The mothers of famous men survive only in their sons. This is a rule almost as invariable as a law of nature. Whatever the aspirations and energies of the mother, memorable achievement is not for her. No memoir has been written in this country of the women who bore, fostered, and trained our great men. What do we know of the mother of Daniel Webster, or John Adams, or Patrick Henry, or Andrew Jackson, or of the mothers of our Revolutionary generals? This book is dedicated to Mary Ball Washington, the second wife of Augustine Washington, a planter in Virginia and the mother of George Washington, the first President of the United States.
Contents:
Mary Washington’s English Ancestry
The Ball Family in Virginia
Coat Armor and the Right to bear it
Traditions of Mary Ball’s Early Life
Revelations of an Old Will
Mary Ball’s Childhood
Good Times in Old Virginia
Mary Ball’s Guardian and her Girlhood
Young Men and Maidens of the Old Dominion
The Toast of the Gallants of her Day
Her Marriage and Early Life
Birthplace of George Washington
The Cherry Tree and Little Hatchet
The Young Widow and her Family
Betty Washington, and Weddings in Old Virginia
Defeat in War: Success in Love
In and Around Fredericksburg
Social Characteristics, Manners, and Customs
A True Portrait of Mary Washington
Noon in the Golden Age
Dinners, Dress, Dances, Horse-races
The Little Cloud
The Storm
Mary Washington in the Hour of Peril
Old Revolutionary Letters
The Battle-ground
France in the Revolution
‘On with the Dance, let Joy be unconfined’
Lafayette and our French Allies
In Camp and at Mount Vernon
Mrs. Adams at the Court of St. James
The First Winter at Mount Vernon
The President and his Last Visit to his Mother
Mary Washington’s Will; her Illness and Death
Tributes of her Countrymen
Despre autor
Sara Agnes Rice Pryor (1830-1912), was an American writer and community activist in New York City. Born in Virginia, she moved north after the American Civil War with her husband and family to rebuild their life. He was a former politician and Confederate general; together they became influential in New York society, among numerous ‘Confederate carpetbaggers’ after the war.