Louise Taft

Louisa Maria "Louise" Torrey was born on September 11, 1827, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Samuel Davenport Torrey (1789–1877) and Susan Holman Waters (1803–1866), and she was the first of her siblings, with three sisters named Delia Chapin Torrey, Anna Davenport Torrey, and Susan H. Torrey. Her sister Anna married the geologist Edward Orton, Sr.

In 1845, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College, which was then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Between 1846 and 1858, she was involved in publishing The Yale Gallinipper, a satirical Yale University newspaper. She collaborated with Olivia Day, daughter of Jeremiah Day, and Henrietta Blake, a descendant of Eli Whitney. The newspaper was written anonymously under the guise of "three brothers" who were Yale undergraduates. The publication was noted for its critical commentary on Yale students, faculty, and the Yale Literary Magazine.

On December 26, 1853, Louise Torrey married Alphonso Taft in Millbury, Massachusetts. Alphonso Taft was a widower, having been widowed in 1852, and she became stepmother to his two sons from his first marriage: Charles Phelps Taft, who later became a publisher and served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1895–1897), and Peter Rawson "Rossy" Taft.

Louise and Alphonso Taft had five children. Their first child, Samuel Davenport Torrey Taft, died at 14 months old from pertussis. Their second child was William Howard Taft, who would later become the President of the United States. Their third child was Henry Waters Taft, a lawyer based in New York City. The fourth was Horace Dutton Taft, who founded the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. Their final child was Frances Louis "Fanny" Taft, who married surgeon William A. Edwards.

The Taft family resided in Cincinnati, Ohio, while Alphonso served as a judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati. Subsequently, they lived in Washington, D.C., during Alphonso Taft’s tenure as Secretary of War and Attorney General of the United States. The family also spent time abroad, particularly in Austria-Hungary and Russia, when Alphonso served as the U.S. ambassador to each country.

Louise Taft passed away on December 8, 1907, in Millbury, Massachusetts, at the age of 80. She was interred at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio. Less than one year after her death, her son William Howard Taft was elected President of the United States.

References for her biography include "Ancestors of American Presidents" by Gary Boyd Roberts (1995) and "An American Family: The Tafts 1678 to 1964" by Ishbel Ross (1964). External links associated with her include information about Louisa Torrey Hall at Mount Holyoke College.