Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

Abraham Lincoln is considered by historians to be one of America's greatest presidents. He

overcame childhood poverty to ascend to the country's highest office. He signed

the Emancipation Proclamation. He led a divided nation through civil war. But the 16th president's

accomplishments may not have happened were it not for two very important women in his life, his mother and stepmother.

Lincoln kept most details about his family to himself. When a newspaper editor brought up

the subject during the 1860 presidential campaign, he said only that

they were poor. But privately, he told his law partner and future biographer William Herndon,

God bless my mother, all that I am or ever hoped to be I owe to her. Lincoln's mother was named Nancy Hanks.

Nancy seemed to be the opposite of Lincoln's dad in just about every way.

Lincoln's father was short, his mother tall.

His father was dull and aimless.

His mother, smart and motivated.

Herndon says that Lincoln's well-documented propensity for melancholy may have also come from her. Though she was kind and friendly, neighbors told him that she was often be clouded by a spirit of sadness.

When Lincoln was seven, the family moved from Kentucky to a new settlement in Indiana, where

his days were filled with farming chores and mischief with neighborhood kids in the wilderness.

But two years in, tragedy struck.

His mother consumed milk that was accidentally poisoned with white snake root.

Seven days later, at age 34, she was dead.

Lincoln was a man of many public words, a skilled order who even wrote poetry.

But he left no record of what it was like to lose his mother. Still, there are clues. Historian David Herbert Donald points to a letter Lincoln wrote

to a child who had just lost a loved one. Lincoln wrote, in this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all,

...