# Mollie Wingate — John Brown’s Body character guide

> Mollie Wingate in John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benét.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Bell, Mary Lou Wingate, Louisa

**First appearance:** 0006-book-ii

## Snapshot

The Wingate family's enslaved matriarch — nurse, cook, and keeper of the household — whose devotion and bondage are inseparable and equally real.

## Who they are

Mollie Wingate raised Marse Billy when he was puny and cared for the Squire when he got loony; she has closed the children's eyes when they lay dead, and the white-skinned ones are bone of her bone though she is legally neither mother nor kin. She is half a nuisance and half a mother, the family-despot and the slave, and Benét calls her a curious blossom from bitter ground. She matters because she is one of the three stout pillars holding up Wingate Hall — and because the poem refuses to let her kindness and her chains be separated.

## In the story

### [Book II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se/chapters/book-ii)

Mentioned as Lincoln's wife, worried about their children and sharp-tongued.

### [Book VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se/chapters/book-viii)

Mary Lou Wingate holds the lamp while Cudjo buries the silver. Afterward, she prays in her room, strikes the bedstead with her wedding ring, and declares she will not be driven from her house.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se/characters/mollie_wingate
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/john_brown_s_body_se/characters