Sons and parents

[LincolnToddFan]

(01-12-2015 08:08 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(01-11-2015 12:40 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  ...as I personally believe she was becoming progressively worse at the end of his life.

Why do you feel so? Her depressions or her spending habits? Didn't she participate more actively in life again and even wear other colors than black? (Well, she sure was determined to get her husband reelected because of her debts).

Hi Eva, sorry for the late reply!

I base my opinion about her worsening mental state not only on her out of control spending and desperate scheming to hide it from her husband...all the while unable to stop herself from continuing to spend even more hundreds and thousands of dollars. The debacle at City Point only two weeks before the assassination is another reason I think Mary was completely out of control at the end.

In my fantasies, she and AL would have lived peacefully and happily after the war was over. But I think the years 1861-1864 had taken too much of a psychic toll on her.

BTW this is the first I have read that RTL originally intended for his mother to be confined in the State mental asylum! This surprises me because he personally went to inspect her rooms at the asylum where she was eventually committed, and it was at his insistence that the bars that covered all the patients room windows were removed in Mary's quarters. He refused to allow them. IF it's true that he was dissuaded from sending her to the State asylum all I can say is thank God.

I think that would have sent MTL right over the edge, for good.