Tintype found of Jeff Davis housekeeper

Mary O'Melia left Ireland for America as a young widow with three children before she was hired as housekeeper at the White House of the Confederacy. She has been much of a mystery until this year, when a woman called The American Civil War Museum. The housekeeper, the woman said, was related to her late husband, and she had in her possession a necklace that Confederate first lady Varina Davis gave O'Melia. "What really took my breath away is she said she had a photograph of Mary," said Cathy Wright, curator at the Civil War Museum. • Article