It’s Hard to find a Harlot
“And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.” Genesis 38:24 KJV
Many people spend countless hours researching their family histories. They find they have lines that stretch to distant lands. They may even find someone famous whose blood flows through them. Of course, there are those we rather not talk about.
If you have not taken the time to explore the website portions of this blog, I encourage you to do it. Across the top is a menu (Home, Contact, Resources, and The Presidents). If you drag across The Presidents tab a drop down menu should appear with all the Presidents listed. If you have an iPad or iPhone there is a box on the top. If you click the down arrow you can scroll down through the different presidents. Pick one and you can go to a page and see more about that President. The hardest feature on this page to research was the section: “Family of….” It is a timeline of the important “family” members of that President’s life from his parents to his kids. Combining different sources I tried to come up with the best available information I could find. The most amazing part to me is that some of the information is almost impossible to find. For someone so famous you would think he would have told someone when and where his brothers, sisters or other family members were born.
Her name was Maria Halpin and he was the “other” bachelor president. Their encounter happened long before he became president. She became pregnant and he was one of three people who could have been the father. All three were friends. The other two were married, though. Some believe she got pregnant to frame him into marrying her. Others claim he took responsibility for the circumstances to protect one of his two friends and their marriage. Whatever the truth was it received a lot of attention during his presidential run.
Oscar was the young boy’s name. Here is one version of that story. The future President arranged to have Maria thrown into the Providence Lunatic Asylum. The young lad was forcibly removed from her and he was placed into the Buffalo Orphan Asylum. Young Oscar was eventually adopted by a distinguished family from Buffalo. Some claim it was this President who helped that process along. The child’s name was changed to James King, Jr..
Her name was Tamar. She married a guy named Er. Er doesn’t sound like he was too nice of a guy because God zapped him in Genesis because he was so evil. This left Tamar a childless widow. In what might have been a tradition of the time, she got handed down to the next brother so she could sire a child in honor of her dead husband. Well, Onan, the brother, didn’t really want to have a child with her so he did everything he could not to let this happen. So, then she needed to be “handed off” to the next brother. Well, the other brother, Shelah, was very young and she would have to wait a long time for him to grow up before she would have her chance with him. Her father-in-law said she was more than welcome to stay with him and the family and wait it out. She said no and returned to her own father to wait there.
In my search to add Maria Halpin to this President’s Family Timeline, on his page, I had very little success for information. I could not find her date of birth or where she was born. I could not find when she died or where she died. In fact, about the only thing I could ever find out about her was this story.
The story came up in this President’s campaign run for the Presidency. He did something that very few candidates have done: he told the “truth” and he said it was indeed true that he was the father. Instead of condemning him, the public admired him for his honesty. Sometimes he is even referred to as “the Honest President.” But that’s not the end of the story.
One day Tamar was sitting outside the gate of her town and she probably had a veil or something over her face. She saw her father-in-law and noticed (or heard) that he had married off his youngest son. This was like a broken vow to her, since he promised her that when he was old enough she could become his bride. As she stood there her father-in-law thought she was a professional harlot and he asked her for a little professional attention. After their business transaction was complete he realized he forgot his wallet. He promised to bring back payment, but she insisted that he leave his seal, with the chain around it and the staff he had with him. When he returned home he had one of his servants take a fine young goat back to town so he could reclaim his possessions. The servant failed to find the girl.
Someone came to Judah with word that his former daughter-in-law was pregnant. He was very upset by this and said she needed to be burned to death. As she was being dragged to her father-in-law’s judgment, she laid the staff and seal at his feet and told him they belonged to the father of her child. Caught in his own guilt, and recognizing that they were his, he commended her for having much more righteousness than he ever had. She had twins which she named Perez and Zerah. As an interesting side note, the bloodline of Jesus came through Perez and Tamar, and through her father-in-law, Judah.
One of the gentlemen, Oscar (that name sounds awful familiar, doesn’t it) Folsom, who was also thought to be a possible father, died. Grover Cleveland became the executor of his estate. In addition, he supervised the upbringing of Oscar’s daughter, Frances Folsom. When Cleveland was elected President, he was a bachelor and he became quite fond of this daughter. In fact, at the age of 49 years old, he married this 21 year old girl in the only White House wedding for a President.
As my frustrations grew at not being able to find any information on Maria Halpin, I reflected on how much this can be like our life of sin. The Bible is full of stories about people sinning. In fact, the Bible even states we all have sinned. But the Bible also offers us a hope from that burning death to which Tamar was sentenced. His Son, Jesus, died in our place and by His grace we can ask for forgiveness. Then when we get to the pearly gates and are introduced as the harlot of a sinful life, God will say, “Harlot? I don’t see any harlot.”
Prayer: Father, Please forgive me for my sins. Please help me to take that forgiveness and live a better life. Amen.
