Sons and parents

[LincolnToddFan]

[I have an "unusual" question. Mary Lincoln's dressmaker and friend, in the White House, Elizabeth Keckly, wrote about something she heard and saw after Willie's death in 1862. Mrs. Keckly said she overheard Abraham take Mary by the arm, lead her over to a White House window, point to an insane asylum in the distance, and tell her, "Mother, do you see that large white building on the hill yonder? Try and control your grief, or it will drive you mad, and we may have to send you there."

My question assumes Mrs. Keckly saw and heard correctly. If true, I doubt Abraham was really being serious, but I don't know that with absolute certainty. (Was it Laurie who once said she didn't feel there was an asylum that could be seen from the White House?)

Does anyone know if Abraham discussed his concern with Robert? Or could Mrs. Keckly have told Robert about this at some time when he was not at Harvard?]// quote


Hi Roger,

This is an excellent question and gives us a lot to think about. I tend to agree with you and Laurie and Scott and Eva. I cannot see AL ever forcibly having his wife committed. I agree that he was probably trying to send her a "jolt". As far as any convos between Keckly and Robert about Mary's worsening emotional/mental state I tend to believe "no". Despite Keckly's intimacy with Mary personally, Robert had a very "correct" view of the boundaries between servants and employers and that attitude might have been magnified by the fact that Keckly was a Black woman. She was treated as a member of the family only up to a point. As Laurie pointed out she was, at the end of the day, a domestic.

Robert came home to be with his family for a time after Willie died and would not have needed anyone to tell him about his mother's breakdown and desperate grief. He saw it all first hand. Remember that after Willie's private viewing by the Lincoln family before the funeral Mary had to be personally assisted up the stairs back to her room by AL, and she did not return downstairs for the funeral. Robert was doubtless privy to many personal conversations and harrowing scenes within the family in the awful days and weeks that followed Willie's death. His aunt Elizabeth Edwards-to whom he was extremely close-was also with the family at that time. There is no doubt in my mind that Mary was "Topic A" between Aunt Lizzie, AL, and Robert during that time. But unlike Keckly, Robert would never have made those private conversations public, never.

I remain torn on what action AL would have taken if his wife had continued to spiral out of control after the WH years, as I personally believe she was becoming progressively worse at the end of his life. He might have brought her back to Springfield and done his best to care for her himself. He might have sought family help as he consistently tried to do in the WH. It's heartbreaking the way he was always seeming to plead with her sisters to come and stay with her. But Mary alienated them one by one.

Which brings me to RTL. When I read the details of what lead him to have Mary committed, I do understand why he did it. His final solution of a personal companion for his mother had fallen through. She could not live with his family. She was becoming a danger to herself. He could not ignore the fact that she was wandering the streets and attempting to leap from her hotel window. But I agree with Eva. It was the WAY he went about it that has darkened his reputation. He paid doctors to commit perjury and to testify without even examining his mother! There is evidence that her breakdown coincided with the 10th anniversary of the assassination...would not a skilled doctor have been able to realize this after a careful examination of the patient? Perhaps RTL could have persuaded his mother of the necessity of a "rest" at the sanitarium. As Laurie has pointed out it wasn't a run of the mill Victorian hellhole of an asylum. It actually sounded rather pleasant. Robert-along with help from Elizabeth Edwards- might have first tried to persuade Mary to enter such a place voluntarily until the crisis had passed.

Because in fact it DID pass eventually. There is no evidence of anything other than mild eccentricity, grief and loneliness during MTL's subsequent time in Europe after she was released.