George Washington's birthday

Photo of Martha Washington taken from Wikipedia:

As we wait for the next event that leads to the Revolution, I was reminded by the DAR President General's message about celebrating George Washington's birthday:  

This month, we hope that you will take a moment on or around February 22nd to honor the legacy of Revolutionary War Patriot and Founding Father George Washington. If you are looking for material for a program, Mount Vernon’s Washington Library has videos, podcasts, and other resources to share with your chapter. You may also consider reading his Farewell Address aloud at a meeting. A perhaps surprising and lesser-known-fact is that Washington never actually delivered his Farewell Address publicly, but instead published it in Philadelphia’s Daily American Advertiser in 1796.

I forgot at our February DAR meeting to mention several things that I had thought I might mention.  But actually they are better put in a blog than talked about at the meeting anyway.  These thoughts are actually more about Martha Washington than about George himself.  Martha had married Daniel Parker Custis in 1750.  He was 20 years older than Martha.  And Martha bore four children to Daniel Parker Custis in the seven years she was married to him.  Only two of the children survived childhood:  John/Jacky and Martha/Patsy.  Her husband died in 1757 leaving her a wealthy widow (Daniel Parker Custis was one of the wealthiest men in Virginia at the time).  She mourned him for months but as she was attractive and rich she was courted by many gentlemen.  One of them was a young Soldier named George Washington who was closer to her own age.  He had just inherited Mount Vernon, a beautiful estate near the Potomac River.  They were married 6 January 1759.

I have taken this information from an article in Spring 2020 Piecework.  The article is written by A.K. Fielding and I highly recommend taking a look at the article for yourself to see paintings of Martha as well as information about her needlework.  

and the author suggest several sites including:

www.marthawashington.us

and 

www.mountvernon.org/preservation/collections-holdings/browse-the-museum-collections

And if you have interest in the magazine, Piecework's website is found at:

www.pieceworkmagazine.com

And if you go to Wikipedia with search Martha Washington, you will find several other illustrations of interest. 

I received an article published in the on-line version of National Geographic.  It describes George Washington as Calm, Cool, Collected Commander in Chief.  I would like to redo this post next February and add some of the information in that article.