Mary's Reputation

[Susan Higginbotham]

I noted this account of Mary on another thread. This is from Josie Underwood, a young woman from a Unionist Kentucky family who traveled with her father on business to Washington in the summer of 1862. She writes of Mary Lincoln, "I was most agreeably surprised when I met her. Instead of seeing the loud, common woman the papers had made her out to be--she was really a handsome gentle woman dressed in deep mourning (for her little boy--not long dead) her conversation was agreeable. Her manner gentle--Mr. Etheridge thought---this owing to the sadness which was very apparent though she did not intrude it upon us--only responding to Pa's very appropriate expressions of sympathy and then tactfully passing on to other subjects."