TRAGIC BLOODLINES
How Mary Todd Lincoln’s life of pain affected future generations of my best friend’s family
Her palms are sweating. Her mind is racing. She’s pinching herself because physical pain distracts her mind from mental anguish. She’s been trying to distract herself with the sound of the rain gently striking the window beside her, but it doesn't help. There is no reasonable explanation for her anxiety attack, but that has never hindered its approach before. The panic comes out of the dark and creeps up like the monsters her imagination plagued her with when she was little. It is a monster, anxiety. It controls her and binds her up in fear of when it will attack.
Kate isn’t the only one in her family who has a history of mental health problems. Her cousin was diagnosed with crippling depression when she was ten years old. Her grandmother has a history of anxiety for which she was put on medication for. Over 16 million American struggle with anxiety and depressional related disorders. Is it just a side effect of the fast paced culture, or could Kate’s family’s mental health history be traced back to a single person?
Mary Todd Lincoln lived a life of unspeakable tragedy. As the wife of the sixteenth President of the United States, her life was constantly being monitored by the public. Her paranoia, mixed with anxiety and depression from her life’s events, created an unstable persona. The events during a certain twenty-year period designed her complex behavior and personality for the remainder of her life. These events include:
July 17, 1849- Her father dies at age 58 in Lexington, Kentucky.
February 1, 1850- Her son Edward dies at age 3 years and 11 months in Springfield.
January 17, 1851- Her father-in-law, Thomas Lincoln, dies at age 73 in Coles County, Illinois.
February 20, 1862- Her 11-year-old son William dies in the White House.
April 7, 1862- Her Confederate half-brother, Colonel Samuel Briggs Todd, is mortally wounded by friendly fire near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
July 2, 1863- She is injured in a Washington carriage accident intended to harm President Lincoln.
August 19, 1862- Her confederate half-brother, Alexander H. Todd, dies at the battle of Baton Rouge.
July 11–12, 1864- Visits Ft. Stevens and witnesses sniper fire.
July 18, 1864- Her brother Levi Oldham Todd dies at age 46 in Lexington.
April 15, 1865- Her 56-year-old husband dies of an assassin’s bullet in Washington.
May 23, 1867- Her brother-in-law, William S. Wallace, dies at age 64 in Springfield.
April 12, 1869- Sarah Johnston Lincoln, her husband’s stepmother, dies at age 80 in Coles County, Illinois.
July 15, 1871- Her son Tad dies at age 18 in Chicago.
July 30, 1871- Her notorious Confederate half-brother David dies at age 39.
February 16, 1874- Her Confederate stepmother Elizabeth Humphreys Todd dies at age 74 in Kentucky.
May 20, 1875- Forced to enter a mental institution in Batavia, Illinois, where she stays about four months.
Mary Todd is known for being mentally unstable, but I think most people would struggle with anxiety and depressional problems if they experienced what she had. There are even theories that her son had her institutionalized just so that he would inherit her wealth. I hope to discover just how “insane” she really was, or if the terrible events of her life are solely to blame for her health issues. My project will investigate how the events of her life impacted her mental health, and how the tendency of anxiety and depression could have been passed down through my dear friend Kate’s family’s history. This is particularly intriguing to me, because I have walked alongside Kate in her mental health struggles for the last year. I never would have thought that it could have been sourced from her family’s history, especially as far back as Mary Todd Lincoln. However, when she informed me of this connection and gave me permission to pursue a case study — I began to wonder. While researching for my project, I hope to answer the following questions:
1.) How many people, and who, in Kate’s family has a history of anxiety and depressional issues?
2.) How was Mary Todd treated for her mental health issues?
3.) What are contemporary treatments for similar mental health issues? How have these changed since Mary Todd’s time?
4.) Is anxiety/depression hereditary? Has there been a consistent history of these issues in Kate’s family since Mary Todd Lincoln?
5.) How did Mary Todd Lincoln’s instability impact the generations that came after her?
6.) Is there a connection between Kate’s mental health issues and Mary Todd Lincoln’s?
I have chosen to interview Kate’s grandmother as a person of reference for this study. These are the questions I will present to her:
- What is your name and how old are you?
- What do you do for a living?
- What is your relation to MT?
- Did you ever know anyone personally who knew her, or that was alive during her time?
- What do you know about Mary Todd? Are there any interesting family facts that you know about her or her decedents?
- What do you know about Mary Todd’s struggle with mental health issues?
- Have you ever struggled with anxiety or depressional problems?
- How many people in your family, that you know of, have a history of mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression?
- How have these people been treated for mental health problems? (medication, therapy, institutionalized, etc?)
- Do you think there is a possible connection between your families mental health problems, and Mary Todd Lincoln’s battle with mental health?
- How could this impact future generations of your family?
ORAL HISTORY
ME: “Hi Mrs. G! What is your name, and how old are you?”
G: “Gretchen Kathleen Griffin, I will be 76 on August 29th.”
ME: “What do you do for a living?”
G: “I am a realtor.”
ME: “What is your family’s relation to Mary Todd Lincoln?”
G: Mary Todd Lincoln is a distant relative on the Griffin side. She would be my mothers great grandmother.
ME: “Did you ever know anyone personally who knew her, or that was alive during her time?”
G: “No, my aunt Mary was closer to her, but she wasn’t alive during her time either.”
ME: “What do you know about Mary Todd? Are there any interesting family facts that you know about her or her decedents?”
G: “I really don’t, Im sorry.”
ME: “What do you know about Mary Todd’s struggle with mental health issues?”
G: “I know that a lot of people thought she was insane, and that everyone in her life passed away.”
ME: “Have you ever struggled with anxiety or depressional problems?”
G: “Of course, several times. Used to get panic attacks when kids were small, Grandpa was laid off work, and I had to work full time. Depression hit me when my mom was dying and I couldn’t be there. I was on diet pills at the time and had just had your aunt kathleen. Not my favorite memory.”
ME: “How many people in your family, that you know of, have a history of mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression?”
G: “My sister was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and was committed for a few years. Very sad story. Have a nephew with schizophrenia who killed himself crossing a railroad track. One other nephew has had severe mental problems but is on the mend. My daughter’s son was diagnosed with pretty severe depression a couple months ago, she is only 12 years old now.”
ME: How have these people been treated for mental health problems?
G: “Mostly medication. There is not a whole lot you can do for mental health other than that. My sister was committed to an institution for treatment. The son is on anti-depressants right now.”
ME: Do you think there is a possible connection between your families mental health problems, and Mary Todd Lincoln’s battle with mental health?
G: “I don’t think so.”
ME: How could this impact future generations of your family?
GRANDMA: “Schizophrenia has a hereditary factor and could surface under the right strain.”
ME: Okay that is so interesting. Thank you so much for your help!
REFLECTION (Smithsonian)
- Kate’s grandma’s story relates to the community in the present because I had no idea that Kate’s family had serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia. That could seriously impact her future family. Kate disclosed that it was comforting to her that so many people in her family have struggled with mental health problems, including her grandmother, because it makes her feel less crazy.
- My perception of community history didn’t change that much. Kate’s grandma was in a hurry during the call, and she didn’t know/ didn’t try to remember lots of detail in the questions that I asked her. She gave me a reference to a dead person (The Aunt Mary) as one who would know more on the topic. Kate was personally blessed by the knowledge and understanding of her family’s history of pain that made her feel understood.
- This project actually did inspire me so much to learn more about my family. Even though the project is done now, I want to know so much more. I want to hear more specific stories about my own family because I have realized how quickly we dismiss family heritage that lies before us. Also this project made me realize how history is not as far away as I originally may have thought. There is so much rich history just out of reach.
- Some challenges I faced was getting the interview. It seemed like whenever I was free to do it, Kate’s grandmother was busy, but when she was free, I was in class. I could have done a better job of planning for it instead of continuing to put it off. Also, ancestry did not work as well as I would have liked. It was really cool to see it making all the different connections, but it didn’t give me any amazing raw sources about Mary Todd. I could do better with organizing my time better in the future. I think also if I could have interviewed Kate’s Aunt Mary I could have gotten more information regarding Mary Todd’s life.
MY SOURCES
Through my interview with Kate’s grandmother, the goal of my Routes and Roots project is to discover how my relation to Mary Todd Lincoln has affected, and will continue to affect her family’s journey with mental health. I knew that her family had a history of mental health problems, but I had never thought that they could have been hereditary, and I especially would not have thought that they could have been traced back to a single person. Before conducting the interview with her grandmother, I collected sources to help guide the interview and get adequate research on my topic. These sources explore the possibility of hereditary mental health, and they provide information on Mary Todd’s life as a whole. I was able to evaluate these sources with a critical eye, in order to better understand the research process and gain extensive knowledge on my project.
“Common Genetic Factors Found in 5 Mental Disorders.” National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 15 May 2015, www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/common-genetic-factors-found-5-mental-disorders.
Kate was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when she was sixteen years old. Her cousin was diagnosed with crippling depression when she was ten years old. Her brother has a history of intermittent depression. During my research time with this project over the last couple weeks, I have become very intrigued with whether or not her family’s history of mental health could really be tied back to Mary Todd Lincoln. I chose to explore this article as a source because it explains the scientific possibility of mental health as hereditary. This article states that psychological problems “tend to run in families,” which I did not know. I thought this article was very important to the scientific argument of my research, and the possibility that anxiety and depression in her family could really be traced back to Mary Todd. The article explains that genetically, variations in two genes that code for the cellular machinery help regulate the flow of calcium into neurons. Variation in one of these, called CACNA1C, had previously been linked to major depression. CACNA1C is known to affect brain function in emotion, thinking, attention and memory, which can be disrupted in mental illnesses. This is relevant to my research because it could be the key to discovering whether or not Mary Todd’s mental illness was situational, or if her mental health problems were decided by genetics, which would affect generations of Kate’s family to come.
“Mary Todd Lincoln Insanity Trial: 1875.”. Great American Trials, Encyclopedia.com, 2019, www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/mary-todd-lincoln.
There has been a history of anxiety-related tendencies in Kate’s family for the past several generations. Mary Todd Lincoln had many of these tendencies as well. It is recorded that while vacationing in Florida, Mary Todd was suddenly overcome with anxiety about her son, Robert. “My belief is my son is ill..” she said in a telegraph to Chicago. After being reassured that her son was fine, her paranoia got the best of her and she boarded a train to Chicago anyway. This episode put her son over the edge, and he took his mother to court to be declared insane. This source details the trial that Mary Todd Lincoln went through, and the evidence that was used against her to declare her as insane. Examples of this evidence is that she was found with $56,000 in government securities sewn into the pockets of her petticoats, among other things. A controversy about this trial is that Mary Todd’s son, Robert was extremely adamant about having her committed, and his intentions are unclear. Did he want her committed so that he could have her money, or was she actually insane, and a danger to herself and society? This source is relevant to my research because it explains the evidence of Mary Todd’s mental health problems. This source makes me feel like her mental health problems were not as hereditary as they were situational. This could impact the research on Kate’s family because it would mean that generations that came after Mary Todd did not necessarily have mental health problems because Mary Todd did.
“Mary Todd Lincoln.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 July 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Todd_Lincoln.
I have never had a tragic death occur during my lifetime. I have been extremely fortunate, and all of my immediate family is still alive. This is interesting and relevant to my project because Mary Todd Lincoln was not as fortunate. She experienced a life of pain and loss. This source details Mary Todd’s life, every significant event of both her childhood and her adulthood. Through this source I was able to really explore Mary Todd’s life, her upbringing, and everything that she experienced that made her who she was. I discovered that Mary Todd’s family were slave owners, and that Mary Todd was raised “in comfort and refinement.” This was interesting to me because Kate’s family has a history of wealth, so it is interesting that it has been that way for awhile. Essentially everyone that Mary Todd ever loved died, which contributed to her life of pain and her struggles with mental health. This source was extremely useful as far as factual information that I needed to complete my research and my understanding of Mary Todd. This source is relevant to my project because it gave me insight into the history of Kate’s family through the lens of Mary Todd’s life. I was also able to better understand Mary Todd’s anxietal tendencies through this source’s facts about her life’s events.
“Mary Todd Lincoln’s Home. We Weren’t Allowed to Take Pictures inside. Also- It Cost $18 for Us t — Mary Todd Lincoln House, Lexington.” TripAdvisor, www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g39588-d279975-i21024262-Mary_Todd_Lincoln_House-Lexington_Kentucky.html.
This is an unusual source for a factual-based research project, but I included it because it was the best source that I could find for first-hand photographs of the place where Mary Todd Lincoln was raised.
Bibliography
McNamara, Robert. “Questions About the Sanity of Abraham Lincoln’s Wife Persist.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 12 July 2019, www.thoughtco.com/was-mary-todd-lincoln-mentally-ill-1773490.
“Mary Todd Lincoln Insanity Trial: 1875.”. “Mary Todd Lincoln Insanity Trial: 1875.” Great American Trials, Encyclopedia.com, 2019, www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/mary-todd-lincoln.
“Mary Todd Lincoln.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 July 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Todd_Lincoln.
“Mary Todd Lincoln’s Home. We Weren’t Allowed to Take Pictures inside. Also- It Cost $18 for Us t — Mary Todd Lincoln House, Lexington.” TripAdvisor, www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g39588-d279975-i21024262-Mary_Todd_Lincoln_House-Lexington_Kentucky.html.
