William Howard Taft

	BOYHOOD HOME: 2038 Auburn Avenue, Cincinnati OH - an 1840s Federal style brick home with two stories, a third story addition, Victorian scroll-trimmed eaves, and a New England captain's walk PHOTO CREDIT (top left): Homes and Libraries of the Presidents by William G. Clotworthy PHOTO CREDIT (right): Historic Homes of the American Presidents by Irvin Haas WASHINGTON HOME (bottom center): 2215 Wyoming Avenue NW in Washington D.C. - a white brick Georgian Revival style built in 1904. Today, the three-story building houses the Egyptian Cultural and Educational Bureau, part of the Embassy complex of the United Arab Republic . PHOTO CREDIT: Internet website of the Egyptian Embassy

Only the Adams, Harrison, and Kennedy families have produced as many political activists as the Taft family. William Howard Taft's father was a Cabinet member, his grandson became a U.S. Senator, and his great-grandson is currently the Governor of Ohio.

William Taft grew up in a Cincinnati household that held his parents, grandparents, four brothers, one sister, and three live-in servants. After marriage to his wife Helen, the young couple moved to "The Quarry," now a privately-owned home in Cincinnati .

William had been fat as an infant and hefty as a boy, suffering the derisive nickname of "Big Lub." Yet William's weight didn't hold him back. As a large man of 300 pounds, he went on to practice law, became Governor of the Philippines, served as Secretary of War, was elected President of the United States, taught law at Yale University, and finally was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court!

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