Former First Lady Abigail Fillmore: She was not only the wife of President Millard Fillmore, before she married him, she was his teacher! Photo credit: National First Ladies Library

Many American Presidents and First Ladies were former school educators. One of them was Abigail Fillmore, who actually taught the school her future husband, Millard Fillmore, attended.

Millard was 19 years old and largely illiterate when he decided he needed more education. He enrolled in a school in a nearby town in the state of New York. The 22-year-old teacher was Abigail Powers. Millard, the oldest student in her class, quickly fell in love with his teacher, but he was too poor and too shy to do anything about it. Seven years after he became her student, she became his wife.

When Abigail became Millard’s teacher, she had already established herself in her career. She had been teaching for six years. In 1814, she accepted a position as a part-time school teacher at the Sempronius Village School. In 1817, she became a full-time teacher, and in 1819 she took on another teaching job and began to teach at the private New Hope Academy. When she was asked to open up a private school in Broome County, she agreed, and within a short time opened the school. In 1825, she returned to Sempronius to teach in her original position.

When Millard Fillmore was elected President in 1850, Abigail became the nation’s First Lady. In fact, because she did not follow local custom and quit her job after her marriage, she was the first First Lady who came to her new position as a woman with a prior career.

As First Lady, Abigail Fillmore created a White House library for future residents of the People’s House. With her husband, she supported education and championed hospitalization for the mentally handicapped rather than imprisonment and punishment.

To read more about this amazing First Lady, click on this link to History.com.