Born: December 13, 1788 – Elizabethtown, Kentucky

Died: April 12, 1869 – Coles County, Illinois (aged 80)

 

Sarah Bush was a widow with three children who became Abraham Lincoln’s stepmother on December 2, 1819 when she married Thomas Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln’s father) in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Thomas Lincoln was a widower with two children of his own: 12-year old Sarah and 10-year old Abe. Soon after their wedding, Thomas Lincoln, his new wife, and her three children departed Kentucky and traveled north across the Ohio River into Spencer County, Indiana, where Thomas Lincoln and his two children had been living for three years.

Upon her arrival at the small Lincoln family log cabin in southern Indiana, Sarah Bush Lincoln took a number of steps to improve living conditions and encourage education among the children in their combined family. Many historians credit Sarah Bush Lincoln with providing a healthful environment that helped young Abe pursue his passions to read, learn, and begin a promising future. One of the first concerns Sarah Bush Lincoln noticed was that the cabin did not have a wooden floor. She quickly, yet firmly and politely, encouraged her husband to construct a floor, which he soon built. She also encouraged her husband to install a front door for warmth and security, and a greased paper window to improve lighting and for protection from the outdoor elements. Today, the property is managed by the National Park Service as a National Memorial.

In 1830 the Lincoln family moved from southern Indiana to central Illinois in search of better farmland.

Thomas Lincoln died in 1851, ten years before his son would become the 16th president of the United States.

Abraham Lincoln and his stepmother maintained a strong bond throughout their lives. They saw each other for the last time in February 1861 when President-elect Lincoln stopped to see her in Coles County, Illinois on his way to Washington D.C. Sarah Bush Lincoln continued to live in a small log cabin until her death in 1869, four years after the assassination of President Lincoln. She is buried alongside Thomas Lincoln in Shiloh Cemetery near the small town of Lerna in east-central Illinois.