Martha Washington wasn’t always old...
Statues: The People They Salute
When you think, Martha Washington, most likely the image of the elderly Martha comes to mind. However, Martha wasn’t always old 😉 She had actually been a vibrant young woman for a good chunk of her life 😊The painting of the young Martha used a 1796 portrait to generate an image of how Martha Washington might’ve looked in her 20s. Wow!
Martha was an amazing women that had suffered hardships. She had lost two of her four children and a husband by the age of 26, when she met George Washington. Martha kept a positive attitude towards life, and was a steady force George Washington often relied on during the trying times they lived.
It’s important, and interesting, to think of the people from history as real people...not the stiff portraits (or sometimes statues too) that capture them. The paintings and statues are just the starting point to learn more about the lives of people who shaped our nation. That is part of what this Page and my Blog Series tries to do... that is to take a look at the people from history with a lens that shows they are human.
“I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learnt from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances; we carry the seeds of the one, or the other about with us, in our minds, wherever we go.” - Martha Washington
Martha Washington was a widow at the age of 26, and had lost two of her four children. When she married GW, he was involved in raising her two children. Later, the Washingtons would raise two grandchildren at Mount Vernon.
This statue was put in place in 2006 at Mount Vernon at the Ford Orientation Center.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute, Table of Contents and visit the Facebook Page. Subscribe to her Substack Newsletter
Very interesting First Lady.
"...lost two of her four children..."
I don't know how they did it. The crushing pain of losing one child would be too much for me.