She modestly shrank from all notoriety and evaded the public eye as much as possible. She had not the faintest wish to enjoy the reputation of authoress or wit, or for maintaining an ascendency in the company of brilliant men and women of the world. She was perfectly content to be seen only as a part of the existence of her beloved husband; to entertain her neighbors in her own easy, hospitable, and unostentatious way; to converse with visitors on current topics intelligently; to sit gently by her child’s cradle, reading, knitting, or sewing; or else to while away pleasant hours in the endearing companionship of her sisters and her intimate acquaintances.
It appears that, though she resided in Richmond during the period that Mr. Tyler was Governor of Virginia, and did the honors of the Executive Dwelling of the State with ease, and grace, and singular discretion, winning the commendation of all at a time when the metropolis of Virginia was unexcelled upon the American continent, either in respect to elegant men or accomplished women; yet that she had rarely visited the city while he was a member of the Legislature, and that during his long term of service as Representative and Senator in the Congress of the United States—having been three times elected to the House and twice to the Senate,—she suffered herself to be persuaded only once to pass a winter in Washington, and at the end of another session only reluctantly consented, at his earnest entreaty, to visit one summer the gay centres and resorts of the North.
When either her own health, or that of her husband, or that of her children, absolutely required a change of air and scene, as several times happened, she vastly preferred the bracing temperature and invigorating atmosphere of the mountains of Virginia and the life-imparting Greenbriar waters to the seats of more fashionable display and empty vanity. She was, under all circumstances, the wife and mother, sister and friend, apparently living in and for those whom she loved, and not for herself.
No English lady was ever more skilled and accomplished in domestic culture and economy than was Mrs. Tyler, and she was never so happy as when in the enjoyment of domestic privacy. At her own home she was a pattern of order, system, and neatness, as well as of hospitality, charity, benevolence, and conscientiousness in the discharge of every duty incumbent upon the mistress of a large household, and scrupulously attentive to every wish expressed by her husband as to the management of his interests in his absence on public affairs.
Nothing escaped her watchful yet kindly eye, either within or without the mansion. She loved all pure and beautiful things, whether in nature or in art. The grounds within the curtilage were tastefully arranged in lawns and gardens, and under her immediate inspection were kept carefully adorned with shade trees, and flowering shrubs, and odoriferous plants, and trailing vines, so that in the spring, summer, and fall the airs around were literally loaded with sweets. The kitchen-garden and fruit-orchards were always extensively cultivated.
The dairy and laundry were sedulously supervised, and in all directions poultry and fowls of almost every kind most prized for the table, were to be seen in flocks. She preferred that her servant-women should be held to these milder employments, and to spinning and weaving, knitting and sewing, rather than being assigned to the more onerous tasks of the field upon the plantation.
Thus, under her superintendence, not only were all the negro field-hands and negro children comfortably provided with clothing of home manufacture and make, as well as ministered to with care and supplied with all necessary medical attendance when sick, but, at the same time, the members of the immediate household had their wants, in these respects, for the most part bountifully met; while the rarest and most beautiful toilet fabrics, and counterpanes, and coverlets, such as are not now to be had at any price, were produced by her handmaids, assisted by those of the neighborhood inheriting the art. Beyond all question, and without regard to the portion she brought with her after marriage, as the gift of her father, which was by no means relatively inconsiderable, she maintained by her active economy the pecuniary independence of her husband under his continued public employments, in an age of public virtue, when the representatives of the people, as well as those of the States, received but slight remuneration for their services, and when, in all probability, he would have been otherwise compelled to have withdrawn from the public councils, and to have relinquished the career of ambition in view of his family necessities and requirements.
Mrs. Tyler was baptized in infancy in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in early life became a consistent communicant. At every stage of her existence she was pervaded by a deep religious sentiment, and the Bible was her constant companion. For her neighborly and charitable nature she was proverbial. Although every one who knew her as a young unmarried lady, and nearly all of her contemporaries in more advanced years, are now dead, still her reputation in these respects abides among the living, and is particularly referred to and commented upon in every communication we received concerning her, as well as in all of her obituaries that we have read. And one of the most beautiful traits in her lovely and almost faultless character, in the midst of all her mildness, meekness, gentleness and amiability, was the perfect self-respect which constantly attended her, beating in unison with her true woman’s soul, suffering no encroachment upon true propriety and decorum in her presence, and sustaining her dignity as a Virginia matron, which never, under any circumstances whatever, deserted her.
Mrs. Robert Tyler, the wife of her oldest son, thus wrote concerning her, at her own home, in the bosom of her own family, in the old city of Williamsburg, Virginia, under the first impressions she received after she was married in Pennsylvania, to her sisters at the North:
“Williamsburg, Virginia, October, 1839.