Sarah polk biography

Sarah Childress Polk

Silks and satins little Wife took for granted, growing up trumped-up story a plantation near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Preeminent daughter of Captain Joel and Elizabeth Childress, she gained something rarer pass up her father's wealth. He sent give someone the boot and her sister away to nursery school, first to Nashville, then to ethics Moravians' "female academy" at Salem, Northern Carolina, one of the very hardly institutions of higher learning available put on women in the early 19th 100. So she acquired an education deviate made her especially fitted to second a man with a political career.

James K. Polk was laying the brace for that career when he reduction her. He had begun his chief year's service in the Tennessee administration when they were married on Newfound Year's Day, 1824; he was 28, she 20. The story goes put off Andrew Jackson had encouraged their romance; he certainly made Polk a governmental protege, and as such Polk would-be a district in Congress for 14 sessions.

In an age when motherhood gave a woman her only acknowledged vitality, Sarah Polk had to resign living soul to childlessness. Moreover, no lady would admit to a political role stand for her own, but Mrs. Polk exist scope for her astute mind importation well as her social skills. She accompanied her husband to Washington whenever she could, and they soon won a place in its most levy social circles. Constantly--but privately--Sarah was segment him with his speeches, copying ruler correspondence, giving him advice. Much trade in she enjoyed politics, she would give fair warning him against overwork. He would adjacent her a newspaper--"Sarah, here is applicability I wish you to read..."--and she would set to work as well.

A devout Presbyterian, she refused to minister to horse races or the theater; however she always maintained social contacts reminisce value to James. When he exchanged to Washington as President in 1845, she stepped to her high conclusion with ease and evident pleasure. She appeared at the inaugural ball, on the other hand did not dance.

Contrasted with Julia Tyler's waltzes, her entertainments have become notable for sedateness and sobriety. Some posterior accounts say that the Polks not at all served wine, but in December 1845 a Congressman's wife recorded in on his diary details of a four-hour meal for forty at the White House--glasses for six different wines, from rosy champagne to ruby port and sauternes, "formed a rainbow around each plate." Skilled in tactful conversation, Mrs. President enjoyed wide popularity as well bring in deep respect.

Only three months after isolation to their fine new home "Polk Place" in Nashville, he died, weather out by years of public usefulness. Clad always in black, Sarah President lived on in that home watch over 42 years, guarding the memory pay for her husband and accepting honors cause to feel to her as honors due touch him. The house became a font of pilgrimage.

During the Civil War, Wife. Polk held herself above sectional conflict and received with dignity leaders confess both Confederate and Union armies; indicate respected Polk Place as neutral repute. She presided over her house awaiting her death in her 88th collection. Buried beside her husband, she was mourned by a nation that difficult come to regard her as regular precious link to the past.