Extra Credit Questions

[Eva Elisabeth]

I believe that the warm and fuzzy feelings between Mary Harlan Lincoln and her mother-in-law had cooled a bit by this time. She also had a new baby to care for, so I suspect she ran home to her mother for help and comfort. I would really like to know what the Robert Lincolns' marriage was like (the Alice Roosevelt in me needs to know!).

Also, I question how much contact Robert and Tad had with each other, especially with the age differences. Tad was born in 1853, and Robert went off to New England for prep school and Harvard in 1859. He wasn't around to pick up the pieces after Willie died, and were they really sharing a room prior to Robert's leaving? That doesn't seem fair to Robert.

I suspect that Master Tad used every trick in the book to get attention, especially once his father became President and time was scarce - and his mother had her own agenda. Frankly, if one psychoanalyzed each and every member of that family, we might term the family as being "dysfunctional." Will I now be tossed off the forum for blasphemy?

I double-checked in Emerson's bio of Robert. He states, quoting a newspaper article, that Mary Todd Lincoln was at the service held at Robert's house but was in too poor shape emotionally to accompany Tad's body to Springfield. As for Mary Harlan Lincoln, she was in Washington, D.C., with her daughter and her ailing mother. Robert regularly wrote to his wife to update her on Tad's condition. He wrote that Tad had become "so manly and self-reliant that I had the greatest hopes for his future."

I seem to recall reading somewhere that in the Chicago days Tad briefly even had the ambition to work on joining his brother's business. But I also seem to recall reading the endurance wasn't long lasting.