Welcome

[L Verge]

I started reading the book this evening and finished about fifty pages. I am thoroughly enjoying learning so much about a little girl that previously has just floated through some of the volumes that I have read about the Lincoln assassination and the Civil War years in Washington, D.C. I suspect I am going to give it an A+ at the end, just as I did the American Queen and Kate Chase.

I agree with Linda that Mrs. Seward may have suffered from anxiety disorder, which can cause people to think one is a hypochondriac. From just these few chapters, I suspect that Frances Seward was coddled by her father and expected the same from a husband. When she acquired an extrovert for a husband, I wonder if her feigning illness (knowingly or unknowingly) led to her chronic "illnesses" in order to try and get that coddling?

Mrs. Seward was certainly very active in social issues of the day, especially in her concerns for the welfare of black Americans. She must not have been too sickly to work in that field. In fact, Ms. Kircher points out that she wanted reforms and emancipation to come much faster than even her husband and that was a bone of contention between them,