First Lady Sarah Childress Polk

First Lady Sarah Childress Polk. Sarah Childress Polk was born September 4, 1803, near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She attended the Moravian Academy in Salem, North Carolina. Upon her return to Tennessee, she met and married the young Columbia lawyer, James Knox Polk, on January 1, 1824. They settled in a home on West 7th Street in Columbia, not far from his ancestral home. , Having no children, Sarah Polk was happy to immerse herself in James K. Polk's political career. She was by his side as he served seven terms in the U.S. Congress, handling his correspondence and discussing issues of state with him. In 1839, Sarah Polk became the First Lady of Tennessee when James K. Polk was elected Governor. , In 1844, James K. Polk won the presidential election and Sarah Polk became the First Lady of the United States of America. She was politically savvy and powerful men sought her opinion on weighty topics of the day. Her "parlor politics" helped her husband achieve his political goals in shaping America's destiny. (Continued on other side), Reverse , In a time when women did not have the right to vote, Sarah Polk was exceptional in having spent a lifetime in the political arena, gaining an understanding of a world few women entered. She has been called by her principal biographer, "the most powerful woman in America in 1848." , In 1849, the Polks left the White House to retire at "Polk Place in Nashville. James K. Polk died June 15, 1849, just three months after their return home. Sarah Polk lived forty-two years after her husband's death, the longest widowhood of any First Lady in history. She embraced her role, wearing only black for the remainder of her life. During her final years, she opened the doors of Polk Place to generals from both sides during the Civil War, visiting presidents and their First Ladies, and many other dignitaries with whom she shared her late husband's library and letters that she continued to curate over the years. Sarah Polk died August 14, 1891, just short of her eighty-eighth birthday. She is buried on the grounds at the Tennessee State Capitol alongside her husband.