Abraham Lincoln was without a mother for less than a year.

After his birth mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln died from drinking poisoned milk in 1818, his father Thomas LIncoln married Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln in 1819.

Although his father preferred he work, Abraham’s loving stepmother encouraged him to read and write.

She also prodded her new husband to install a wooden floor in the dirt-floored cabin where they lived and to provide utensils so the children could learn to eat properly.