Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  She would rather continue to explore the exposition, which seemed to represent the future with all its newness and wonder and innovation, and to pass pleasant hours at the Wilberforce University exhibit, which was firmly rooted in the present. Their exhibit resided within the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, and in their modest portion of the vast space, wooden figures clad in garments designed and made by Elizabeth and her students showed off the department’s skill and artistry, and a revolving showcase displayed photographs and biographies of their graduates.

  Observing passersby as they admired the garments, and watching her students as they answered questions with grace, intelligence, and poise, Elizabeth felt her wistfulness recede as the warm glow of joy and pride filled her heart almost to bursting. This was her legacy, she realized, not the beautiful wardrobe she had sewn for Mrs. Lincoln or even the book she had written with such good intentions. These young women, and the apprentices she had instructed and advised back in Washington, and the runaways and freedwomen she had provided with the fundamental skills to care for themselves and their families—they were her legacy. Their success and independence and confidence were her true gifts to the world.

  Her greatest legacy could not be measured in garments or in words, but in the wisdom she had imparted, in the lives made better because she had touched them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  1901

  Elizabeth gazed out upon the streets of Washington through the carriage window, thinking of how much the capital had changed since she had first settled there as a younger, more ambitious woman in 1860. In her mind’s eye she could still envision it as it had been then—the unfinished Capitol dome, the muddy streets, the slaves in chains being led from harbor to holding pen.

  How the world had changed since then. How she herself had changed.

  Her weekly carriage rides were prescribed by her doctor, who insisted that she get out and about to increase the vigor of her constitution. Ever since she had moved back to Washington after a mild stroke had obliged her to resign from Wilberforce University, she had resided in a basement room at the Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children on Fifteenth Street. It amused her to refer to it as her home, not only because she lived there, but because it had been endowed in part by donations from the Contraband Relief Association she had founded so long ago. She liked her solitary room, small and neat, the little table with a pitcher and bowl in one corner, a straight chair in the other, a rocking chair near the bed, and the old trunk containing her clothes and what remained of her cherished mementoes. Over the dresser hung a picture of Mrs. Lincoln, and through the window Elizabeth could watch young colored men and women on their way to and from classes at Howard University. No one but her pastor and a few friends knew that she resided there, who she was and who she had been. And that was the way she liked it.

  When the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the home, Elizabeth slowly and gingerly stepped down, accepting the driver’s assistance with thanks. Straight and tall, unbowed by age or infirmity, she crossed the threshold, exchanging polite greetings with the residents and staff she passed. “You have a visitor in the parlor,” one woman told her, and so Elizabeth headed down the hall, curious, because she was not expecting anyone, or she would have gone driving earlier.

  In the parlor she discovered a most welcome guest, her goddaughter Alberta, or Mrs. Alberta Elizabeth Lewis-Savoy as she was now called, whom she had known since the moment of her birth. “My dear girl,” Elizabeth greeted her happily, embracing her and kissing her cheek. Alberta would always be a girl in Elizabeth’s eyes, though she was thirty-seven with children of her own. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure? I didn’t expect to see you until Sunday.”

  Alberta smiled warmly, but her manner was somehow hesitant, a guarded look in her eye. “I stumbled upon an interesting article in the newspaper this morning, and I thought you might want to see it.”

  She took a clipping from her handbag and gave it to Elizabeth, who held the page without unfolding it. “It was so fascinating you could not wait a few days?”

  Alberta looked as if she might speak, but then she shook her head, smiled weakly, almost apologetically, and guided Elizabeth to a chair. Elizabeth muffled a sigh as she seated herself, wondering what on earth it could be this time. Peering closely at the paper, she read the headline aloud: “‘Negro Authors.’ Hmm.” Suddenly wary, she glanced up at Alberta, who gestured for her to read on.

  • • •

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  NEGRO AUTHORS.

  THREE HUNDRED BOOKS BY THEM

  ON EXHIBITION IN BUFFALO

  BUFFALO, NY—Some three hundred books written by American Negroes form a part of the Negro exhibit at the Pan-American Exposition. The collection contains the best work of the race in the field of authorship, and is unique. Examination of these books furnishes new data by which to rate the civilization of the Negro.

  At this, Elizabeth sighed and shook her head.

  We may as well be entirely frank in the appraisal. Much of it is rubbish. None of it is very great.

  This judgment evoked an ironic laugh.

  “Keep reading,” Alberta urged her, and Elizabeth reluctantly complied.

  There has been no Negro Homer, Shakespeare, or Dumas—no American counterpart of the great French mulatto. But a great deal of this work has better qualities than the world has reason to expect, when it remembers the condition of its origin. Its chief value, the one thing that makes it worthy of attention, has no concern with the graces of literary form, but lies in the fact that here is the world’s best record of the evolution of the Negro recorded by the Negro himself.

  “Do you suppose,” Elizabeth mused aloud, “that when our white friends write and speak in this manner, they have any idea how insulting they are?”

  “I believe most of them don’t,” Alberta replied. “And of those that do, many wouldn’t care.”

  Elizabeth sighed and read on, through admiring reviews of the poems and letters of Phillis Wheatley, a pamphlet by Reverend Daniel Crocker, and several scholarly works. Praise for the exceptional works of Mr. Frederick Douglass and Wilberforce University professor W. E. B. Du Bois followed, and then Elizabeth held her breath as she glimpsed her own name one paragraph below.

  As may be supposed the collection is rich in what may be called literary curios. One of them, Behind the Scenes, by Elizabeth Keckley, “formerly a slave, but more recently modiste and friend to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln,” had considerable vogue in its day (1868) because of its singular revelations.

  “‘Considerable vogue’?” Elizabeth echoed, unsure whether she should be amused or alarmed. The reporter apparently had not done his research, or he would have chosen a much different descriptor.

  “I thought you should be aware that your book is on display, and apparently attracting notice,” said Alberta, looking profoundly sorry. She knew well the story of how Elizabeth’s slim red volume of remembrances had been received upon its publication. Considerable vogue, indeed.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Elizabeth said, reaching for her hand and smiling fondly. “I am safely forewarned. Let us hope nothing else comes of this. It is nice, I suppose, to have been included in the exposition, but the world has moved on, and I suspect my ‘literary curio’ will soon be forgotten again.”

  She hoped so, but she was much mistaken.

  Less than a week later, she received a letter from a journalist, Mr. Smith D. Fry. He had read about the Negro exhibit, and, intrigued by the brief description of Behind the Scenes, he wished to interview the authoress. “I was only a lad when your memoir was published,” he recalled, “but my mother owned a first edition. It had a red cover, I recall, and I remember her saying that it was so vividly written that she felt as if she had been in the room with you and Mrs. Lincoln during some of the most significant events of the Civil War years, some moments trium
phant and others tragic.”

  Elizabeth realized then that she was apparently as susceptible to flattery as the next woman, because although she had been quite determined to decline his request, that paragraph changed her mind. The detail about the red cover convinced her that he described a true memory and not a fiction meant to win her over. The newspaper had not mentioned the color of her book’s cover, nor was it likely that Mr. Fry had glimpsed a copy more recently. She was also both charmed and amused by his proud boast that his mother had owned a first edition, as if there had been a second.

  Still, she gave herself a day to reflect before replying that she would grant his request.

  On the morning of the appointed day, she dressed herself with her usual care in a black silk dress with a white fichu tied about her shoulders. Mr. Fry was waiting for her in the parlor when she came down, and as they exchanged greetings she silently gave him credit for punctuality. He looked to be about fifty years old, stout and a bit jowly, and mostly bald, but he was courteous and pleasant, and in his eye she detected keen intelligence and a strong desire to learn all he could about his subject—dissecting her, if necessary. She would have to be on her guard.

  She settled herself into a high-backed, upholstered chair, fixed a demure expression in place, and awaited his first question.

  “Mrs. Keckley,” he began, pencil and paper at the ready, “I regret that I must begin with a delicate question.”

  She prepared herself for the worst. “Very well.”

  “My readers will want to know, but I dread asking.” He hesitated. “May I say that you are eighty years of age?”

  “You may,” said Elizabeth, though she was eighty-three.

  He nodded and scribbled something on his pad. “It is said that you were Mrs. Lincoln’s dressmaker, but you were really much more than that, weren’t you?”

  “I was her modiste,” Elizabeth replied, as if the title were explanation enough.

  “And that means you sewed for her, and dressed her for important occasions, is that not so?”

  It was so much more. “I dressed Mrs. Lincoln for every levee,” she said. “I made every stitch of clothing that she wore. I dressed her hair. I put on her skirts and dresses. I fixed her bouquets, saw that her gloves were all right, and remained with her each evening until Mr. Lincoln came for her. My hands were the last to touch her before she took the arm of Mr. Lincoln and went forth to meet the ladies and gentlemen on those great occasions.”

  “I imagine you must have seen the president quite often then.”

  “Yes.”

  “They considered you part of the family?”

  Elizabeth reflected briefly upon how Mrs. Lincoln had behaved toward the women of her family. “I would not make such a claim. I would say that I was a dear and trusted friend.”

  “To Mrs. Lincoln?”

  “To them both, although I was certainly much closer to Mrs. Lincoln.” For a moment she was lost in thought, but then she fixed her gaze upon Mr. Fry and said, “Mr. Lincoln was a good friend of mine, but he never knew what a good friend of his I was, and have ever been.” When Mr. Fry watched her expectantly, waiting, she added, “I was Mr. Lincoln’s friend, am his friend now, and will always protect his memory by keeping my mouth closed concerning the many things which he unhappily suspected or imagined were going on around him officially and unofficially.”

  “I assume you feel very loyal to him,” Mr. Fry remarked. “So many Negroes do, or so I am told, because he was the Great Emancipator.”

  Elizabeth wondered at his line of questioning. She thought he had come there to discuss her book, but he seemed to be more interested in learning about Mr. Lincoln. That suited her fine. She would much prefer to talk about the great president, but if Mr. Fry entertained any hopes that she would giddily rattle on with malicious gossip, he would be sorely disappointed. “I was born a slave, but bought my freedom, and so was under no obligations to Mr. Lincoln for emancipation,” she said. “But I loved him for his kind manner toward me and for his great act of giving freedom to my race. I know what liberty is, because I remember what slavery was.” She smiled, and for a moment she almost felt sorry for the reporter, who was likely a father and perhaps a grandfather but to her seemed very young. “You who have never suffered cannot understand the full meaning of liberty.”

  Mr. Fry had been writing swiftly the entire time she spoke, but at that, he paused. “No,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose we do. I don’t suppose we can.”

  Suddenly she warmed to him, although she could not bring herself to trust any journalist completely. “I have almost worshipped Abraham Lincoln,” she admitted. “He was as kind and considerate in his treatment of me as he was of any of the white people about the White House. In that he manifested the consistency of his belief that all human beings are created equal in the sight of God.”

  Unlike his successor, Elizabeth thought, but prudently did not say aloud. Mrs. Lincoln had judged Mr. Johnson’s character rightly from the moment he stumbled drunkenly onto the national stage. He had undone many of the reforms Mr. Lincoln had put into place, and his policies had flung obstacles into the path of people of color as they marched toward equality. Many of the gains they had made during the war had been thwarted under President Johnson, but progress moved ever forward, and Elizabeth had not lost her hope for a better future for her race.

  “And did you feel the same about Mrs. Lincoln?”

  Elizabeth considered his question. “She was a very different person than her husband. He was a remarkable man, the greatest man I have ever known. If I were to use him as a measuring stick for Mrs. Lincoln or anyone else, including myself, we should all fail to measure up.”

  “We should indeed.” Mr. Fry’s gaze was on his pad as his pencil rapidly scratched upon the page. “Do you ever feel that you failed to measure up to the trust the Lincolns placed in you?”

  “I never betrayed a secret in the days when secrets were worth gold, and gold was scarce,” Elizabeth said, a trifle sharply.

  “And yet, there is the matter of your book.”

  So he was aware of the controversy. “Yes,” she said evenly. “I wrote a book about my life, which included my years in the White House. I did it with the best of intentions, but as you are no doubt already aware, it did not turn out at all as I had expected.”

  He studied her for a moment, brow furrowing, and then he asked, “Were you troubled at all, afterward, to know that you profited from exposing Mrs. Lincoln’s foibles to the world?”

  “Sadly, her foibles were well-known before I ever wrote a word about them.” Suddenly Elizabeth felt very tired. “As for profit, I never received a dollar from the publication of that book. They kept it all. However, I need not regret that, because they printed many things which ought not to have been printed, many things which caused heartaches, because they were untrue.” She sighed and glanced away, feeling tears threatening. “The book was printed, and my name was on the title page as the author of everything contained between its lids.”

  “And you were not?” Mr. Fry asked, prompting her, when she had been silent for a while.

  “No, indeed.” She could tell from his expression that he wanted an example. Oh, how the press rejoiced when you gave them enough rope for them to hang you by! But perhaps she was being unfair. This man had never written an unkind word about her. It was unfair to hold him accountable for the actions of others of his profession. “They told the story of how Mrs. Lincoln tried vainly to sell her expensive and costly wardrobe in New York, but they did not tell it right. I was with Mrs. Lincoln at that time and did my best to help her dispose of her valuable things—” Suddenly, prudence prevailed and she thought better of telling him how Mr. Redpath had strayed from her version of events. “But it would do no good now to say anything about the details of that venture. I merely mention it because they made it a part of the book which made money for them, but the publication of which brought me no money, while it made some enemies for me wh
o should have always been my friends.”

  She felt herself sinking into a mournful reverie, but after a time, Mr. Fry quietly asked, “You made dresses for other well-known ladies too, didn’t you?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I made dresses for Mrs. Lincoln, the ladies of President Andrew Johnson’s family, and also for the ladies of the Grant administration. And Mrs. Jefferson Davis too, before secession.” She recalled that Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Davis had become quite good friends after the war. At the time she had thought that if the wives of Union General Grant and Confederate President Davis could become friends, then surely she and Mrs. Lincoln could reconcile. But it was not to be.

  “You must have been quite famous in those days.”

  Elizabeth regarded him skeptically. “I was acquainted with famous people. That does not mean that I garnered any fame for myself.”

  “Mrs. Keckley, I believe you’re being too modest,” he protested, smiling. “You should be proud of your fame.”

  He was young, not to understand how foolhardy it was to take pride in something so fickle, so fleeting, as fame. “I was famous, in my line, for many years,” she acknowledged. “I was proud; yes, very proud. But fame and pride do not last, as I have found to my sorrow. They don’t bring food to an old woman when she is forgotten or when her friends have passed away—”

  Abruptly she fell silent. She had not meant to broach that unhappy subject, nor would she care to return to it, no matter how long Mr. Fry sat there regarding her with plaintive, hopeful, puppy-dog eyes beneath a furrowed brow. “I understand you have fallen upon hard times,” he eventually said, all frank sympathy.