Mary's funeral expenses

[Lincoln Wonk]

I wonder what happened to all those clothes. I hope they were given to the 19th Century equivalent of Goodwill.

[RJNorton]

Thanks for posting the source, Susan.

Kathy, I don't remember ever reading what happened to the trunks. Maybe someone will know.

I thought I'd post a paragraph from the Life article dealing with the trunks:

"In the room next to her, Aunt Mary had 64 trunks. Grandmother's maid left because she was afraid to sleep under that room, with all that weight. The trunks were filled with bolts of curtain materials and dress goods. Aunt Mary had a lot of clothes in her trunks made out of elegant foreign material she bought abroad, and she had basted it together to look like dresses - to escape the customs duty. She wouldn't stop buying. Once she bought 300 pairs of gloves at one time and two dozen watches. She had about a hundred shawls. Every day she got up and went through those trunks for hours. Grandmother said it was funny, if Aunt Mary was so sick, that she was able to be up all day bending over her trunks."

[Lincoln Wonk]

Thanks for posting the source, Susan.

Kathy, I don't remember ever reading what happened to the trunks. Maybe someone will know.

I thought I'd post a paragraph from the Life article dealing with the trunks:

"In the room next to her, Aunt Mary had 64 trunks. Grandmother's maid left because she was afraid to sleep under that room, with all that weight. The trunks were filled with bolts of curtain materials and dress goods. Aunt Mary had a lot of clothes in her trunks made out of elegant foreign material she bought abroad, and she had basted it together to look like dresses - to escape the customs duty. She wouldn't stop buying. Once she bought 300 pairs of gloves at one time and two dozen watches. She had about a hundred shawls. Every day she got up and went through those trunks for hours. Grandmother said it was funny, if Aunt Mary was so sick, that she was able to be up all day bending over her trunks."

This is interesting. The original shopoholic. Thanks Roger.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger - most fascinating! I recall Mary Harlan was in care of what to do with the content.

[Houmes]

Kathy, I don't remember ever reading what happened to the trunks. Maybe someone will know
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The Last Lincolns by Charles Lachman:

p 281 "Mary Todd Lincoln's things were transported by rail to the town of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, where a large room on the third floor of the Harlan family home was cleared out to make space for sixty-five trunks."

"Piles of clothes had been set up on long trestle tables with index cards indicating where they were going to be shipped. Some items were destined for Lincoln relatives...others were to be sent to institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Chicago Historical Society."

Even after "Mary Lincoln had been dead two years...the task was so time-consuming there were still several trunks her daughter-in-law had yet to open."

[Susan Higginbotham]

Donna McCreary in her book says that some of the dresses were appropriated by Robert's young daughters, who used some of the fabric for reticules for friends. Victorian recycling at its finest!

[RJNorton]

Thanks Eva, Blaine, and Susan.

(Looks like we now have 65 trunks!?)

[Gene C]

She had so many trunks because shipping was free on VSN
(Victorian Shopping Network)

[Eva Elisabeth]

This was originally a letter to the editor of the Cincinnati "Commercial" that was reprinted in other newspapers, "gossiping" about Mary's life at the Edwardses' in 1882 - and only sixty trunks made it into the papers:
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1881/...m-lincoln/
Attired in pink silk?!...

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She had so many trunks because shipping was free on VSN
(Victorian Shopping Network)

Modern day options would definitely have been way over her head - Amazon comes up with 48,989 results for "footstool".