Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, IL

Stories about Mary Lincoln’s “difficult” personality abound; stories about her good deeds and genuine generosity are less common.

Miss Todd of Lexington, KY

Mary’s sister Elizabeth Edwards

Mary Todd of Lexington, KY had lived in Springfield, IL since 1837. For five years, she made her home with her sister, Mrs. Ninian Edwards, Jr. Well-placed by marriage as well as via the inherited Todd “snootiness,” Elizabeth Todd Edwards determined to bring her three full-sisters to Springfield, and marry them off to promising gentlemen, thus forming a core of suitable society in the state capital.

Miss Mary was duly introduced to the cream of the Springfield crop, and arguably her most carefree years. Her “expenses” were paid. She had no real responsibilities, including those of “housework.” She quickly gravitated to a little “coterie” of single friends, both male and female. They entertained each other at luncheons and parties, attended lectures and theatricals and whatever pleasurable activities were available in a growing town.

Mary’s acquaintanceship and subsequent courtship with Abraham Lincoln was not without flaws and tribulations. The Edwardses liked Lincoln well enough – but not as a potential family member. His background was pitiful, he had no formal education, and other than debts, had little to bring to any marriage. But the courtship rocked itself to an even keel, and the two married on November 4, 1842.

For the next eighteen years, Mary Lincoln of Springfield, Illinois lived a generally uneventful life, basically enjoying and suffering the ups and downs of a conventional middle-class marriage that had often struggled to reach that middle-class level.

Mrs. Lincoln, Housewife

The Lincoln house in Springfield, IL

After a lonely first year of marriage, living in a local tavern, pregnant with her eldest son, and a husband who spent weeks “riding the circuit” trying to earn a living, the Lincolns moved to their first and only house, on Eighth and Jackson Streets, a short walk from the state house.

Mary may have been unaccustomed to doing the daily chores of running a household, but she certainly knew what they were. Lincoln opened accounts at some of the local stores, and Mary purchased necessary furniture. She made her own draperies and clothing. She purchased a book of recipes and taught herself to cook. While she was likely average in the kitchen, she nevertheless embraced the duties, and Lincoln seldom complained.

Mothering, however, was her delight. She grew up in a household full of babies. Herself the 4th of 6 (by her father’s first wife), she eventually had 8 additional half-siblings. By the time the “halves” came along, Mary was around ten – and the babies kept coming every year and a half or so. By the time she was fifteen, she was the oldest girl living at home, and while she boarded at her finishing school, it was local. She returned on weekends, and helping care for little ones was part of her life.

She always loved babies and children.

Eddie.

Edward Baker Lincoln

The eldest Lincoln son, Robert

Robert Todd Lincoln, named for Mary’s father, was the eldest of the four Lincoln sons, a healthy fellow, promising to grow strong as he grew older.

Two years later, Edward Baker Lincoln was born. Named for a close friend of Lincoln, Eddie seemed to be less robust. Prone to numerous childhood illnesses, he nevertheless lived to be nearly four: old enough to be a playmate for his brother Robert, and old enough for Robert to have some memory of him.

Some time before his death, and after spending a few months en famille in Washington, where Lincoln served a term as Congressman, Eddie began to fail in health. Some accounts say he had tuberculosis.

By that time, Lincoln was back riding the circuit, away for weeks and months at a time. Mary, for all intents and purposes, was a single mother to a six-year-old, and a sickly toddler. She tended him continually, with very little sleep or help. Dr. William Wallace, who had married her sister Frances, was devoted help and comfort to the family, but Eddie died in early 1850.

A month after Eddie’s death, Mary was pregnant again – this time with Willie, named for that same William Wallace who had been so steadfast during that painful time.

Mary Lincoln with Willie and Tad

Tad – formally named “Thomas” for Lincoln’s father, was born two and a half years after Willie. It was a very difficult birth. Mary was thirty-five, in labor for two whole days. Two doctors attended with instruments handy, should they be needed. There would be no more children after that.

Willie had only been fully weaned a few months earlier, but Mary, exhausted as she was, recovered well enough to nurse Tad, who was growing strong.

Good Neighbor Mary

A few months after Tad’s birth, Mrs. Charles Dallman a Springfield neighbor, gave birth to a son. It was also a difficult birth, and Harriet Dallman was weak, with little milk to feed her baby.

Mary’s kindness is remembered in long-ago print.

Despite the fact that the Dallmans and Lincolns were merely neighborly acquaintances, when Mrs. L. learned that the baby was literally starving because he couldn’t get sufficient milk, she directed her husband to go to the Dallman house and bring the baby back to her, insisting she had plenty of milk to spare.

Abraham Lincoln regularly stopped at the Dallman house, tiptoed in and brought the baby to Mary, who wet-nursed him for several weeks until his mother was strong enough.  Unfortunately the boy died in early childhood.  The Lincolns, knowing first hand the pain of losing of little one, sent over trays of food after the funeral to help them through their sorrowful times.

Harriet Dallman lived to be 85, and never forgot Mrs. Lincoln’s kindness.

Sources:

Baker, Jean- Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography – W. W. Norton & Company, 1989

Clinton, Catherine – Mrs. Lincoln: A Life – Harper Collins, 2009