text: Mother's death On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died from milk sickness, leaving 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household including her father, 9-year-old Abraham, and Nancy's 19-year-old orphan cousin, Dennis Hanks.Ten years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah died while giving birth to a stillborn son, devastating Lincoln.On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own.Abraham became close to his stepmother and called her "Mother".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.".His stepmother acknowledged he did not enjoy "physical labor", but loved to read.Education and move to Illinois Lincoln was largely self-educated.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, 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.He persisted as an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning.Family, neighbors, and schoolmates recalled that his reading included the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.Despite being self-educated, Lincoln was the recipient of honorary degrees later in life, including an honorary Doctor of Laws from Columbia University in June 1861.As a teen, Lincoln took responsibility for chores and customarily gave his father all earnings from work outside the home until he was 21.Lincoln was tall, strong, and athletic, and became adept at using an ax.He was an active wrestler during his youth and trained in the rough catch-as-catch-can style (also known as catch wrestling).