shadowy. Even how she looked was not
really known because the earliest known portrait of her* was
when she was in her late forties. This book is pivotal to any
Washington scholar or even the most casual observer of
women’s histories.
One of the nice things about the way
author Patricia Brady tells Martha Washington’s story is
by taking us into her confidence. It’s
as if she has gathered us around at a family reunion to tell us what our beloved ancestor was really like from her stocking feet to the tip of her head. And Ms. Brady should know Martha and her family because she has devoted two books to the life and papers of Martha’s granddaughter Nelly Custis Lewis.
as if she has gathered us around at a family reunion to tell us what our beloved ancestor was really like from her stocking feet to the tip of her head. And Ms. Brady should know Martha and her family because she has devoted two books to the life and papers of Martha’s granddaughter Nelly Custis Lewis.
New Kent County native Martha Dandridge
was not
daughter in law to be. In what has to be
one of the kindest gifts of fate, the old reprobate died prior
to Daniel and Martha’s wedding. A few years later Daniel
Parke Custis was dead. The young widow was the mother of two
and the heiress of an immense fortune. She had many earnest
suitors buzzing around her home called White House in New Kent
County. The stage was set for the love of her life to enter:
the tall and impressive Colonel George Washington.
Patricia Brady researched receipts and
account books to determine Martha’s actual dimensions by
the size of clothing and accessories she ordered from England.
That’s how she proved that the plump matronly older
portraits of Martha did not reflect how she looked her whole
life. She was tiny, but proportioned perfectly. The author
researched correspondence from the Washington’s
contemporaries and learned that in an age when most had lost
their teeth and certainly their attractive smile by their
forties, Martha Washington had a mouthful of shiny white pearl
like teeth until she was very elderly. She was fastidious in
her dress. She changed clothes on the road if she knew she was
going to meet dignitaries coming to greet her, since the
clothes she was traveling in would be covered in dust. She
traveled with her husband frequently during the war, and hated
to be apart from him for any length of time. She had bouts of
depression, no doubt the result of sacrificing so much of her
private life to her husband’s public duties. She had a
swimming dress with lead sinkers in the hem to preserve modesty
when taking the waters at one of Virginia’s springs. And
she adored her husband. Ms. Brady describes their “domestic
enjoyments,” and “life of tender
companionship.”
Martha Washington is really done justice
in Martha Washington, An American Life. Buy this book for
yourself for the sheer joy of reading it, and get copies for
your friends as well. They will make terrific gifts, and your
friends will thank you for it, even the ones who claim not to
be history buffs. It is a definite read before your next trip
to Mount Vernon, where they are planning a life size recreation
of what George Washington really looked like from contemporary
portraits of his day. One of the models will be Houdoun’s
sculpture in the Rotunda in the Virginia Capitol. That was done
from life, so it will be interesting to see it come to life.
Looks like it will be time for George’s “final
reveal”soon as well. 
well off when she wed her first husband
Daniel Parke Custis, nearly twenty years her senior. Her
cantankerous father in law to be John Dandridge was the bane of
most peoples’ existence, and they stayed clear of him in
his little town house in Williamsburg. He forbad his son from
marrying Martha claiming she brought nothing to the marriage,
and would indeed take it all should anything happen to him or
John. In a move that showed her early spunk Martha confronted
the old curmudgeon and bluntly informed him that his good
opinion of herself or their marriage was neither desired nor
required. From that moment on, much to the amazement of the
general populace, the old man embraced his new
*There was an earlier portrait of Martha
done when she was married to her first husband. It was done by
John Wollaston who is famous for his curious obsession with
almond shaped eyes. He gave most of his sitters the same eyes,
so while the clothing is probably very close to the way the
sitter wore, the likenesses are far from forgiving, and are
therefore not reliable as close to the true image of the
person. The cover regression was based on a portrait by Charles
Willson Peale, a master portraitist of his time.