Political Career
Zachary Taylor was elected to the presidency in 1848, and was inaugurated in 1849. He appointed William Bliss as his Presidential Secretary.
As his wife declined, Mary Elizabeth Bliss served as First Lady for her father for official White House functions, starting at the age of 22. She and William Bliss were excited about their roles in Washington.
On July 9, 1850, the Taylor presidency ended with Zachary Taylor's death. Mary and William Bliss accompanied her widowed mother to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where she lived with another married daughter until her death two years later in 1852. The following year, William Bliss died of yellow fever contracted in New Orleans. Mary Elizabeth Bliss was a widow at the age of 29.
On February 11, 1858, she married again, to Philip Pendelton Dandridge. They had children. Mary Taylor Bliss Dandridge lived until the age of 85.
Read more about this topic: Mary Elizabeth Bliss
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