“Elizabeths” were imporant in Mary Lincoln’s life – and that doesn’t even include her mother Eliza and stepmother Betsey!

Friends in General

It has been said that some friends are for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. Hmmm.

But there are several kinds of friends. Deep, close friends of course. Some childhood friendships (including family) truly do last a lifetime. Then again, some decades-long friendships are no more than pleasant acquaintances. Hello-neighbors or nice co-workers or fellow parishioners or club members. The shopkeepers who have served you year in and year out.

Or the sense of “friend or foe.” People – even strangers – who wish you well, and/or certainly mean you no harm.

We all have friends in those categories. They all have their own importance.

Little Mary Todd

Mary Todd (1818-1882) had six full siblings. She was only six when her mother died and her father remarried 18 months later resulting in another eight “halfs”. The “first Todds” had a difficult relationship with their stepmother, and couldn’t wait to leave the household.

When Mary was pre-adolescent, she had a “friend” in Elizabeth Humphreys, a niece of her stepmother. They shared a room for a while. This relationship is only noted in the first biography of Mary Lincoln, written by her niece-author, Katherine Helm, by then elderly. The recollections were mainly from her mother, who was even more elderly – and eighteen years younger than Mary Lincoln! There does not appear to be any long-term continuation of the Lizzie Humphrey childhood chumminess.

By the time Mary was in her young adolescence, she chose to board at a finishing school only a mile from their house.

Miss Todd and Mrs. Lincoln

With the four full Todd sisters from the “first” family feeling like the proverbial step-children, Mary eldest sister married young Ninian Edwards, Jr. at sixteen, and went to live in Springfield, IL. As the daughter-in-law of Illinois’ first Governor, she was determined to create a suitable “society” for a state capital – and who better to populate that society than her own sisters? Each were brought to stay with the Edwards’, and to marry appropriately.

Mary’s happiest, or at least most carefree time, were arguably the five years she lived chez Edwards. She had a nice coterie of friends – male and female. Their group entertained each other regularly at luncheons or teas, hosted parties and dances, and attended whatever pleasant outings were available in growing Springfield.

Once she met and married Abraham Lincoln, the concept of friendships changed. It was the Victorian age when a woman’s husband became her “all.” (Those were the specific words used – then.) The chums of girlhood might remain naturally, but the closeness changed. Once married, they no longer called each other by first names. They were “Mrs.” whoever. And Mary was a Todd, and Todd’s were, in a phrase, kind of snooty. Their manners and bearings would be impeccable, exactly what was expected in society.

More Lizzies

Mary had a close cousin in Springfield: Elizabeth Jane Todd Grimsley (Brown). Her father and Mary’s father were brothers. Some six years younger than Mary, they nevertheless became good friends, and Lizzie was a bridesmaid at the Lincoln wedding. She married four years after the Lincolns, and became an integral part of the Lincoln-Todd family-social set.

When Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, Cousin Lizzie went to Washington for the festivities, and was prevailed upon to stay for six months. It was a mixed bag. Wonderful social events and introductions, but also a fair amount of babysitting and nursing the young Lincoln boys. Lore says she finally wrote to her family in Springfield suggesting that they “send for her,” since she was becoming tired of Washington.

Many years later, she penned a short memoir of her six-months in the White House.

Nevertheless, and despite a continuation of the relationship, there is an absence of any record of close contact between the Todd cousins.

Lizzie Keckley is a different story. She and Mrs. Lincoln were same age. Keckley was born a slave in Petersburg, VA, but via her talents with a needle, bought her freedom a few years prior to Lincoln’s inauguration. She met incoming FLOTUS Mary Lincoln shortly before the inauguration, having been recommended as a “mantua maker.”

Mary hired her, and for the next four years, she was an intimate and indispensable member of the Lincoln household. With the First Lady overcome in great measure by grief, worry and personal unpopularity, she became more and more dependent on Lizzie Keckley. But the relationship, while close and confidential, was still separate. Mary called her dressmaker “Lizzie.” She called Mary “Mrs. Lincoln.”

The severing of that close relationship is a complicated story. Suffice it to say that it ended some time after Lincoln’s assassination – mostly due to money, or lack thereof.

The First and Last Lizzie

Mary’s relationships was closest to her sister Elizabeth, five years her senior. It was this Lizzie who semi-mothered her when the first Mrs. Todd died, and who she always regarded as a mother image.

It was Lizzie who brought her to Springfield and introduced her into “society.” It was Lizzie who remained her true friend always – even punctuated by some years of estrangement following Lincoln’s assassination. It was Lizzie who was also a true friend to Robert, the eldest Lincoln son, who turned to his aunt in times of need.

And it was Lizzie who opened her home to Mary when she needed “a safe environment” following her brief sojourn in a sanitarium.

And finally, it was Lizzie to whom Mary turned, when her health began to fail. And it was Lizzie, the lifelong sister-mother and friend, who did not fail to take her in.

Sources:

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

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

Helm, Katherine – MARY: Wife of Lincoln – Harper and Brothers – 1928

http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=17

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-war-in-america/biographies/elizabeth-keckley.html