Hero or dick - S4., Ep. 6 - Mary Todd Lincoln

Welcome to another episode of Hero or Dick!

This time around, we take a look at Mary Todd Lincoln.

From early loss to life in the White House, we get into what people still argue about: the spending, the behavior, the grief, and the need for control.

Laudanum, trauma, and a bad reputation—do these point to a misunderstood hero, or a selfish dick?

Tune in to find out!

Thanks for listening!

~ Kate & KJ

Transcript

Opener Cinco De Mayo And Movies

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Okay, we're dialed up.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Are we live?

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Somewhat Live. Love Connection with Kate and KJ. We're taking our first caller. Yep. We have Deborah. She's a twice divorced.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

I would never be a matchmaker.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Why?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I don't think so. Because if it if it works out, can you really take credit? And if it doesn't work out, it's all your fault. True. You're kind of like the goalie of love.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

The goalie of love. There's another t-shirt you could have for our show. The goalie of love.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

The goalie of love, hero a dick. Hero or dick is the name of our solo.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

It is.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

And uh today is Cinco de Mayo.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

We're gonna make it cake smells like margaritos.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I don't like margaritos. I don't like to.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Well then why do you smell like that? I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Tequila.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

No, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

For Cinco de Mayo?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah. Were you doing anything?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, we're gonna have the neighbors over for it's always a party out there. It's uh, you know, it's a party neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

That's that lake living.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Like, yeah, everybody's very relaxed. Yeah, we just threw it together this morning, as a matter of fact, because we were trying to go to the movies and I just can't make it work. Um, well, last week and weeks before, we were trying really hard to go to um Hail Mary, Project Hail Mary.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

That's a sci-fi, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, I really wanted to go to that one. I did not make it to that one, it's not on anymore. But now there's two movies. One was um that my neighbor wanted to go to was the Michael Jackson one. Yeah, Jovi wanted to. No, I say no on that one. But I do want to go to the Devil Worst Prada 2. So sometime that just started, so next week maybe I'll go.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Gotcha. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Did Jovi like the Michael movie?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Uh yeah, she said she did.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

She's a music kid, so I mean, it's probably fine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

It's I liked Michael Jackson when he was with the Jackson 5. I loved him. Loved him. Dancing machine. It was a dancing machine. Yeah. It's easy, as well. He's dancing, dancing, dancing machine. But then he wasn't Jackson anymore. And he, you know, probably through no fault of his own. It's his own, it's his life. And you know, it can't be easy, but and I'm not denying he made good music. I just I don't know. He had a lot of weird shit in the background, and I don't I hope that's not what the movie's about, though.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

No, I don't know. She didn't really tell me. She just said she liked it.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

But she did go with her boyfriend, so what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Maybe they weren't watching the movie.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Oh, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

I forgot. People make out during movies. I don't think people do that anymore. That was like a 70s and 80s thing, wasn't it? Uh PDA.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Well, it was dark, so nobody could see you, so is it really PDA?

Savannah Trip Highlights

SPEAKER_00 3:07

That's true. What happens in the dark? Okay. Um we're on uh well, let's talk. Well, we're we're we're gonna get to our topic, but what are we season four? I just told it. Episode six six. But do you have anything you want to add about your I just got back from Savannah, Georgia? It's weird that you went on a trip.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

And it's a lovely place. We were only gone a week. Oh, yeah. And when we were planning it, we're like, oh, only a week? Uh, you know, now we're on our vacation snobs. All right. Uh we're only going for a week. Barely even. But a week was uh fun. And a week was enough time. I thought. You know, you get two days of travel because, like we said, you live in Alpina, it's not easy to get anywhere. But we did it, and we got to Savannah. We flew Traverse City, tried to go through Alpina, keep trying, but they just can't. There's no good connections. Uh, so we flew out of Traverse City and we flew out on the 6 a.m. flight on a Wednesday and got to Detroit, had an hour layover, two hours to Savannah. Boom, we're there like at 10:30.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Um you got the whole day then.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

We did. So that was really nice. So we couldn't check into our place till four, and we had run at a big SUV and um Cassidy.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Cadillac Escalade.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Uh no, it was actually Dodge Durango. Oh, that thing was like a bus. Yeah. We could fit like nine or ten people in there.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

How many did you get in there?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Well, three.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Okay. I didn't know if you're picking people up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Well, we didn't. Well, there was a lot of people that went. So um Cassidy and Doug went, and Doug signed Caleb went, and that was the first time we met him. They got into their convertible, and the back seat was like three inches, and Caleb said, Can I ride with you? And we said, You need to ride with us. So it was nice, though. So then we got to know him. It was the first time we met him, but uh yeah, he chose the large Dodge Durango to ride in. So we went to a place called, first of all, we went to the best shrimp dinner ever at a place called the Fish Dock in Pelican Point, I think it was called. And there's you're as you're eating this pound of fried shrimp, and we all got it. It's delicious.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Breaded? Fried? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

I didn't know. It I guess sauteed isn't the same as fried.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

No, it was breaded, but not like heavy breaded.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

You could still taste shrimp. And as we're eating the shrimp, the shrimp boats are going by. That's how fresh it is. Wow. So we did that, and then we went to a great place called Harris Neck, and it's like a nature-y place. Um uh I there's more to it than that, but it's like a um a huge nature preserve or something? Yeah, it is a nature preserve, let's say. And there's like a I guess it'd be a lake in their standards. It's a lake, it's really a giant pond in Michigan standards. And when you're there, that's where the alligators hang out. So we saw alligators. We've been there a couple of times. We saw alligators and lots of different birds and some turtles, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

It was cool, and then we could go. Then that was about an hour away, so then we went and checked into the beautiful house that Doug had rented for us all to stay in for the week.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Ready to go, Doug.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Doug, big points for Doug. He um it was Cassidy's birthday week. She gets a whole week, she got a whole week, and so um, there was four bedrooms in this house. It's an old house from the 1700s, and Macintosh Colonel, was he a general or colonel with the South? And his name was Macintosh, and he built it, and he uh George Washington came there and slept there more than once.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

No kidding. Yeah, good old George, George, huh?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, we didn't see any ghosts or anything though, unfortunately. Come on. It was a beautiful old house, though, very, very nicely redone. You know, they kept like a lot of the old stuff, but you know, it had bathrooms, so that was cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Those are handy, they were yep.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

So we stayed there for the week and we went to uh everywhere in Savannah. And Savannah's a beautiful city, very walkable. Hot. It was hot most days. It was over 80. A few days it was really hot. A couple days it was kind of chilly, and then the day we we left it poured.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Did it really?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yep, so we were like, we gotta leave.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, get the hell out of there.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

We were there a week, so that's awesome. It was, it was a great place, beautiful, like I said, beautiful city, very walkable, 26 squares. So they're parks, and the squares are where the um soldiers would train early, you know, like in the 1700s or be or earlier. I don't know. I'm not I'm I'm not good with dates, but they kept the all those squares have been kept as parks. Oh, yeah. So some have monuments and fountains, and some just have all have park benches, so you just walk to a park and you can sit down and relax. Nice. I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah. That's the whole part of vacation rolls.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

And then it's right on the river, so you can go down to the fish. No, we did not fish. No.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

You ever fish when you go anywhere?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Uh yeah, we went fishing when we went to Puerto Rico. We caught deep sea fishing. It was scary and shit. The waves were huge, but we did catch two black fan tunas and we ate them that night. Oh shit. Well, we ate some of them that night. The next night we ate more of them. That's really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

You're living.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

But we did not fish this time. That's right. No.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Is it really busy there in Savannah?

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Um, it can be. It seems like it would be. It can be. They have a huge um Irish population, so they do a big um a big uh shamrocky St. Patrick's Day, whoopde-doo, like huge. So and there was um I bet at spring break, it's there's a lot of for families to do there, you know. There's a lot of history and um stuff like that. There's there's a lot of Girl Scouts there because the the birthplace of the woman who I can't remember her first name or last name's Lo. Her house is there, and so there's lots of Girl Scouts there touring it. So that's fun.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, uh highly recommended.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I'm glad you told me about it because now I don't have to go there.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Well, you should go there.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

It's too hot.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

No, it's not okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

It was like 63 or yesterday, and I was done. I was done with summer. What are you gonna do? I can't do it. I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

You need to move north. Everybody else wants to move south and get out of the snow. You need to move north.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

I don't want snow though.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

That's the pickle.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

I don't know. Maybe you need to live in a freezer. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Are you threatening me? Maybe. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

So, what's our topic today?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

I'm here on the um I was gonna say something else, but it's uh Mary Todd Lincoln.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

You know who she is?

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I I've heard of her. She was married to Abraham.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

She was? Abraham Lincoln. I'm kidding. So what wait, she was Mary Ann Todd, right? That was her name.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Oh, was it? Yeah. And um did she drop the Ann?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

When she wanted to keep Todd, I guess. I'm glad she uh didn't read anything. I'm just going for memory because these notes are inaccurate. Oh she was born in Lexington, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

She was.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And she was one of well, ten children. It was a blended family, but it didn't start like that. Her mom died when she was six. Um, and I don't think she had any other siblings, right? At that point. One died, I think. Yeah, I think they and so then um her dad, Robert, was it? I don't know. Anyway, hooked up with this other lady, and she had nine more children.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

She remarried, yes. Yeah, she actually had three siblings. They had, okay, so she was in Lexington, Kentucky, is where she was born, and they were kind of wealthy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they lived in Lexington. She had three siblings and three enslaved women lived with her. And then her mom, Eliza Parker Todd, died after giving birth to the seventh child. So you had some, you know, it it sounds mean now, but you had to factor in that some were gonna die.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Sure, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

And probably the mom at some point too.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Right. Rough times.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

I think that childbirth is probably the biggest cause of death for people in the 1800s, women in the 1800s.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Not safe.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

So then when her mom died, she went to move with she moved in with her sister, older sister.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Only for a short time, though.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Well, she moved to Springfield with the sister. Yeah, because then she went to a school.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah. She was pretty well educated.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

For the time.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

And I wonder if she was well educated because her family wanted her to do well, or they just didn't know what to do with her, so they threw her in boarding school.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Yes, that's what I got out of it. Like she was kind of like the black sheep in some aspects, especially after the blended family deal there. And so I think her off at boarding school was, you know, let's do something with her.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Well, what are we gonna do with Mary? I don't know, put her in boarding schools.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

You know, a lot of this though, backing up mom dying, siblings dying, being kind of an outcast. Poor her, she was from a wealthy family, but I think that did affect her, uh gave her anxiety, mental issues, separation anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Anyone who loses their mother that early.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

And she uh, you know later on. I think that had some of the uh impact upon her manipulative and controlling behavior because she's trying to control her surroundings, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Right, right. She wants everything to be okay. Yeah, you can't fault a person for that. No. So then she was living with her sister and she met Abe at a social gathering, probably a dance, but nobody's wasn't she fishing around with Stephen Douglas before him.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

He was young politician.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

You got the gossip version of that, but then she ended up going with Abe, I think.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Well, no, I think she did.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

So was Stephen Douglas sought for her?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I think so. And he came back into the picture later, caused some controversy.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

There was an event after Abe died, or before.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Before Abe actually, it was during after he was elected, uh and there was a party or some kind of ceremony, and um she walked in on the arm of Stephen Douglas. She was a tricky little lady. She liked to cause um, so she was spotlight.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah, she did like the spotlight.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Then the time that she ran out to the uh horse area and um yelled at the lady that was on the horse with Abe because they were doing some photo op or whatever they did back in the day. And she wasn't there, so they put this other lady on the horse with them, and she came up yelling and screaming and making a fuss, and like they had to like hold her back because she was so pissed that Abe was on the horse with this other lady.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Well, that's pretty personal. I guess and mounted it, so it's kind of like you know, he was on a horse. Would that be equated to the 2000 version of they're on a motorcycle together?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Maybe. I don't know, could be. Yeah, what would I think right now? If I saw my wife go buying a motorbike with some guy, I'd probably get my car and follow him.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

You would. You would go out there yelling and screaming too.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

And then she'd say, Why are you who do you think you are? You can't control me.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

You're not the boss of me.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

So, but it she did meet Abe, and they did share a mutual interest in politics.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Well, I think she knew that politics was the way to get the life that she wanted to live. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

No. And yeah, during that time she couldn't be a politician. So what's the next best thing is to marry a politician and and mold him and push him, and which she did.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

I mean Yeah, she pushed him a lot. Yeah, no, but she wanted to be president.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

She wanted him to be president. Uh so she could be first lady. Right. Obviously. So despite their vastly, vastly different backgrounds, they marry in 1842. So Abe, you know, was born and raised in a one-room house. Mary was born and raised in a 14-room house. Uh Abe had less than a year of formal school. Come on, she had education throughout her whole childhood. And here's another vastly different Abe can't dance. You got no rhythm. And uh Mary can dance. And she did.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, and he was quiet, reserved.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

She was not hearty girl.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Um, she came, she had a slave. You know, everybody had a slave.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Everybody did.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

No, what which is interesting is old Abe is fighting to abolish slavery.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Well, he wasn't yet.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

But you know what I mean. Like eventually that was a point of contention for people following things. Man, you imagine if Instagram, Facebook, and all that would have been around then. I mean, this stuff that we see today, well, maybe not all of it, but it's happened then too. Yeah, you know, but anyway, so then you got the contradiction of her coming from a wealthy family with slaves, and then now her husband's fighting slavery. Uh interesting, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

And her sister, Elizabeth, and husband, I don't know his name, they disapproved of Abe. They thought he was uncultured, and they they broke off their courtship. And um Abe called it the fatal first of January, but January happened in 1841, I think. And they're like, no, you can't see him anymore. So they avoided each other for over a year, but then mutual friends hooked them back up. Matt maked them back up, and they dated in secret until their wedding day, November 4th, 1842. And she told her sister Elizabeth the day before, oh, hey, Bubba, tomorrow. What do you do tomorrow? Yeah. Because I'm gonna marry Abe. That's awesome. And her sister did, well, she must have she didn't improve, but she said okay, because they got married at her house. Then they moved into a single room, a single room was their home on a second floor of a boarding house.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

That's pretty tight.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

That's that's different from being in a 14-room house.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Or even a boarding school. And then that's where Mary gave birth to their first son, Robert Todd Lincoln. Todd. So every time you see a guy named Todd, is he named after that family?

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

So we have the Todd family to thank for that. Oh, the Todd's Todd. Todd.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

No offense.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Robert Todd Lincoln. Yeah. In May uh of 1844, they bought their first and only house. It was a one and a half story cottage that they lived in for the next 17 years.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

That's a long time, Kate.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

It is a long time.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

What's the longest you ever lived in a house?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Uh well now. No. Our the house we just moved from. We built and we lived there 25 years. What? It was a long time. Where was that? On Truckee Road. You were there that long? Yeah. No shit.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Okay. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

But before that, it was well, because I was an Air Force kid, so we moved and moved and moved and moved. And then once I was an adult, we moved some more. Not as frequently, but yeah. It's hard moving too. Yeah. It's hard moving. I think people should move every five to ten years, though, to clean their shit out. I'm just saying. I'm cleaning my shit out right now. Are you? Yeah. I'm not moving, but just pitching. It's been 10 years. Spring cleaning. I got it. I got half the closet done right now since we've gotten home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Do you get a dumpster or what?

SPEAKER_01 21:11

No. Oh. I have beverage bags going to Goodwill.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

So how many kids did they have total?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Seven. No. Nine.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Four.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Hundred.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Four sons.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

And the only one to survive to survive to adulthood is Robert Todd, though.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

He lived a long time.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

He did, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

She thought there was something wrong with him for a long time. Oh, she was sick.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

What's wrong with him?

Motherhood Grief And Laudanum

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Like, well, she had already lost one or two kids, and so she was positive that he was sick with something.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Well, and Edward they lost. He died when he was only four years old. They think of now we think it was tuberculosis. William was only twelve years old, typhoid, typhoid fever. And that was during the White House years that he died. Yeah. And then Todd. Thomas Tad, they called him. He was a teenager, was he? He was only 18.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

And they think he died of consumption. That was years after Abe's uh assassination.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

A lot of freaking heartache.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Man, just for a mom to lose that many kids is rough. That would make you mentally challenged, no matter who you are.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah. And she obviously had some mental issues. She did. She really liked Laudum.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Who didn't in those days? Liquid opium, yeah. That was the cocaine of the day. You've seen Tombstone.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

They're doing it on it.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

That's such a good movie.

White House Spending And Public Backlash

SPEAKER_01 22:43

The mustache movie. So Lincoln was elected president 1861 through 65. And um Mary Todd, her time in the White House is kind of contrasted. So while she, you know, sometimes it was very critical, the social effects that she wanted to do to the White House. Like um, she wanted to modernize it. And people said she spent too much money.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Was any of it gold plated?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Not as bad as it is now. She uh spent a lot. She spent a lot of money. She redecorated, repaired, installed luxury amenities like restrooms, plumbing, carpets, gas pipes, wood stoves. But she went over her 20K budget, and people were pissed at her about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

There's a war going on, and she's also dressed to the nines or tens or whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah, her shopping shan bad shopping addiction. At one time, 84 pairs of kid gloves in one month. That's a lot of kid gloves.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

What are you gonna do with them all?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

I don't know, but she bought 84 pairs. Kid gloves. So made out of out of kid. Kids. Not kids. Not well, they're kids, they're calves. Yeah. Yeah. They're baby cows.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I thought that was a goat. A kid.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

I don't know. They're called kid gloves. They're leather. I don't know what kind of leather. She's also spent on jewelry and drapery. And you know, we all have our things that we like to buy. What do you like to buy?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Cars and houses.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

See. Those are expensive.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah, that's why I don't buy them very often.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

I think you do.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Cookies, okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Cookies, books. How about books? I like books.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

I like buying books.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Um, she liked jewelry and drapery. And then she tried to sell them. Like, if there would have been eBay, she would have totally sold them on eBay. But she there, people were saying you got too many. So she's like, Oh yeah, let's just sell some on the sly. Yeah. And then people found out about it. Big public scandal. That was after uh he was Abe was assassinated. She was hurting for money. Which, by the way, her husband was assassinated. I don't know if that's a spoiler. Um, I'd never heard that. Oh, it's true. As far as we can prove right. There's probably some conspiracy theory that says AD wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Somebody probably hired John Wilkes booth to do it.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

They probably didn't.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

You know what I mean? But no, when was that?

SPEAKER_01 25:35

They could have been.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

That was 62.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

6 85.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

85. 1885. No. That's not right.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

1885?

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

That's when he was assassinated. Well, that's when the war ended. So it wasn't it right after the war ended? I'll Google you down right now. That don't matter. So it's not about Abe anyway. It's not about Abe. It's about Mary Todd. Yeah. MT.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

She was holding this hand right next to him though when she went to the hospital or whatever. No, and then but then she wouldn't go in when he died.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

No. Yeah. She's I wonder if she regrets that, or maybe she couldn't, she just couldn't handle it.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Maybe she was shopping. I'm just kidding. I'm sorry that's some bad.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

She wasn't online, so probably not.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Oh man, if she would have had Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Oh gosh, she would have been, yeah, it would have been bad. Um, some people said she was disloyal because she was born in Kentucky to the slave voting family, like you said. And several of her brothers fought for the South.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Half brothers.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah. Three of them.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Right.

unknown 26:49

Don't matter.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

And then her mental health was always throughout her life. Sure. Uh a challenge. Well, when you put it all together, it makes sense. Yeah, when you look at everything that she went through, how could you not be a little mentally challenged? Her son Robert did have her committed to a sanitarium.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

But she was only there for a few months.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

She was there, yeah. She was deemed insane, had erratic behavior. Oh, okay. She had three children died. Her husband was assassinated in her arms, basically.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

You think you'd have some mental problems? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

And you know who were making those decisions? Men.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

The men. And they could at that time, you could just say, you know, if your wife was going through a menopause, you could go, well, aren't they trying to try to do that now? Yeah, they are. Yeah. It's all reverting back to that. So she was released after three uh four months. Yeah. What's this? I can't read my writing. She had an obsession. What was her obsession? Oh, retail therapy. Retail therapy. Maybe it made her feel better, though, you know, to go buy something. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. We we don't know. We're not in our head. Wasn't there uh she was accused of having a volatile temper.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Sure. Well, that goes hand in hand.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

The queen of America. Uh I've seen other uh first ladies kind of have that too. You think Nancy Reagan, she was Queen of America.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

How could you not? I think it changes you.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah. You know, like it's a power trip just like the president. Sure. See.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah. That's hard. Right now I'm thinking about other stuff. Like the shit that's going on right now, and I can't talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Oh, okay. Anyway, um well, she was also criticized for public grieving because that was scandalous at the time.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

How dare her!

SPEAKER_01 28:51

So you can't how how are you? What are you supposed to well? You were supposed to just go away and do that privately. And she was go cry at home. You know, sorry, I gotta be out and about buying kid gloves.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

But then she ran out of money. She started burning through bucks. She did. That's why she was selling stuff. Oh, wait, we forgot to talk about though how generous she was.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

She donated a lot to hospitals during a wartime and visited them a lot.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yes, she did it. So, right. She's not always um we're making her sound pretty bad. Well, uh I don't mean to make her sound bad, I just mean that that's what she did. Right. The modern view now might be that she has P PTSD, yeah, 19th century gender expectations, and a lack of mental health knowledge, then just that she laud them. She got a bad rap.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

And like she was hooked on that shit, and that will increase your anxiety, paranoia.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Well, why would why do you take it then?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

I don't want to take anything.

Mental Health Then And Now

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Does it does it relax you for a little bit and then should we get some? I don't know. Let's get some and try it. Can you even get it? Is it a thing?

SPEAKER_00 30:05

I don't even know. Let's just get some meth. Everyone else is doing meth.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Oh, I don't want to do that. Okay. Did you see how people look after they've taken meth for a while?

SPEAKER_00 30:13

They don't look very good.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

No. And I can't believe how many people in this town are on meth.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

It's bad.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

It's bizarre.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

It is. It's way more than you think or even want to know.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Like, what are you doing? What is everyone doing? You don't need anything. No. People need to sack up, take their knocks. If you need to go talk to a therapist, do it. But stop being a pussy and feel some pain. Oops, I just said pussy.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

That's all right.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

I think you can say that. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Uh we'll let you know if he gets arrested. Yeah. But I agree. I suck it up and take, like you said, take some pain or take some anxiety or take some. I get it. People have anxiety and people um, but I think we know enough about mental health now that get some help. Everybody has it. Right. You know everybody has anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Yeah, and you know how you get through anxiety dealing with the what's going on in your life. You don't just keep covering shit up.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Right. You have to deal with it. I know that from drinking go away. It doesn't just go away.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Just drink so I don't have to think about stuff. Drink so I don't have to deal with stuff. No, you know what? Just deal with it. Feel. And you know what? Once you start feeling, you're like, you know what? I can make it through anything. You know? But and she didn't have the resources.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

She didn't.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Because they weren't there.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

No. No. If you were a woman then and your man died, you're fucked.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

And not in a good way. No. So she did survive by 17 years.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

She lived in Chicago, in Europe, and Florida. But that was weird.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

She was at Del Boca Vista.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

And then she died at the age of 63 in 1882 in Springfield, Arizona, of a stroke. 63 was pretty old for then. I mean, it's not now.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

No, I mean that's ancient. She had kids. She had left her grief, a war, and a that's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Yeah. She did have a play written about her later in 2024 called Old Mary. It's kind of a dark comedy.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

What about her um the lady that she knew who was a slave or a servant that ended up writing a book about her experience as a slave or a servant, but then she wrote some things about uh the Lincolns in that book, and that kind of made her sad because she was just stating the facts about she outed them. Yeah, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

She didn't sign the uh no NDA. Yeah. She didn't sign it. She does uh if you're ever in Lexington, Lexington, Kentucky, there is a Mary Todd Lincoln House Museum in her girlhood uh home. And it got pretty good reviews, 4.7 out of 5.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

That's pretty good. That's better than the ratings of this show. By the way, if you want to get a hold of us, hero or dicks 2023 at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

That's a great segue. Give it a shot. We suck.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Our Google review is a 1.2 out of 5.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

We don't even have a Google review.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

I reviewed us.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Did you?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

I gave us a 1.2. Okay, so what do we think?

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Let's try to keep it as low as we can. We might as well. Don't excel. No. Let's excel to be horrible. Yes. Alright, I can do it.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

So it should be more controversial.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Oh okay, but not politically.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

You're yeah, I know you like skating around that.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Well, I just feel like this political atmosphere is charged enough. I don't want to add to it.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Well, it's not even political anymore. It's just dumb.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Take a side. And I don't want to take sides.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

You know, the ticks are really bad. You said tick, and it reminds me of ticks.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Are they out already?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

It's horrible.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

They're they were bad last year, really bad.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Like now, like I mean, they're evil.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Why are they out already? I don't know. They're gonna outlive all of us. They're gonna eat the cockroaches.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

You think so?

SPEAKER_01 34:16

I think so. We found something that will outlive a cockroach. But those ticks, did you ever try to kill one? Yeah. I have not successfully killed one.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Burn them.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Burn them late.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

You can't kill them otherwise. No.

unknown 34:32

No.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

All right. Anyway, what do you think about this lady? You got more on her?

Hero Or Dick Verdict And Fast Five

SPEAKER_01 34:35

So, uh, no, I think we covered pretty much everything. And I think um you mentally troubled, yes. And she did have depression and and headaches and and physical ailments because of that. Um, but I still think she was a behind the scenes hero that pushed Abe when he needed it. Yeah. And so because of that, we got Abe Lincoln as a president. And I think, you know, not just because he was assassinated, but I think he did, I think he did some good in the country. You know, I think he was compassionate enough that even when the so when the war was ending, I just watched the movie Lincoln 2. You did. It was pretty long. Well, it just happened to be on, so I'm like, I guess I'll watch this, call it, call it homework. And he really wanted to um make sure when the war ended that we weren't still divided, right? That we all worked together to come back as a country, and that was not easy. I mean, people didn't want to do that, they were still taking sides because there were brothers fighting brothers on the Dunap. So um, yeah, and I think that Mary Todd pushed him and supported him and maybe, you know, gave him some ideas that you know it helped him be a better president, too. Yeah. I mean, so I say she's uh uh do it. I say she's a behind-the-scenes hero. Okay. And the the the stuff that she did that was dickish, I don't know that she had a choice. I mean, I'm sure if she could have changed, you know, three of her sons from dying to make her, you know, mentally mean or what if perceived that way.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

What if she'd been a man? I don't think people would uh think as much about it.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

No.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

So I say she's a hero, even though she was controversial, it had some issues, could be a pain in the butt. I think, yeah, she helped guide uh Abe and she went through a lot and did the best she could. She did the best she could, right? Thank you, Mary Todd Lincoln. Thank you, Mary Todd.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

That's all you can do.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

And for you, Mary Todd, I have a fast five, Kate. Ah, can you believe it? No, I see you have one too, though. I do, but mine is actually tied to her a bit.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Because is it about Mother's Day?

SPEAKER_00 37:28

No.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Oh, mine is.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Mine's uh you ready? Yeah, seances because she did some seances.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Some seances, which was common for that time frame.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Yeah, it was like all the rage. Yeah, I thought that'd be cool. I like to be in that at that time. Right now, oh my god. Not right now. We should can you stay up to midnight?

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Uh not tonight. Not tonight. We should pick a date. We I'll do a seance with you.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Cassie, we have to do a seance, we have to do it on the show.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Yeah, we'll we'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

We'll I don't know though. We open shit up like that.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Well, let's think about that.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Anyway, seances.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 38:03

I I say hero.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Everybody's favorite, party favorite, laudanum.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Well, I'm gonna try it.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

You say hero?

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I say hero.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Spending sprees.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Oh, well, no, those are hero end decks. Um, if you have the money and you have you don't go overboard, why not go on a spending spree? But if you don't have the money and you can't support your spending habit, don't spend the taxpayers' dollars. Well, yeah, it depends on who's spending, right? Whose money you're spending, I guess. I was thinking you're spending your own money. Don't spend my money.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

No, stop doing it.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Stop it.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Um social climbing, climbing the old social ladder.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

I think that's a dick move.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Gotcha. And cornbread.

Mother’s Day Fast Five And Closing

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Hero! I have some delicious cornbread and savannah. Just delicious. Okay, and so my top five are all related to Mother's Day because Mother's Day is Sunday. Happy Mother's Day, every mother out there. Um, and when I Googled it, AI said when I Googled, what does every mother want for Mother's Day? AI said a couple things. One was a break from everyday responsibility.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

Isn't that the truth?

SPEAKER_01 39:29

I think so. The other was acknowledgement.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Mothers want acknowledgement. I'm like, eh, okay, that, and maybe, you know, a gift card.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

So you don't just want you don't just want the words of appreciation. You want maybe a$150 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Um, but the top five Mother's Day gifts are oh fuck. Flowers.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Candy.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Hero or dick. Flowers.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Flowers. Hero. I like flowers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

How about greeting cards?

SPEAKER_00 40:06

I'll say hero. I guess if you put thought into pictures, put thought into it and send it out.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

I just really have a hard time finding one that says what I really want it to say. They're too flowy, special.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Yeah, be more heroic if people just made their own.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

How about uh number three was special meals, like a brunch or a dinner. Oh, hero. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Um, number four was a personalized item.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Dick.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Uh like jewelry. Personalized? Yeah, like uh a monogram. Like your initials?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Uh I'm not big into that, but some people are.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

I guess Dick. I mean, I'd if my mom wanted it, I'd get it for her, sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Yeah. Well, initial would you get her? Her name or an M for mom.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Probably her initials. Yeah. Because she's been called mom her whole life. She's also somebody else. She's a person with a name. It's not just mom.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Wow. That's deep.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

I think a lot of moms feel that. They're like, oh, I'm the fucking wife, I'm the mom, I'm the cooker, I'm the cleaner, I'm the fucking emotional tampon for everybody. And they just don't get to be themselves. They lose that identity.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Sometimes they do.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

But then you get some ladies who want to be June Cleaver or whatever, you know, they're just like, I want to be the mom, and that's fine too, but do you?

SPEAKER_01 41:28

You it it's a balance.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

If you're a mom, you're usually a mom first.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

You can't get away from it.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

No, no, you can. Spa treatments was the last one.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

I suppose it's heroic.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

No candy on there.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

That's what I thought would be on the list. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Well, apparently people aren't buying candy for their moms.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Moms like wine, some of them.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Some of them. Not this mom.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

No.

unknown 41:54

No.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Cassidy gave me my Mother's Day gift already. Thank you, Cassidy. It's a lovely gift assortment of some puzzle books, books.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

And um Did you get an advent calendar already?

SPEAKER_01 42:09

I know, but I would have accepted one. Uh it was just a nice assortment of all things I liked.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

MM's. I love Ms.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

She's a thoughtful one.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

She is a thoughtful girl. Good job, Cassidy.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Well, she got that from you, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:26

Yeah. Of course she did.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

You're thoughtful. Kate brought me a bookstore. I guess this is a bookmark. It's just a bookmark. And then she and her good friend, we can't talk politics, but a good friend of hers.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

I met the governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Lovely lady.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Yep. She gave me some swag. And Gretchen's phone number, so I'll be calling.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Is that her phone number over there? No. Just you can probably get a hold of her if you need to. Yeah. She's very excited.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

She would be on the show, I bet.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Uh, if I would have had a sticker or some swag, I could have gave her that.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

That'd be so funny.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

But I didn't. I made her a hat. Actually, I made her a headband for her hair. She has nice hair. Keep that hair back in the so. All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening. So we're done. Yeah, we're done.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

You're just cutting it short.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Short though.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

All right. Thanks, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

All right. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Bye.