Three weeks in a row someone has answered the week's trivia question straight away, but not this week. What happened--did I stump you?
The answer to this week's trivia question Which First Lady Was The First To Write Her Autobiography is: Louisa Adams. She called her autobiography Adventures of a Nobody.
Wow, what a downer of a title! Louisa Adams was certainly not a nobody. As I wrote in an earlier post, her family was prominent both in England and here in the United States. When the family returned from England her father was appointed U.S. Superintendent of Stamps and her uncle, among other honors, was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Louisa was an accomplished writer, musician and linguist.
Louisa Adams published her autobiography a year after her husband, John Quincy Adams, was elected president. It was no secret that she was miserable in the White House. There were problems with her children and another contributing factor was her problematic relationship with her husband. Their son John said of his parents: "A more pitiable set I do not think I know". Louisa wrote in her diary: "I have since the first year of my marriage entered upon my great honours with tears...I have nothing to do with the disposal of affairs and have never but once been consulted".
You hit the nail on the head, Deborah! In my next post about Louisa, I'll talk about what she did about it.
Posted by: Donna Brand | 04/13/2011 at 09:37 AM
Sounds like Louisa was depressed. Despite her accomplishments no one sought her opinion. No wonder she felt like a nobody.
Posted by: Deborah Corsi | 04/12/2011 at 10:33 PM