Puzzled by Elizabeth Keckley, famously portrayed through time as Mary Lincoln's only friend in Washington. I've just finished her book, or nearly so. There's a part at the end I ditched, a kind of invented bit where Elizabeth gets into Mary's life before she met her- filled with what Mary said, did, intended and aspired to in Mary's words with quotations. Found this not believable since we never heard from Mary or her husband or any of the other players in history what the conversations were which Keckley claims to record word for word. Those conversations help draw a word picture of Mary Lincoln which is not flattering, especially when you consider people like Herndon were out there gleefully gathering material for the hatefest which would consume his life and bank account- people would tend to lend credence to them coming from a friend. When reading negative ' press' on Mary you can
still catch a whiff of Herndon's ridiculous fractured fairytales at work. Some of that damaging nonsense he manufactured from the whole cloth lent him by Mary Lincoln's talented modist, African American Elizabeth Keckley. But
why?
Elizabeth had an awful, awful life before literally working herself to freedom. Talk about a self-made woman, gee whiz! She seems to have been composed of steel, talent, perservence, intelligence and did I say talent?
"
Elizabeth's life as a slave included harsh, arbitrary beatings "to subdue her stubborn pride," frequent moves to work for often poor family members, and being "persecuted for four years" by Alexander Kirkland, a white man, by whom she had a son. "
http://www.anb.org/articles/20/20-00530.html
She describes this as a rape- something the online bios seem to refuse to do, no idea why. Women know when this has occurred.
I can't find an online bio which describes her life with a family she lived with, the Garlands, but she worked literally for them, keeping them alive and solvent with her dressmaking talents. The husband and father was terrible at earning a living, from Elizabeth's account, did not have to - she provided all of them with the means to eat and a roof over their heads. Slaves did that. Mr. Garland died, his will stated she was worth $ 1200. " Lizzie " had asked for years to be free- to buy her freedom, her white clients pooled money sufficient for her to do so. Another long story short, she ended up in Washington.
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Elizabeth's talent and her incredible drive- not a lot you can do with talent if there's no purpose behind it- put her inside the home of future Confederate President Jefferson Davis, on the eve of the Rebellion. Varina wished her to ' go South ' with the family, so helpful had she become. A huge, huge proposition to put before a free black woman in 1860. Various wives of politicians appeared at functions in her designs and she freely stated her wish to design for the resident wife of the White House. It was not ego, Keckley was simply that good. Varina genuinely believed Elizabeth would fare much better in Virginia with the Davis family. Elizabeth found a way to gracefulyl decline. Her little business had become established, her clients really were counting on her.
Mary and Elizabeth's famous friendship began with a single visit, blossomed quickly through the years as Keckley became much more than a designer to this lonely, demanding, frequently kind woman. In her book, Keckley describes instances of Mary Lincoln's kindness to her, personal acts of friendship like taking her on long trips, ensuring she received invitations to some glittering social events, fulfilling requests asked of her. In the instance where Mary fills in Elizabeth of the massive debt she owes, neglects to mention some of that money is owed to her- while at the same time ' tsk-tsk's ' disapprovingly, how could Mrs. Lincoln keep such a secret from her husband? Seems a little not-nice, writing of these acts of friendship then throwing Mary under the bus over her debts. The debts have a nasty habit of popping up later in the book, too, like TB.
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Elizabeth's only son, Kirkland's, was killed in the war. The black armband would either be from his death or maybe this is after the assassination.
Elizabeth speaks admiringly of her one moment, saying she'd heard she was vulgar and was pleased to see she was anything but- then will go on in the next chapter to describe what a jealous shrew she was, and somehow remember a verbatim conversation between husband and wife concerning the subject. She actually write how she never came across such an ornery specimen of a female ( paraphrasing ), Mary was so peculiar! Gosh. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if one was on intimate terms of friendship with Mary Lincoln, it was full of drama, emotion and tears but to tell the general public you, her acknowledge friend, find her to be such an ugly personality is beyond ' mean girl'. Elizabeth had been with her through Willie and her husband's deaths, knew how dreadfully these had affected her. She also writes of the many enemies Mary had which she seemingly did
not deserve, hers for simply being from the South.
None of the dresses are certain, even the purple with the white piping- there's no certain proof, but this one is another ' Probably made by Elizabeth Keckley "
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You do tend to
want to believe the many, many conversations Elizabeth transcribes which have Lincoln speaking, exchanging thoughts with his wife and sometimes Elizabeth. The thing is, they are so numerous and so specific, makes you wonder how did anyone remember so many, so well? Maybe she did, we do not know. I can't remember what I said to my son yesterday, much less entire conversations from 20 years previously. Maybe of he were President, might shake loose some memories?
Keckley may have also rubbed me the wrong way by presupposing Mary's intentions and beliefs. Keckely stated herself quite early in her career that she certainly wished to be the modist for the White House. Not a thing wrong with that- everything right about it, especially for a talent like hers. She does go on to invent Mary's open intention, however through conversations she supposedly had with Douglas, another pretender for Mary's hand, during their courtship. She has Mary telling Douglas that she will not marry him because she wants to live in the White House so she has to marry someone who will make it there. Keckely then writes Douglas's part in the conversation ( because she was there ) saying Mary was making a mistake and of course he would live there.
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I don't wish to throw Elizabeth under the bus entirely. I wasn’t expecting quite this when it came to her book “ Behind the Scenes in the Lincoln White House “. I’d heard there was a backlash, hope Mary Lincoln felt somewhat vindicated, people did feel Keckley had violated Mary’s privacy. Mary never spoke to her old friend again. As I read, I kept thinking well, what would be the unforgivable
IT ? Tough call. There’s kind of a lot- possibly the indirect charge that Mary did not marry her husband for love, which is one of Herndon’s biggest pieces of nonsense too. Elizabeth later wrote many letters of apologies, begging to be allowed back into Mary’s life but it was too late. We know Mary really did die fairly alone, and lonely- just like she was when she first came to Washington, before she met Elizabeth Keckley.
Keckley's quilt made from Mary Lincoln's dresses
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Really, a regal woman