She was succeeded by a woman of superior intellect, who in a different sphere had proved herself an equally devoted wife. Mrs. Abigail Filmore, the daughter of a Baptist clergyman, grew up in Western New York, when it was a frontier and a wilderness. Yearning for intellectual culture, with all the drawbacks of poverty and scanty opportunity, she obtained sufficient knowledge to become a school-teacher. It was while following this avocation that she first met her future husband, the thirteenth President of the United States, then a clothier’s apprentice, a youth of less than twenty years, himself, during the winter months, a teacher of the village school. They were married in 1826, and began life in a small house built by her husband’s hands. In this little house the wife added to her duties of maid-of-all-work, house-keeper, hostess and wife, the avocation of teacher. She bore full half of the burden of life, and the husband, with the weight of care lifted from him by willing and loving hands, rose rapidly in the profession of law, and in less than two years was chosen a member of the State Legislature. Thus, side by side, they worked and struggled, from poverty to eminence. Strong in intellect and will, her delights were all feminine. Her tasks accomplished, she lived in books and music, flowers and children. At her death, her husband said: “For twenty-seven years, my entire married life, I was always greeted with a happy smile.” She entered the White House a matron of commanding person and beautiful countenance. She was five feet six inches in height, with a complexion extremely fair and pure, blue, smiling eyes, and a wealth of light-brown curling hair. A personal friend of Mrs. Filmore, writing from Buffalo, says: “When Mr. Filmore entered the White House, he found it entirely destitute of books. Mrs. Filmore was in the habit of spending her leisure moments in reading, I might almost say, in studying. She was accustomed to be surrounded with books of reference, maps, and all the other requirements of a well furnished library, and she found it difficult to content herself in a house devoid of such attractions. To meet this want, Mr. Filmore asked of Congress, and received an appropriation, and selected a library, devoting to that purpose a large and pleasant room in the second story of the White House. Here Mrs. Filmore surrounded herself with her little home comforts; here her daughter had her own piano, harp, and guitar, and here Mrs. Filmore received the informal visits of the friends she loved, and, for her, the real pleasure and enjoyments of the White House were in this room.”