[20] Ten years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah died while giving birth to a stillborn son, devastating Lincoln.[21]
On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own.[22] Abraham became close to his stepmother and called her "Mother".[23] Lincoln disliked the hard labor associated with farm life. His family even said he was lazy, for all his "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc.".[24] His stepmother acknowledged he did not enjoy "physical labor", but loved to read.[25]

Education and move to Illinois
Lincoln was largely self-educated.[26] His formal schooling was from itinerant teachers. It included two short stints in Kentucky, where he learned to read but probably not to write, at age seven,[27] and in Indiana, where he went to school sporadically due to farm chores, for a total of fewer than 12 months in aggregate by the age of 15.[28] He persisted as an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning.