15. Andrew Jackson’s Beloved Wife Died Three Months Before His Inauguration
While living in Nashville in 1788, Andrew Jackson met the ravishing daughter of his landlord, Rachel Donelson Robards. The couple fell in love, even though she was in an abusive marriage at the time. When she separated from her husband in 1790, Rachel immediately moved in with Jackson. They lived together as husband and wife until their marriage in 1791. There was one problem: Rachel’s divorce from her first husband was not official. When the couple discovered that they were not legally married, they finalized her divorce, remarrying in 1794.
In 1828, Jackson was a war hero and a politician who had his eye on the presidency. During the campaign, supporters of the current president, John Quincy Adams, publicly attacked Rachel’s marital history to ruin Jackson’s reputation. In December, Rachel died of a heart attack – less than three months before her husband took office. Many speculated her heart could not handle the stress of the mudslinging. The hysterical Jackson desperately tried to revive her, and witnesses physically removed him so that the undertaker could prepare her body for burial. Jackson never remarried before his death in 1845.