Thoughts from Mary's sister Elizabeth

[LincolnMan]

Hiw different the two sisters seemed to be. Elizabeth Todd Edwards wrote several letters to her daughter Julia Baker. Here is an excerpt as taken from an article by Erika Holst entitled 'The Elizabeth Edwards Papers at the Library of Congress:'
"How gratified your Aunt Mary must feel , at the nomination. I do hope that her ambition, may be fully gratified in November next." Writing of the then upcoming inauguration, Elizabeth wrote, "I am averse to fashionable crowds, and although your Aunt Mary has cordially invited me, yet she can well dispense with my company." She went on to described some of what it was like for her being the sister of the future first lady, "Of course, it is known here, that I am a sister of the wife of their worshipped President-elect, and of course it is an exceeding trouble to me, for I am now obliged to dress more, and to make more effort to play the agreeable. When questioned, as to the resemblane between us, I represent myself as about 10 years older of course, and always doing her ample justice." Elizabeth was actually 5 years older than Mary.

[Susan Higginbotham]

Where is Holst's article? I'm interested in reading it.

[LincolnMan]

Sorry I didn't include that information. The article appears in: For The People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association Vol. 18 Number 4 Winter 2016.
If you are not able to access it- I would be more than happy to mail it to you.

[Susan Higginbotham]

Sorry I didn't include that information. The article appears in: For The People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association Vol. 18 Number 4 Winter 2016.
If you are not able to access it- I would be more than happy to mail it to you.

Thanks! I would love to see it, as the 2016 newsletters don't seem to be online yet.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Wasn't her daughter Julia (said) mentally ill? Does anyone know more specifically what issues she had?

[Susan Higginbotham]

Elizabeth wrote this about Julia: "[I]nsanity, although a new feature, in our family history, first appeared within my knowledge, in the case of my own daughter, at the early age of thirteen. For six months, she was so decidedly flighty, as to be closely guarded. Her back from incidents is scarred its length. At the birth of each child, the same symptoms were shown, and severely felt, particularly by her husband, and my self.

"At no time, has she ever been natural in her demeanor."

Mary Lincoln in an 1864 refers to Julia's indiscreet conduct during a White House visit, including riding in a closed carriage with a man not her husband and staying up late with gentlemen in the library. Michael Burlingame quotes a letter from Ada Bailhache, a friend of Julia's, in which she states that Julia was involved in an unspecified scandal in 1872 and that her husband was given a diplomatic posting to Argentina to get them out of the country.

I wonder what the "incidents" that led to the scarring would be.

[Steve]

Sorry I didn't include that information. The article appears in: For The People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association Vol. 18 Number 4 Winter 2016.
If you are not able to access it- I would be more than happy to mail it to you.

I'm new to this forum, but I've already seen this newsletter mentioned a couple times. Does the Association have a webpage about the newsletter or have any back issues online?

[Susan Higginbotham]

Sorry I didn't include that information. The article appears in: For The People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association Vol. 18 Number 4 Winter 2016.
If you are not able to access it- I would be more than happy to mail it to you.

I'm new to this forum, but I've already seen this newsletter mentioned a couple times. Does the Association have a webpage about the newsletter or have any back issues online?

Yes, quite a few are online:

http://www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org...etter.aspx

[Steve]

Thanks.

[Gene C]

What a great Web site you linked to.

You can tell it's a good site because on the home page, when you click on the Resources block on the left side, and then click on
Lincoln Links you get this page http://www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org/MoreLinks.aspx
where they mention the Roger Norton's "Abraham Lincoln Research Site"
http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln.html

Thanks Roger, for all that you have done and do, giving us the opportunity to learn and share information about Lincoln and his world, and to make new friends through this site.

[Eva Elisabeth]

What a great Web site you linked to.

You can tell it's a good site because on the home page, when you click on the Resources block on the left side, and then click on
Lincoln Links you get this page http://www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org/MoreLinks.aspx
where they mention the Roger Norton's "Abraham Lincoln Research Site"
http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln.html

Thanks Roger, for all that you have done and do, giving us the opportunity to learn and share information about Lincoln and his world, and to make new friends through this site.

Well said, Gene. I wholeheartedly agree and second this - thank you, Roger, for everything!

[LincolnMan]

As always, thank you Roger!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Elizabeth wrote this about Julia: "[I]nsanity, although a new feature, in our family history, first appeared within my knowledge, in the case of my own daughter, at the early age of thirteen. For six months, she was so decidedly flighty, as to be closely guarded. Her back from incidents is scarred its length. At the birth of each child, the same symptoms were shown, and severely felt, particularly by her husband, and my self.

"At no time, has she ever been natural in her demeanor."

Mary Lincoln in an 1864 refers to Julia's indiscreet conduct during a White House visit, including riding in a closed carriage with a man not her husband and staying up late with gentlemen in the library. Michael Burlingame quotes a letter from Ada Bailhache, a friend of Julia's, in which she states that Julia was involved in an unspecified scandal in 1872 and that her husband was given a diplomatic posting to Argentina to get them out of the country.

I wonder what the "incidents" that led to the scarring would be.

Thanks, Susan. I wonder the same. And I wonder if the bridegroom when he was going to marry her knew of the degree to which "at no time, has she ever been natural in her demeanor."

[kerry]

Elizabeth Edwards seems to have been very insightful and sharp, and as she mentioned in that letter about exaggerating her age, she tried to put the best spin on things. She was evidently able to keep her daughter's condition quiet for a long time. I get the sense some of the stuff she told Herndon about the courtship was strategic in some way but I've never been able to figure out what story she meant to tell. I've been wondering if there were more of her papers available - I can't wait to read that article when it comes about. Her take on the situation in the letters relating to Mary's insanity trial always seems the most insightful - she was probably way more involved in many things than we know, and didn't get much credit for it due to the way women were kept behind the scenes at the time. I've been doing a lot of research on the last year of Mary's life, which usually gets less than a page of coverage in biographies but was really pretty eventful, and i keep wondering what role she played.

Her daughter's symptoms sound like post-partum psychosis, but then the stuff about it showing at age 13 - maybe she suffered severe depressive episodes and that made her do "flighty" things, whatever that means.

[RJNorton]

Her daughter's symptoms sound like post-partum psychosis

In The Mary Lincoln Enigma, Dr. James R. Brust, a psychiatrist, writes:

"Mary Lincoln's full sister, Elizabeth Edwards, once again proves to be a helpful informant, by revealing that her daughter Julia (Mary's niece) first showed signs of 'insanity' at age thirteen, and 'at the birth of each child the same symptoms were shown, and severely felt.' Since the niece's symptoms were described as 'insanity,' they must have been severe. The picture described sounds consistent with full-blown postpartum psychosis, rather than milder postpartum depression, and women with such episodes in their childbearing years often turn out to be bipolar with spells of illness later in life. The likelihood that niece Julia Edwards Baker suffered from bipolar disorder is strengthened by knowledge that she engaged in 'risqué' behavior in 1864 and was involved in a scandal in 1872. While details are not known, it seems quite possible these events involved sexual indiscretion, and hypersexual behavior is another sign of a manic state."