Influential Women of the Civil War Period

[Gene C]

(05-09-2015 01:35 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Regarding your first two categories, although his stepmother supported his desire to study and he allegedly said that "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother", I think their actual shaping influence was little. I am quite sure he would have made his way whatever the circumstances.

I politely disagree with you on this Eva. Without his mother's and step-mothers influence and encouragement I don't think he would have ever developed in the man he became. She certainly ran interference between Abraham and his father. With such little formal education, she had to be the one that gave him the chance to read and study that his father did not seem to think would be beneficial for him.