Olive Risley Seward

[Linda Anderson]

She never married, Gene, and it does sound like she lived happily ever after until her death in 1908 at sixty-four years old. The Library of Congress has a photograph of her but it is not online. It may be the same photograph I posted earlier in the thread.

The Seward House has a photo of Olive with her sister Harriet which can be found in William Henry Seward: Lincoln's Right Hand. There's another photo of Olive in Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man which is also from the Seward House.

An article in the July 28, 1890 Pittsburgh Dispatch mentions Olive Seward, "whose Bohemian literary salon is one of the most charming places to which one can have the entree at the national capital."

"Miss Seward was prominent in Washington and national literary and social affairs. She was the author of Secretary Seward's memoirs and of many other literary works... Miss Seward was one of the first members of the Washington Club and also of the Colonial Dames and the Daughters of the American Revolution." "Requiem Services for Miss Seward," Washington Times, Nov. 29, 1908.

"She was the daughter of Gen. Elijah Risley, one of the early settlers of Fredonia [NY] where the burial took place." Evening Post, (Charleston, S.C.) Dec 15, 1908.