An Unlikely Friendship (20 page)

Encouraged that she would someday be free, Lizzy Hobbs married James Keckley in 1852. The wedding took place in the Garlands' parlor and was attended by the whole family and many friends.

After marriage, Lizzy's husband was discovered not to be a free man after all, and even to possibly being a runaway. And he drank heavily. They lived together for eight years and after their separation, as always, Lizzy kept on as a seamstress and continued working in the Garland household.

In spring of 1854, Hugh Garland died and Anne's brother, Armistead Burwell Jr., came to help settle matters. He was a successful lawyer and planter and Lizzy approached him with her proposal to be free. He was also her half brother. He was, as Lizzy tells us, "a kind-hearted man."

He agreed, as did Anne, to honor Hugh Garland's word. Lizzy made $3 a day as a seamstress. On the advice of people she knew she decided to go to New York, where it would be easier to raise the money. But as she was readying to leave, Anne Garland told her that before she could go she had to have six names of responsible people who could make up the loss if Lizzy did not come back.

Lizzy got five names and could get no more. She was already cast down and weeping when a Mrs. Le Bourgois came to the house and offered to raise the money for her. She had heard of Lizzy's plight and felt terrible for her.

The $1,200 was raised and on November 13, 1855, Anne Garland signed the papers making Lizzy Keckley free, as well as her son George, "a bright mulatto."

George was now sixteen years old, almost white, and his mother had saved him from a lifetime of slavery.

Lizzy decided that her next move would be to go to Washington City. Before she left she paid the money for her freedom back to Mrs. Le Bourgois, in full.

L
IZZY
K
ECKLEY CAME
to Washington without a husband and penniless. Soon she was making $2.50 a day, sewing for many kind and wealthy ladies who were the cream of American society. She had enrolled her son, George, in Wilberforce University in Ohio, a school for blacks that was full of the mixed-race children of white planters.

One of Lizzy's foremost employers in Washington was the wife of Colonel Robert E. Lee, of the distinguished Lee family. Lee would someday become the commander of Virginia's defenses in the American Civil War. His wife, Mary, was the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. In the fall of 1860, a dress Lizzy made for Colonel Lee's wife was so admired that Lizzy soon had other important customers, like Mrs. Mathilda Emory of Texas; Mrs. Margaretta Hetzel of Virginia; and Mrs. Varina Davis, whose husband, Jefferson, would soon become president of the Confederate States of America.

Lizzy sewed for Varina Davis's children as well. And when the Union started to tear apart after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president, the Davises were all set to return South and leave Washington. Varina Davis asked Lizzy to go with them.

"I will take good care of you," she told Lizzy. "When war breaks out, the colored people will suffer in the North because they will be blamed for being the cause of the war."

Lizzy thought the matter over seriously. But she knew the North was strong and right, so she decided to stay in Washington City.

O
NE DAY AS
she was sewing in her rented Twelfth Street house, Lizzy was visited by a woman named Mrs. Margaret McLean, one of her patrons. She had been invited to dinner at Willard's, the exclusive hotel in Washington. The date was the following Sunday and she needed a dress. Willard's was the place to be seen.

"You must commence to work on it right away," she told Lizzy, who told her she had more work promised now than she could deliver.

Mrs. McLean wouldn't take no as an answer. "I have often heard it said that you wanted to sew for ladies in the White House. Well, I have it in my power to obtain for you this privilege. I know Mrs. Lincoln well."

Right about then Lizzy employed some helpers to work on the dress for Mrs. McLean. Sometime during the next week, Mary Lincoln spilled coffee on an expensive lavender gown she hoped to wear to a party. Distraught, she did not know what to do until Mrs. McLean told her about Elizabeth Keckley.

When Lizzy delivered Mrs. McLean's dress to her at Willard's, Mrs. McLean told her to go upstairs to parlor number six, where she would meet Mary Lincoln. "She may find use for you yet," Mrs. McLean said.

And so Elizabeth Keckley went upstairs in Willard's to parlor number six, where she met Mary Lincoln, who told her to come to the White House the next morning for an interview.

M
ARY
L
INCOLN GOT
her bright rose-colored moiré antique gown in time for her party. And she also got herself a best friend in Elizabeth Keckley, though she did not know it at the time. Lizzy not only delivered the gown on time, she helped Mary Lincoln dress and did her hair as well.

That spring Lizzy made about sixteen dresses for Mary Lincoln. And when the president's wife went to Long Branch, New Jersey, on vacation that summer of 1861, Lizzy sewed for other important wives, like Mrs. Secretary Welles, Mrs. Secretary Stanton, and other wives of cabinet members.

It soon became known that Lizzy Keckley was the "only person in Washington who could get along with Mary Lincoln when she went into a frenzy about people maligning her or her husband's name."

Lizzy fit in with the staff of the Lincoln White House, too, even though color discrimination existed "below-stairs." Most of the staff were the mixed-race children of slaves, and when Abraham Lincoln brought his valet from Springfield along into the president's mansion, the man left in two days, feeling the disdain of the servants because of his dark skin color.

As for "above-stairs," Mary Lincoln was soon sharing secrets with Lizzy and asking her advice about social problems.

In the outside world Lizzy was approached because of her position in the Lincoln family circle. She was asked to make connections for many people. For a fee, naturally. She turned down all such offers, in one instance an offer of several thousand dollars.

"Sooner than betray the trust of a friend," she said, "I would throw myself in the Potomac River."

M
EANWHILE, THE WAR
was progressing. Mary Lincoln's own brother, George, fought for the South as did three of her half brothers. She was criticized for that and when torn in pieces over it, it was Lizzy who comforted her.

Then Emilie, Mary's "Little Sister," as the president called her, came for a visit and the Northern newspapers criticized Mary Lincoln for "having Southern spies in the White House." Indeed,
Harpers Weekly
described all of Mary's sisters as "the toast of Southerners."

The Northern papers even labeled Mary Lincoln a "Southern sympathizer" and ran stories about her sister Emilie smuggling supplies across lines to the South. At the same time the Southern papers accused her of being a traitor to her roots. Mary wept. Lizzy was there to comfort her.

Mary Lincoln, wanting to escape the White House at times, began walking the one-third mile to Lizzy's rented rooms to be fitted for her gowns. Fashion was almost a god with her and she made many demands on Lizzy. Accustomed to dealing with difficult white mistresses, Lizzy managed always to oblige and soothe her.

In turn, Mary found herself turning to Lizzy in difficult times, much as she used to depend on her Mammy Sally as a child. And when she was not unburdening herself on Lizzy, she was shopping to relieve her anxieties about the war, about being left out of politics in that male-run world, about important Washington matrons snubbing her, and about criticism in the newspapers.

She had discovered, her first year in the White House, that there was a $20,000 congressional allowance given to each new administration for repairs on the White House. And she shopped—in New York, in Philadelphia, and from Paris—to accumulate goods to make up for the disappointments in her life.

Soon the $20,000 was gone and there was more public criticism of her extravagance. So, in a vicious circle, she would have more gowns made to appease her vanity and restore her confidence.

By now she and Lizzy were confidantes. "I must dress in costly materials because the people scrutinize every article I wear," she told Lizzy. "The very fact of coming from the West subjects me to more searching observation."

B
ECAUSE HER PERSONAL
finances improved and her reputation grew, Lizzy was able to open workrooms across from her apartment and hire apprentices. Then, in mid-August she was notified of the death of her son, George, who had left Wilberforce to enlist in the Union Army. He had to enlist as a white man if he wanted to fight, because blacks at the time were allowed only to dig fortifications and cook. He enlisted as George W. D. Kirkland in the First Missouri Volunteers and he fell in his first fight—the Battle at Wilson's Creek in southern Missouri. Mary Lincoln, in New York at the time, wrote her friend Lizzy a long letter of comfort.

B
Y THIS TIME
Lizzy was fully involved with the Lincoln family. She helped care for and quiet the rowdy boys, Willie and Tad. She stayed with Mary when the woman came down with one of her now-frequent migraines. She even, on occasion, combed the president's hair. The Lincolns did not consider her a stranger but spoke freely in front of her, even if they argued. In particular, Lizzy was privy to the argument they had when Lincoln discovered that his wife was over budget by nearly $7,000 on the household yearly allowance.

The beginning of 1862 was not good in the White House. Lincoln was upset by his wife's extravagance, and twelve-year-old Willie was fearfully sick.

S
ICKNESS IN THOSE DAYS
was not to be taken lightly. In Victorian times parents intentionally had many children because they knew that one episode of cholera or typhoid or scarlet fever could wipe out a family. There were no antibiotics, no aspirin, no drugs of any kind, and medical knowledge, too, was sorely lacking. And so, when Willie came down with his fever, the Lincolns had every right to be fearful.

Willie likely had typhoid fever. His parents watched him helplessly for weeks, while he worsened and finally died on February 20, 1862.

Lizzy was there with the Lincolns through the terrible ordeal. She was witness to Abraham Lincoln's weeping and was "awestruck" at seeing so powerful a man reduced to tears.

Mary Lincoln would not be consoled. This was the second son she had lost. She had frequent crying jags. She came down with her headaches. And Lizzy was there to comfort and to listen.

"Willie would have been the hope and stay of my old age," she told Lizzy, who had, herself, counted on the same thing from her own son.

Deep depression settled over Mary Lincoln and the only cheer she found was in ordering expensive mourning gowns from Lizzy and black-veiled bonnets from New York. She locked herself in her room to get away from the rest of the world. Lincoln was too overwhelmed himself to attend her. It could be said that Lizzy Keckley and Mary Todd were drawn even closer in mourning Willie because Lizzy understood, having lost her own son.

A
S IF SHE WERE
not busy enough that summer, Lizzy founded a relief society to raise money to care for the contrabands (former slaves) who were living in great numbers and in abject poverty in Washington at the time. She fell back on her church and her many friends, black and white, to raise the money to help these people. Of them, she said, "Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race, the transition from slavery to freedom was too much for you." She even traveled to New York and Boston to raise money for her cause.

L
IZZY WAS IN THE
presence of the Lincolns in the White House one day when Abraham led Mary over to a window and pointed across the Potomac to an insane hospital. He told his wife that if she let her grief and depression take over she would soon be insane and she would have to go there.

By the time 1862 ended, Mary Lincoln's fog of mourning had somewhat lifted. The war and life as she'd known it were going on without her. Lincoln had already issued a proclamation freeing all of Washington, D.C.'s slaves and now the tide of public opinion was in favor of emancipation for all of them.

The blacks could only hope. Then, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all of the slaves.

Lizzy finally felt herself equal and saw the world differently now, while all Mary Lincoln could feel was a renewed sense of loss "for life as we have known it."

Still in mourning, she had, with Lizzy's help, sought out mediums (spiritualists) and claimed to have learned "wonderful things about Willie" in the séances those mediums conducted. Both she and Lizzy took part in the séances, seeking relief from past sufferings.

By fall of 1863 Mary Lincoln had lost three half brothers in the war. All had fought for the South. But Mary refused to mourn them because "in fighting against the North they have fought against me and my husband."

Eighteen sixty-four was an election year, and Mary came out of her mourning for Willie by entertaining lavishly. Naturally, she needed many new gowns, and she went on more shopping sprees, accumulating thousands of dollars of debt. Lincoln was unaware of her debt, but Lizzy knew of it. And so Mary drew Lizzy even more into her confidence.

Before the election, Lizzy asked Mary Lincoln if she could have "the right-hand glove that the President wears at the first public reception after his second inaugural."

Lincoln did win a second term, defeating one of his former generals, George B. McClellan. The war was coming to an end now, and in April of 1865 Lizzy went along on a boat and train trip with Mary and her husband, up the James River to City Point, Petersburg, and Richmond, Virginia. President Jefferson Davis, head of the Confederacy, had fled Richmond, and it was in ruins. But what most moved Lizzy was Petersburg, where she had once lived as a slave for the Garlands. She was nostalgic, proud, and bitter all at the same time.

She had come far, she knew, and so had the race to whom she belonged. After the president's first public reception, following the inaugural, Lizzy got the president's white right-hand glove and treasured it always.