“Grace is a cosmopolite, and like a wild flower, is much oftener found in the woods than in the streets of a city.”
Emily Donelson
Emily Tennessee Donelson
Years of service: 1829-1836
Born: 1807
Years of service: 1829-1836
Born: 1807
Pretty and petite but frequently ill, Emily Donelson was doted on by her family. She married her first cousin, Andrew Jackson Donelson, when she was seventeen. Emily served as White House Hostess in her deceased aunt Rachel Jackson’s place. Her beauty, fashion sense, and grace received rave reviews from Washington society. She refused President Jackson's order to make a social call on scandalous outcast Margaret Eaton during the “Petticoat Affair" in Washington. Instead, she defiantly left the White House for her home in Tennessee. Though the riff was soon over, she succumbed to tuberculosis before Jackson's presidential term ended, leaving behind four small children.