Sarah Childress Polk (September 4, 1803 – August 14, 1891) was the wife of the 11th President of the United States, James Polk, and the 12th woman to serve as First Lady. Sarah was born in 1803 to Joel Childress, a prominent planter, merchant, and land speculator, and Elizabeth Whitsitt Childress—the third of their six children. Sarah was well educated for a woman of her time and place, attending the exclusive Moravian Female Academy at Salem, North Carolina. She was then schooled at what is now Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the few institutions of higher learning available to women in the early 19th century.
She met Polk while both were receiving instruction from Samuel P. Black in Murfreesboro; he was 19, she was 12. Several years later Polk began courting her, and in 1823 the two became engaged. Sarah Childress, aged 20, married James Polk, aged 28, on January 1, 1824, at the plantation home of the bride's parents near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Polks had no children of their own, but raised a nephew, Marshall Tate Polk (1831-1884) as their personal ward. After her husband's death, Mrs. Polk assumed guardianship of an orphaned niece, Sarah Polk Jetton (1847-1924), and raised the girl as her own.
In Washington as congressman's wife during the administrations of John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, Mrs. Polk very much enjoyed her social duties. She risked a breech with Jackson, her husband's mentor, by taking part in the social ostracism of Peggy Eaton.
Sarah Polk was lively, charming, intelligent, and a good conversationalist. President Polk at times discussed policy matters with her. Sarah helped James with his speeches in private, copied his correspondence, and gave him advice. While she enjoyed politics, she also cautioned him against overwork. A devout Presbyterian, she as First Lady banned dancing and hard liquor at official receptions and refused to attend horse races or the theatre. She hosted the first annual Thanksgiving dinner at the White House.
Only 41 when her husband became president, Sarah Polk outlived several of her successors: 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, and Bess Truman. Only three months after retirement to their new home "Polk Place" in Nashville, James Polk died. (He had the shortest retirement of any former US President).
Contrasted with Julia Tyler's waltzes, the Polk entertainments were noted for sedateness and sobriety. Although some accounts stated that the Polks never served wine, a Congressman's wife recorded in her diary details of a four-hour dinner for forty at the White House--glasses for six different wines, from pink champagne to ruby port and sauterne, "formed a rainbow around each plate."[citation needed] Mrs. Polk was said to be popular and respected.[weasel words]
She retired with the former president to Nashville, Tennessee, where she remained after his death in 1849. During the Civil War, she supported the Confederacy. 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 state capitol.
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