Katherine "Katie" McKinley was the first daughter of the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley and his wife, Ida Saxton McKinley.
Background
Katie was born on Christmas Day 1871, while her father was still a Canton, Ohio lawyer She was smothered with love by Ida until a second daughter was born in the spring of 1873. Due to the fact that Ida"s mother died some two weeks before the birth, the infant, also named Ida, was born following a very difficult delivery and she died four months later.
Career
In return, she adored him. She demanded that William and Katie shower her with displays of love and affection. She was deeply affected by this and developed phlebitis and epilepsy and desperately feared the loss of her first-born child, Katie.
Ida spent hours a day in a darkened room with Katie in her arms, kissing her and weeping.
William"s brother, Abner, once found Katie swinging on a gate of the garden of her house and invited her to go for a walk with him. The child replied that "if would go out of the yard, God would punish mama some more".
In June 1875, Katie became ill with typhoid fever and died within days. On the same day, the bodies of Ida and William were re-interred in the same place.
Ida was effectively shattered when Katie died.
The relationship between her and William seriously worsened. Nevertheless, McKinley responded to his wife"s maladies with devotion and love. When Ida suffered one of her epileptic seizures, the President would gently place a napkin or handkerchief over her face to conceal her contorted features.
When it passed, he would remove it and resume whatever he was doing as if nothing had happened.
Foreign the rest of her life, Ida kept a picture of Katie on the wall of her bedroom.