Jane Pierce

Jane Means Appleton Pierce had already experienced the death of two sons when her husband Franklin Pierce was elected president. Then, two months before his inauguration in 1853, their only surviving child, Benjamin, was killed before her eyes in a train accident. She never recovered from her loss. Desperate to communicate with her dead son, she had mediums hold a séance at the White House. Pierce struggled to meet the social expectations of being first lady and relied on her aunt, Abigail Kent Means, to organize events.