Ivana Zelnickova, is a Czech-born fashion model, whom he married in 1977 and divorced in 1991.

Q: At what point in population will Shiloh receive its unique ZIP code? Our population is about 12,500, but we still retain a Belleville 62221 ZIP.

A: Neither snow nor rain nor civic pride shall stay the U.S. Postal Service from observing the only standard that governs the awarding of new Zoning Improvement Plan codes: Will it make mail delivery more efficient?

“New ZIP codes are issued when there is an operational benefit to the USPS,” Sean Hargadon, a USPS spokesman, told me. “ZIP codes are not issued for strictly identity issues. All requests must meet our needs to further the operational goal of efficient mail distribution and delivery. Therefore, not all towns have their own ZIP code as we are able to efficiently process and deliver the mail without the use of an additional ZIP Code.”

Hypothetically, there are 100,000 potential five-digit codes (00000 to 99999), of which about 42,000 have been assigned. Of those, Shiloh shares four — not only 62221, but also 62225, 62226 and 62269. Now you would think each code could only support 10,000 households (the plus-four that pinpoints each address), but you’d be wrong. Hargadon tells me each code actually can support about 55,000 addresses. For example a cluster box at an apartment complex may share one ZIP+4 as would an even or odd side of an entire block.

With that kind of capacity, your chances of a personalized code for Shiloh do not seem particularly good. Of a maximum 55,000 addresses each, 62221 has only 11,123 households, 62225 has 5,590, 62226 has 12,165 and 62269 has 11,701, so there seems to be plenty of excess capacity for years and years to come. (And only about 30 new codes are issued nationwide each year.) However, if you’re adamant about your village having a unique ZIP, you’re welcome to send a written request detailing your reasoning to the local postmasters in question.

Today’s trivia

Just for fun: Why might a Georgia peach pie taste particularly good in Savannah? (Hint: Consider the question immediately above.)

Answer to Sunday’s trivia: “Moonwalk,” the 1988 autobiography of music legend Michael Jackson, was edited at Doubleday by none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, widow of the slain president. One News York Times critic called it unrevealing and tedious but it not surprisingly topped the best-seller list within two weeks of its release.

This story was originally published July 26, 2016 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Just one U.S. president had a foreign-born wife."