My wholly off topic little rant for the Fourth, which everyone in my (small) circle is so sick of hearing me talk about that I have nowhere else to go with it: As we celebrate this holiday, and perhaps call to mind some of our favorite Americans, I want to recommend a thought towards Mary Todd Lincoln, a great American.
Prior to taking …
My wholly off topic little rant for the Fourth, which everyone in my (small) circle is so sick of hearing me talk about that I have nowhere else to go with it: As we celebrate this holiday, and perhaps call to mind some of our favorite Americans, I want to recommend a thought towards Mary Todd Lincoln, a great American.
Prior to taking my son to Springfield,IL to visit all the Lincoln stuff (my son is named after Lincoln), I had only the vaguest notions about MTL, which were mostly that she was nutty and a millstone and nuisance to her husband. In the Lincoln Museum there was a hologram of the Lincoln family, and I became instantly curious about the woman standing there. (There is also an actual stovepipe hat that Abe wore, and you can see the spots of wear left on it by his fingertips - I cried.)
In the gift shop I bought a biography of Mary, and have since read more. She and Abe had 4 sons, 3 of whom died - one before the WH, one while in the WH and during the war, one after the WH. The fourth son had her committed to a mental hospital, from which she was sprung by a rare-at-the-time woman lawyer.
When her husband was mortally shot at Ford's theater and moved to a nearby house, the men in the room where his dying body lay and where she was wailing, shouted "get that woman out of here," and they did get that woman out of there.
Mary and Abe were maybe the original American celebrity couple, as they took the train journey from Springfield to Washington to begin his presidency there were throngs of people lining the way, at stations climbing lampposts to get a view of the couple.
She was maybe an original believer in American consumer culture once at the WH, buying what she hoped would be a sense of security and belonging, but was in fact just deep and damaging debt.
She was derided by the Washington establishment - too Southern, too emotional, too hick.
Their marriage began as a real love-match, maybe even passionate in the you-know-what dept, but the horrors of the war, the loss of their first 2 children, put a strain on them both individually and as a couple.
Her grief lead her to conduct seances and alienated her from the people around her...she should just get over it. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that if the many personal catastrophes, not to mention the national one of civil war, were to befall me, I'd be holding seances too, and tend to nuttiness. I think she sacrificed as much as any American ever has, and should hold a place of honor, especially on July 4.
My wholly off topic little rant for the Fourth, which everyone in my (small) circle is so sick of hearing me talk about that I have nowhere else to go with it: As we celebrate this holiday, and perhaps call to mind some of our favorite Americans, I want to recommend a thought towards Mary Todd Lincoln, a great American.
Prior to taking my son to Springfield,IL to visit all the Lincoln stuff (my son is named after Lincoln), I had only the vaguest notions about MTL, which were mostly that she was nutty and a millstone and nuisance to her husband. In the Lincoln Museum there was a hologram of the Lincoln family, and I became instantly curious about the woman standing there. (There is also an actual stovepipe hat that Abe wore, and you can see the spots of wear left on it by his fingertips - I cried.)
In the gift shop I bought a biography of Mary, and have since read more. She and Abe had 4 sons, 3 of whom died - one before the WH, one while in the WH and during the war, one after the WH. The fourth son had her committed to a mental hospital, from which she was sprung by a rare-at-the-time woman lawyer.
When her husband was mortally shot at Ford's theater and moved to a nearby house, the men in the room where his dying body lay and where she was wailing, shouted "get that woman out of here," and they did get that woman out of there.
Mary and Abe were maybe the original American celebrity couple, as they took the train journey from Springfield to Washington to begin his presidency there were throngs of people lining the way, at stations climbing lampposts to get a view of the couple.
She was maybe an original believer in American consumer culture once at the WH, buying what she hoped would be a sense of security and belonging, but was in fact just deep and damaging debt.
She was derided by the Washington establishment - too Southern, too emotional, too hick.
Their marriage began as a real love-match, maybe even passionate in the you-know-what dept, but the horrors of the war, the loss of their first 2 children, put a strain on them both individually and as a couple.
Her grief lead her to conduct seances and alienated her from the people around her...she should just get over it. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that if the many personal catastrophes, not to mention the national one of civil war, were to befall me, I'd be holding seances too, and tend to nuttiness. I think she sacrificed as much as any American ever has, and should hold a place of honor, especially on July 4.