Harrison, Mary Scott Dimmick (1858–1948)

Second wife of Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the U.S. Name variations: Mary Scott Lord; Mary Scott Dimmick; Mary Lord Dimmick; Mary Lord Harrison; Mary Dimmick Harrison. Born Mary Scott Lord on April 30, 1858, in Honesdale, Pennsylvania; died on January 5, 1948, in New York, New York; daughter of Russell Farnham (chief engineer, and later general manager, of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company) and Elizabeth (Mayhew) Scott (sister of Caroline Scott Harrison); married Walter Erskine Dimmick, on October 22, 1881 (died 1882); married her uncle Benjamin Harrison (U.S. president), on April 6, 1896, in New York, New York; children: (second marriage) Elizabeth Harrison (1897–1955, who became a successful lawyer and married James Blaine Walker, Jr., grandnephew of James G. Blaine, Harrison's secretary of state).

Mary Scott's first husband, Walter Dimmick, died just three months after their marriage, leaving Mary a widow at age 24. She returned to her mother's home in Washington. When her mother died, her aunt Caroline Scott Harrison invited her to live in the White House and serve as her social secretary. Three years after Caroline's death, when she was 37, Mary married her uncle, ex-president Benjamin Harrison, then 62. Benjamin's children, her cousins, disapproved of the union and did not attend the ceremony. (Benjamin and Caroline's daughter was also named Mary Scott Harrison and was also born in 1858.) In 1897, Mary gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth.

Mary was widowed again at the age of 43. During World War I, she served as chair of the

New York City division of the War Camp Community Service and was active in Republican Party affairs. She died in 1948 and is buried in the Harrison family plot in Indianapolis, Indiana.