CLAY COUNTY THROUGH THE YEARS: Everett Sanders

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Indianapolis News cited the life of Everett Sanders as another example of “log cabin to the White House.” The article tells of the early life of Mr. Sanders at his home near Coalmont. He was born March 8, 1882, in Lewis Township, Clay County, the son of a Baptist minister and farmer.

Sanders attended Indiana State Normal School, now Indiana State University, to become a teacher. In 1903 he married Ella Neal of Jasonville, Indiana. After teaching three years, he decided to become a lawyer and enrolled in Indiana University. He was appointed head coach of the 1907 basketball team. He was admitted to the bar in 1908 and practiced law in Terre Haute; he and his wife resided at 708 South Ninth Street.

From 1917 until 1925, Sanders represented Indiana in the United States Congress. He declined to be re-nonimated in 1924 and instead became director of the Speakers’ Bureau of the Republican National Committee. Subsequently, in 1925, he replaced C. Bascom Slemp, as personal secretary to President Coolidge early in his second term.

JAMES EVERETT SANDERS, FROM Coalmont to the White House. Source: Indianapolis News via Robert Hostetler and The Terre Haute Tribune Star. Submitted by: Jo Ann Pell, Clay County Genealogy Library, Center Point, Indiana.

During his time as personal secretary (a position equivalent to the current White House Chief of Staff), Sanders accumulated a collection of presidential speeches that became known as the “Everett Sanders Papers,” which contain speeches from June 22, 1925, until February 22, 1929.

After 1926 Sanders became a member of the Alfalfa Club, an exclusive Washington, D.C. social organization.

At the end of Hoover’s second term in 1929, Sanders was so highly regarded that President Herbert Hoover appointed him to chair the Republican National Committee. He held the position from 1932 until he stepped down in 1934, after Hoover’s disastrous re-election campaign.

When the depression ravaged the Jamecountry after the stock market crash, Republicans turned to Sanders for leadership. He agreed to become the National Republican Chairman in late 1931, hoping the commitment would ease the sorrow that encompassed him following the death of his wife on September 26, 1931.

Sanders got to know Coolidge in virtually every circumstance. He saw him silent in moments of joy, when others would have been celebrating. He saw him in hours of disappointment and grief, when others might complain.

When his father was dying, Coolidge was unable to go to his bedside due to the press of national affairs.

One afternoon he came to Sanders’ office, and with his face wet with tears said in a whisper, “I have just talked with my father on the telephone. His voice is very weak. It is the last time I shall ever hear him. I must go.”

Coolidge started for Vermont, but by the time the train got to Bridgeport, Connecticut, he had received Sanders’ message that the elder Coolidge had died.

Former President Coolidge died January 5, 1933. Everett began courting the president’s widow, but she declined his marriage proposal out of respect for her husband’s memory. Sanders eventually wed Hilda Sims. They resided on his 50-acre Maryland farm.

Sanders died at his office of a heart attack on May 12, 1950, at age 68 and was buried at Highland Lawn Cemetery, Terre Haute, Indiana.

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