William (Willie) Wallace Lincoln was the most precocious of the Lincoln children—good natured and, unlike his younger brother Tad, studious. He seemed to have an affinity for poetry and mathematics and was unusually religious for his age. Lincoln took great pride in his third son, the more so after observing that Willie on numerous occasions solved interpersonal problems in much the same manner he did himself. Willie's death at the age of eleven from typhoid fever affected both parents profoundly.