Who was the first lady of the US that was a recluse?

Answer 1

There were actually several who fit that description. One was Margaret "Peggy" Taylor, wife of President Zachary Taylor; older sources refer to her as a recluse during the brief time she was in the White House, someone who basically locked herself away upstairs and was rarely seen. But more recent research indicates that the term "recluse" is a bit unfair. She was in very poor health and could not do much entertaining, nor was she able to be a hostess at social events. But she was very available to her family, and very close to her husband, who seems to have trusted her advice; she also greeted a number of important guests in her upstairs private sitting room, so that she would be able to conserve her strength and not have to go downstairs.

Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, was also known to be reclusive, but here again, she suffered from very poor health at a time when few medical cures were available for what today would be treatable conditions, such as migraine headaches. She also seemed to suffer from depression and by some accounts, her husband and she were not very close emotionally. As time passed, she spent more and more time by herself, reading books she enjoyed and writing songs; she appeared in public only when necessary-- interestingly, she was an excellent hostess on the occasions when she did entertain, but it was not something she seemed to enjoy.

And one other famously reclusive First Lady was Letitia Tyler, wife of John Tyler. She seems to have always been shy, plus she had suffered at least one stroke. She was not very happy about moving to Washington DC nor was she comfortable assuming any public role. In fact, some scholars say completely restricted herself to the upstairs living quarters of the White House, and she only appeared downstairs once, when her daughter Elizabeth got married.