She died of a stroke when her son John was seven years old.With two brothers and five sisters, Tyler was reared on Greenway Plantation, a 1,200-acre (5 km2) estate with a six-room manor house his father had built. The Tylers' forty slaves grew various crops, including wheat, corn and tobacco. Judge Tyler paid high wages for tutors who challenged his children academically. In December 1841, Tyler was attacked by abolitionist publisher Joshua Leavitt, with the unsubstantiated allegation that Tyler had fathered several sons with his slaves, and later sold them. A number of African American families today maintain a belief in their descent from Tyler, but there is no evidence of such genealogy.As of August 2019, Tyler has two living grandsons through his son Lyon Gardiner Tyler, making him the earliest former president with living grandchildren. Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. was born in 1924, and Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928.