24 According to some, William McKinley gave away his good luck charm just before he was shot
Following the assassination of William McKinley a story arose that the president gave away a red carnation to a little girl in the reception line as he was shaking hands with the public. According to the story McKinley habitually wore a red carnation as a good luck totem, and he kept them in a bowl on his desk in the White House to give to favored visitors. He was known to occasionally remove the carnation in his lapel and give it away, though his habit was to replace the flower as soon as he could. Years later a woman named Myrtle Ledger claimed to have been the recipient of the carnation, though the lack of contemporaneous reporting of the story makes it possibly apocryphal.