| Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sarah Bush December 13, 1788 Elizabethtown, Kentucky |
| Died | April 12, 1869 (aged 80) |
| Resting place | Shiloh Cemetery, Lerna, Illinois |
| Known for | stepmother of Abraham Lincoln |
| Spouse | Daniel Johnston Thomas Lincoln |
| Children | 3, 2 step children |
Sarah Bush Lincoln (December 13, 1788 - April 12, 1869) was the second wife of Thomas Lincoln and stepmother of President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. She was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky to Christopher and Hannah Bush. She married her first husband, Daniel Johnston, in 1806, and they had three children. When Daniel Johnston died in 1816, she was widowed. In 1819 she married Thomas Lincoln and joined his family with her three children.
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Thomas Lincoln had met Sarah while living in Elizabethtown, Kentucky with his first wife Nancy Hanks. After she died in 1818, Thomas returned to Elizabethtown, as he had heard that Sarah was then a widow. They married on December 2, 1819. He brought her and her three children to his farm in Indiana, where she became stepmother to his two children.
She treated Sarah and Abraham the same as her own children, earning the lasting affection of Abraham. Age 10 when she arrived, he always addressed her as "Mother." She encouraged his appetite for reading and learning. As an adult, he visited her "every year or two," and was apparently closer to her than to his father.[1]
After Thomas died in 1851, Lincoln maintained his parents' farm in Coles County, Illinois for Sarah and supported her until his death. Their final visit occurred January 31-February 1, 1861, just before Lincoln left Illinois for the White House.[2]
Lincoln's legendary sense of humor was probably influenced by his stepmother. He recalled that she was a firm but kind-hearted woman who loved to laugh. When he was eighteen years old, Lincoln, at 6' 4", was so tall that his head nearly touched the ceiling of the family's farmhouse kitchen. His stepmother repeatedly joked that Lincoln was so tall that she was afraid he would leave footprints on her ceiling. Lincoln decided to have some fun with this idea. One day, when his stepmother was not home, Lincoln got together a group of younger boys and had them dip their bare feet in the mud outside the farmhouse kitchen. Then Lincoln took each of the boys inside, held them upside-down, and had them walk their feet across the ceiling, leaving muddy footprints. When Sarah Lincoln saw the muddy footprints on her ceiling, Lincoln recalled, she "took a broom to my head, but I could tell she was very amused by it."
Sarah is buried next to Thomas in nearby Shiloh Cemetery, just south of Lerna, Illinois.
| Honorary titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jane Polk |
Mother of the President of the United States March 4, 1861 - April 15, 1865 |
Succeeded by Mary McDonough Johnson |