Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1910 — Washington as Husband. [ARTICLE]

Washington as Husband.

George Washington married Mrs. Martha Custis, widow of Daniel Parke Custls, January 6, 1759. The wooing was brief, but the married life long and happy; for Washington, unlike many of the world’s great men, made a most devoted and affectionate husband: Mrs. Washington was rather below medium height, but daintily formed, with a pleasing face and hazel eyes. She had a graceful dignity of manner that enabled her to fill creditably her exalted position as First Lady in the Land; but she was not an intellectual woman. One who knew her well described her as “not possessing much sense, though a perfect lady and remarkably well calculated for her position.” Her eccentricities of spelling were enough to raise the ghosts of every dead lexicographer in hades. “I carried my little patt witj* me,” Bhe writes to her sister, “and left Jackey at home for a trial to see how well I could stay without him though we wefe gon but wone fortnight I was qpite impatient to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a noise out, I thought thaire was a person sent for me. I often imagined he was sick or some accident had happened to him so that I think it is impossible for me to leave him as long as Mr. Washington must stay when he comes down.”

Yet Washington was, apparently, well satisfied; for, even after so long a- period as six months had passed since his wedding day, he refused to wander from his wife’s side, and wrote from Mount Vernon: “I am now, I believe, fixed at this seat with an agreeable Consort for life.” And long after, when one of the great men of the-world, he wrote to her:

‘‘l should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad if my stay were to be seven times seven years.” His devotedness is best shown in the loving care he took of her all through their long married life. He not only assumed the entire management of her own large property, hut also that of her children, and gave to them the affection and care of a father. He even spared’her much of the details of sending for her own clothing; and such orders as the following may be seen in his own handwriting: “A salmon-col-ored Tabby of the enclose pattern, with satin flowers to be made in a sack"; 1 Cap, Handkerchief, Tucker and Muffles, to be made of Brussels lace or point, proper to wear with above neglee, to eost $20“; "1 pair black and T pair satin shoes, of the smallest”; and "1 black mask.” Again he writes to his London agent: “Mrs. Washington 6ends home a green sack' to get cleaned, or fresh dyed of the same color, made up into a handsome sack again would be her ’choice, if the cloth won’t afford that, then to he thrown into a genteel Night Gown.” There can be no question but what Washington had a happy home life, and made a loving and faithful husband. Washington the husband, the homemaker, as well as Washington the soldier, the statesman, the patriot, should be held up as a pattern for all youth to cut their qpming lives by. “