5 love letters from 5 former U.S. presidents

Former President Donald Trump dedicated Wednesday’s campaign fundraising email to his wife, Melania. While asking for donations, he wished the former first lady a Happy Valentine’s Day.

Under the subject line, “This is a Valentine’s Day letter from Donald J Trump,” the email, sent out on Feb. 14, read, “Dear Melania, I love you. Even after every single indictment, arrest, and witch hunt, you never left my side.”

“You’ve always supported me through everything. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your guidance, kindness and warmth. You will always mean the world to me, Melania! From your husband with love, Donald J Trump.”

While Trump’s note to his wife is maybe a little outside the norm, here are five more traditional love letters former U.S. presidents have written to their significant others.

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Richard Nixon and Pat Ryan met in 1937 and were married three years later. They shared a close and affectionate relationship, per biographers. One of Nancy Reagan’s press secretaries once said, “They never took each other for granted. They never stopped courting.” In one undated note to his wife, Nixon pens his genuine feelings.

“Every day and every night I want to see you and be with you. Yet I have no feeling of selfish ownership or jealousy. Let’s go for a long ride Sunday; let’s go to the mountains weekends; let’s read books in front of fires; most of all, let’s really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours,” he wrote.

Although Nixon’s prose was sweet, Ronald Reagan gives him a run for his money. Reagan was known for his love letters to Nancy Reagan that he wrote throughout their marriage — whether it was from the California governor’s office or the White House. On Valentine’s Day, 1960, he wrote to her: “What do you say about someone who’s always there with support and understanding, someone who makes sacrifices so that your life will be easier and more successful? Well, what you say is that you love that person and treasure her.

“Without you there would be no sun, no moon, no stars. With you, they are all out at the same time,” he wrote. “We are so much ‘one’ that you are as vital to me as my own heart — with one exception; you could never be replaced with a transplant.

“Feb. 14 may be the date they observe and call Valentine’s Day but that is for people of only ordinary luck. I happen to have a ‘Valentine’s life’ which started on March 4, 1952, and will continue as long as I have you,” Reagan wrote to his wife.

Before Lyndon B. Johnson’s first date with Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor was over, the former president had asked Taylor to marry him. Johnson wasn’t deterred by Lady Bird's cautious disposition and won her over within 10 weeks. They tied the knot on Nov. 14, 1934. Around 90 letters the couple wrote to each other have been digitized and are available to view on the LBJ Presidential Library website. In this letter from Sept. 15, 1934, the president expresses his disappointment over Lady Bird’s lack of romantic feelings towards him.

Described as a “gentle writer,” Theodore Roosevelt exchanged at least 39 letters with his first wife Alice Hathaway Lee. Their love story was short as she died on Valentine's Day in 1884, shortly after the birth of their daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

“Sweetest little wife, I think all the time of my little laughing, teazing beauty, and how pretty she is, and how she goes to sleep in my arms, and I could almost cry I love you so,” he wrote to her in 1883, three years into their marriage.

Married for 77 years, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter shared the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history. At Rosalynn Carter’s tribute service, their daughter Amy shared “some of his words about loving and missing” his wife, who died in November 2023 at age 96.

“My mom spent most of her life in love with my dad, their partnership and love story was a defining feature of her life, because he isn’t able to speak to you today I am going to share some of his words about loving and missing her,” Amy Carter said. “This is from a letter he wrote 75 years ago while he was serving in the Navy.”

The letter she shared reveals Jimmy Carter’s devotion to his wife.

“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are. While I am away I try to convince myself that you really are not, could not be as sweet and beautiful as I remember. But when I see you I fall in love with you all over again. Does that seem strange to you? It doesn’t to me,” Carter wrote to her.

“Good bye darling, until tomorrow, Jimmy.”