Elizabeth Sherman Cameron

Elizabeth Sherman Cameron was born in 1858 in Mansfield, Ohio, the youngest of Charles and Eliza Sherman's six children. Her father, a federal district judge, was the brother of Sen. John Sherman and Civil War officer William Tecumseh Sherman. In 1878, Elizabeth married Sen. J. Donald (Don) Cameron of Pennsylvania, a widower with six children who was more than 20 years her senior.

The couple divided their time between their house on Washington, D.C.'s fashionable Lafayette Square and the Camerons' family home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In Washington, Elizabeth met Henry Adams and his wife Clover, who welcomed her into their circle of friends, which included some of the great intellectuals of the late 19th century. Following Clover's suicide in 1886, a strong friendship grew between her and Henry Adams. In 1886, the Camerons' only daughter, Martha, was born. Henry Adams was particularly close to Martha Cameron.

In 1909, Martha Cameron married Ronald Lindsay, a junior officer in the British Foreign Service, and accompanied him to his post in Cairo, Egypt. After Martha's marriage, Elizabeth Cameron moved permanently to Europe and settled in Paris, where she officially separated from her husband. In Paris, she joined American expatriates and played the role of a great hostess, much as she had done years before in Lafayette Square, and spent her vacations at Stepleton, an English manor house in Dorset which the Lindsays had rented as a second home.

When World War I broke out, Elizabeth, encouraged by her friend Edith Wharton, operated a "Foyer aux Refugies" to assist refugees from Belgium and the French countryside. In 1918, Martha returned from Cairo with paratyphoid and other complications. She died at Stepleton in April 1918, just one month after Henry Adams's death in Beverly, Mass. Later that year, Don Cameron also died at his home in Harrisburg, Penn. Elizabeth, mourning for her daughter, stayed on at Stepleton, where Martha was buried. It took years before she recovered from Martha's death, and friends remarked on her eccentric behavior. She eventually purchased Stepleton for herself and Ronald Lindsay, entertaining guests and often traveling during the winter months. She lived there until her death in 1944.

From https://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0454; accessed 2/9/24 NW