Mary Todd Lincoln Smithsonian Magazine and Reevaluation of Mary Todd Lincoln’s Oft-Misunderstood Grief

Thanks for posting the link to this article. I’ve always been intrigued with the number of children’s death before the advent of “modern” medicine. It seems so many families suffered at least one infant death and some families even more, and it is often reported as just another “fact of life” in that time period. Each death was tragic no matter what the age.

I can’t even begin to imagine what it must of been like to witness your husband’s murder. Not to mention as he was dying: “she had been banished from the president’s bedside by a furious Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who kicked her out of the room when she began to cry hysterically. Nearby, her husband was dying—but his wife of 23 years wouldn’t be there to see it” {*}. I believe it was easier to label a woman as “crazy” instead of getting to the “whys”.

It’s been said “there is nothing new under the sun” and Mary Lincoln as First Lady suffers the same fate as most First Lady’s with all the arrows in the quivers pointed at them.​

{*}https://www.history.com/news/mary-todd-lincoln-assassination-facts
 
I never understood the treatment of this woman by most historians. To think the deaths of three of her children was spread out over a period of time that would include the ACW and all its horrors. Then there was the fragmentation and loss of members of her own family in Kentucky while being treated far less than kindly by those so called petty DC elites. Finally, on top of all that she was seated next to her husband as he is shot in the head at near point blank range. Come on, how many of us would not be near madness or worse?
 
Look back into your family's history. Many children were lost. My maternal grandmother lost two children.
True in my family too. But I think every child's loss took another notch out of the level of happiness they were able to feel after that. In old pictures the children often look happy enough but the adults just look beaten down.
 
Yes, in those days--when medical knowledge was limited and disease widespread--many children died. But that didn't lessen the traumatic impact on parents (perhaps especially the mother).
I would think perhaps especially the father..............as think I read once the statistic was around 20% for women dieing in childbirth. So when one sees instances of one fathering 10-15 children back then, not only did he probally deal with losing multiple children, but likely wives as well. Father's could essentially lose both at the same or within a short time.
 
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