She worked in service at the Tennessee governor's mansion during the American Civil War, at the White House as a housemaid during Johnson's presidency, and in his home in Greeneville as a cook after he left office.

[8][9][7][10][11][12][a] The father of Florence and her older sister Lucy Elizabeth, called Liz, was never named in any known historical document, and his identity remains officially unknown.

[18] In 1864 and 1865, when Andrew Johnson was military governor of Tennessee, he "claimed pay toward wages, rations, and clothing for three servants: Henry, Florence, and Elizabeth (Liz).

[22] In the words of David Warren Bowen, author of Andrew Johnson and the Negro, "The picture shows a handsome young woman of very light color most tastefully dressed in a manner that appears quite expensive and not the sort of attire one would expect of a common servant.

[24] From his mother, William Andrew learned much about cooking, but his sister, Florence, who was a maid in the White House, taught him the culinary art after her return from a famous cooking school of that day to which the president sent her.On April 30, 1874, Florence Johnson married Henry Smith at Greeneville, Tennessee.

He was a former 1st Sergeant (the highest rank obtainable by a black man at that time)[26] of Company G of the 1st Regiment, United States Colored Heavy Artillery.

[7][10][11] The separation may be explained by a news item published March 1889 in The Tennessean of Nashville, although caution must be exercised in this attribution since the identity of the wife in the report is obscured:[30]

Henry Smith, colored, appeared in the docks before Judge Bell of the City Court yesterday morning on charge of assault and battery.

To cut the story short Mr Smith became enraged and struck his wife a blow that laid her prone upon the sidewalk.

Hence the result as told.At the time of the June 1900 U.S. census, Florence Smith lived at the corner of McGhee and Dora, in Knoxville, Tennessee.

[19][20][21] Ten years later, at the time of the 1910 census, Florence Smith still lived on McGhee Street; the other members of her household were her daughter Mabel and her brother William Johnson, who worked as a cook at a hotel.

[12] Several regional newspapers published news items about her death, referencing her association with Andrew Johnson and her time in the White House.

[20][21][19] She was a woman who made the most of her opportunities, and with the funds at her disposal helped many worthy young persons of her race in their efforts to go through college.

When he registered for the World War I draft in 1918, he reported that he worked as a chef in a railroad dining car based out of Chattanooga.