Though never in reality a First Lady, Rachel Jackson's mixup with her divorce and remarriage impacted and had a detrimental effect on her life and her husband President Andrew Jackson until the day of his death. She was born Rachel Donelson in Virginia, the fourth daughter of twelve children. Her education was almost nonexistent and what she did receive was akin to what frontier women received: reading the Bible and little else. Jackson met Rachael while lodging at her widowed mother's boarding house in Nashville, Tennessee, and they were soon wed. However, after two years it came to light that her divorce from a first marriage had not been decreed, only placed on the docket to be heard. In the eyes of the law, Rachel Jackson had committed bigamy by marrying Andrew Jackson. When the final decree of divorce was actually granted Andrew and Rachel remarried. Tales of their adultery and bigamy followed the couple as Jackson's career advanced in both politics and war. On December 22, 1828, two months prior to Jackson's assuming the presidency, Rachel Jackson died. She had been in poor health for a number of years and a heart attack took her life. The president-elect selected her own personal garden at the Hermitage, their estate outside Nashville, for her burial site. Jackson was convinced that the strain of the personal attacks on her character was directly responsible for her demise. He never recovered from her loss and never remarried. He carried a miniature of her and at night placed it on his bedside table. In 1845, at the age of 78 , Jackson died in his bedroom and was buried in the garden next to his wife.
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