Later Life
After attending the inauguration of James Polk's successor, Zachary Taylor, on March 5, 1849, he and Sarah left by horse and carriage to their new home "Polk Place" in Nashville, Tennessee. Three months later, James Polk died, having had the shortest retirement of any former U.S. President. The United States government granted her a pension of $5,000 per annum. During the American Civil War, she was neutral. Sarah Polk lived on in that home for 42 years. She lived through the longest retirement and widowhood of any former US First Lady, and wore black always. She died on August 14, 1891, at age 87. She was buried next to the president at their home in Nashville and was later reinterred with him at the Tennessee State Capitol. Only 41 when her husband became president, she outlived several of her successors including Margaret Taylor, Abigail Fillmore, Jane Pierce, Mary Todd Lincoln, Eliza Johnson and Lucy Webb Hayes. Only a handful of first ladies have lived longer -- Anna Harrison, Edith Bolling Wilson, Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, Nancy Reagan, and Bess Truman.
Read more about this topic: Sarah Childress Polk
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“What had really caused the women’s movement was the additional years of human life. At the turn of the century women’s life expectancy was forty-six; now it was nearly eighty. Our groping sense that we couldn’t live all those years in terms of motherhood alone was “the problem that had no name.” Realizing that it was not some freakish personal fault but our common problem as women had enabled us to take the first steps to change our lives.”
—Betty Friedan (20th century)
“To my fancy, one looks back on life, it has only two responsibilities, which include all the others: one is the bringing of new life into existence; the other, educating it after it is brought in. All betrayals of trust result from these original sins.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)