Granny (so called because he didn’t drink, smoke, or gamble) was probably the nicest, but most boring, man to ever be president. When Granny’s mother told his father that she was pregnant, his father became so happy that he fell over and died. His mother, who never remarried, raised Granny on her own, teaching him to avoid excitement at all costs. Granny spent most of his time studying, because it was what his mother told him to do. This resulted in him graduating from Harvard and becoming a lawyer. As a lawyer, Granny became famous for perfecting the insanity defense, by pointing out that anyone who would hire him as a lawyer had to be a little crazy. When the Mexican War broke out, Granny considered joining the Army, but decided to instead visit a friend in New England.
Granny married Lucy Webb, a well-educated woman, pretty much just because his mother told him to. Are you sensing a pattern here? Soon after the Civil War broke out, Granny, ignoring his mother’s advice for the first time ever, joined the Army and became a Major General. Granny probably should have listened to his mother, as he was shot in five different battles and was erroneously listed as dead for a period of time, which led to a great amount of difficulty in getting himself declared alive again. After the war, Granny went into politics, where he was successful because he was a nice man with an epic beard. In 1876, he ran for president on the very liberal idea that pretty much everybody was the same regardless of race. The 1876 election was very contentious, with lots of back room deals and voter intimidation and fraud. In the end, a compromise was made. Granny got to be president, but in return the South got to go back to being blatant racists. This earned Granny the nicknames His Fraudulency and Rutherfraud. Both of which really hurt his feelings.
Granny was given his oath of office in secret because it was worried that his opponents would try to derail his inauguration by booing or something. His opponents did try to impeach him, but failed because his supporters just didn’t show up to the meeting. Lacking a quorum, the vote could not take place. Upon entering the White House, Granny banned drinking, smoking, dancing, and playing cards. When people complained, Granny told them it was because of his wife, so people started calling her Lemonade Lucy. To try and make up for the lack of fun, Granny started leading the singing of gospel hymns every morning, had a telephone installed at the White House (a device he claimed would never catch on), and imported the first Siamese cat into America (which he creatively named Siam). Having little else to do, Granny spent the last 70 days of his presidency touring the West Coast and boring the hell out of the people there.
No one wanted Granny to run for a second term, so he told everyone that he didn’t believe in second terms and didn’t run. After his presidency, he continued his legacy of being a dull nice man by spending his time supporting educational foundations and pushing for prison reform. In one last attempt to be interesting, he died of a heart attack and was buried with his wife and his favorite horse, Old Whitey. The Siamese cat was not buried with them, because that would have just been silly.
Images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:President_Rutherford_Hayes_1870_-_1880_Restored.jpg