Mamie was born Mary Todd Lincoln to
Mary Eunice Harlan and
Robert Todd Lincoln at the Robert Lincoln home in
Chicago, Illinois. As a child, she was called by the nickname of "Little Mamie". Her father would often bring Mamie to visit his mother,
Mary Todd Lincoln. It is believed that Robert addressed Mamie as Mary's "favorite grandchild". On one visit, Mary Lincoln gave her grandchild two very expensive
dolls.
Mamie and her siblings were described as "bright, natural, unpretentious children, well liked by the people of the town". Mamie and her sister,
Jessie, were piano students in the summer session of
Iowa Wesleyan in 1886.[2]
Mamie later became a member of the Mount Pleasant Chapter A of the
P.E.O. Sisterhood one month before her birthday, on September 17, 1884. Her sister Jessie was later accepted by the same organization on December 31, 1895, more than 11 years later.[3]
Lincoln Isham (1892–1971),[5] who married Leahalma Correa (1892–1960), the daughter of the
Spaniard Carlos Correa and the
Englishwoman Mary Gooding in August 1919.[6] They did not have any children together.[7]
She lived the rest of her life in
New York City including the address 19 East
72nd Street, where she was a choir mother of
Grace Church on
Broadway. On June 9, 1919, her husband died, leaving her a widow,[8][9] but she continued to live in New York City for the next 19 years until she became gravely ill herself in 1938. She died in
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital on November 21, 1938, at around 10:05 a.m. at the age of 69.[10] She is buried in
Woodlawn Cemetery in
the Bronx, New York City.
At the time of her death, Isham was the owner of the
Healy Portrait of Lincoln, which had been left to her by her mother. It was given to the
White House collection when she died.[11]