Our first Lady 3

 Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson

This was such a odd story as Martha's mother died just 3 days after her birth and was raised by two stepmothers one of which was a mixed black slave whom her father married.

She herself married at 18 years old but her husband died just 1 year and 10 months after their wedding. She gave birth to one son and inherited the Forest Plantation.

At 23 years old she met and married Thomas Jefferson who was at the time a lawyer and a member of the House of Burgesses for Albemarle County at the forest plantation but moved to what would come to be known as Monticello.

The following is from this web site http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=3

Martha Jefferson's health began to rapidly deteriorate, the result likely of having given birth to seven children in less than fourteen years. The British invasion of Virginia under Lord Cornwallis in 1781 forced her to flee Monticello for their more isolated Bedford County home " Poplar Forest , and it weakened her 16-month old daughter Lucy, who died weeks later. Jefferson shortly thereafter resigned his position as governor and promised his wife that he would refuse any more political posts. Thus Jefferson turned down an important diplomatic mission to Europe. Her final pregnancy proved more burdensome than her marital separations; she died four months after childbirth. 

Martha Jefferson, however, was also to leave an unwitting legacy to her husband on two accounts. With the death of her father in 1772, Martha Jefferson inherited substantial property, including approximately 11,000 acres of land ( retaining 5,000 ) and slaves, including her half-siblings. By law, his wife's property became his own upon marriage, and so Jefferson came into ownership of his slave half sisters-in-law Thenia, Critta and Sally and brothers-in-law Robert and James Hemings. 

Since they were one-quarter African-American and three-quarters white and also related by blood to Martha Jefferson, the five Wayles-Hemings children occupied a unique role within the Jefferson family. None were called " slaves, " but always referred to as " servants. " They worked in the most personal and private servantile roles at Monticello. In 1790, Robert Hemings bought his freedom and joined his wife and daughter in Richmond, where they worked for a doctor. James Hemings was particularly close to Jefferson, working as his personal aide or " body servant, " traveling with him to Philadelphia during the Second Continental Congress and later to Europe. While in Paris, James Hemings studied the culinary French arts; upon returning to Virginia, he trained his younger brother Peter to oversee the detailed French cooking that Jefferson now insisted on serving. Jefferson gave James Hemings his freedom. Critta Hemings helped to raise her half-nieces Patsy and Polly. Thenia Hemings was the only one of Martha Jefferson's half-siblings who was sold as a slave - to family friend and future President James Monroe.

Thomas Jefferson never married again and while President the wife of his highest-ranking Cabinet member, Dolley Madison served as the public hostess.

There were no known pictures of Martha Jefferson and only a painted portrait done 183 years after her death based on descriptions of her.

Uplifting Wed. 121 via Pinterest

 

Tidbits

 I buy freezer bags and have figured how to save them and re-use them. Just put what you are freezing in a cheaper container and then put it all in the bag.

Then remove it from the bag and thaw and re-use the bag for another item.

Rooster cup

 Recently I saw this picture 

of this rooster coffee cup on my fellowblogger  and told her I too have a rooster coffee cup and I would post a picture of it for her so here it is.....

It happens to be my favorite:)

Uplifting Wed. 120 via Pinterest

 

Our first lady 2 (Please note I had originally posted that Lucy Ware Webb Hayes was the 2nd first lady but she was our 20th!!)

 ABIGAIL SMITH ADAMS

When just 15 years old Abigail met John Adams and although her father approved of the match, her mother was appalled that her daughter would marry a country lawyer whose manner still reeked of the farm, but eventually she gave in. The couple married on October 25, 1764, in the Smiths' home in Weymouth. Smith, Abigail's father, presided over the marriage of John Adams and his daughter. After the reception, the couple mounted a single horse and rode off to their new home, the small cottage and farm John had inherited from his father in Braintree, Massachusetts.^[3] Later they moved to Boston, where his law practice expanded. The couple welcomed their first child nine months into their marriage.

In 12 years, she gave birth to six children:

• Abigail ("Nabby"; 1765–1813)
• John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) 
• Grace Susanna ("Susanna", nicknamed "Suky")^[10] (1768–1770)
• Charles (1770–1800)
• Thomas Boylston Adams (1772–1832)
• Elizabeth (stillborn in 1777)^[11]

Yes she was the mother of John Quincy Adams our 6th president.

John Adams was inaugurated as the second President of the United States on March 4, 1797, in Philadelphia. Abigail was not present at her husband's inauguration as she was tending to his dying mother.^] When John was elected President of the United States, Abigail continued a formal pattern of entertaining. She held a large dinner each week, made frequent public appearances, and provided for entertainment for the city of Philadelphia each Fourth of July.

She took an active role in politics and policy, unlike the quiet presence of Martha Washington. She was so politically active, her political opponents came to refer to her as "Mrs. President". As John's confidant, Abigail was often well informed on issues facing her husband's administration, at times including details of current events not yet known to the public in letters to her sister Mary and her son John Quincy. Some people used Abigail to contact the president. At times Abigail planted favorable stories about her husband in the press. Abigail remained a staunch supporter of her husband's political career, supporting his policies, such as passing the Alien and Sedition Acts.

With the relocation of the capital to Washington, D.C., in 1800, she became the first First Lady to reside at the White House, or President's House as it was then known. Adams moved into the White House in November 1800, living there for only the last four months of her husband's term.

Although she followed her son's political career earnestly she did not live to see him become the 6th President. She died in her home on October 28, 1818, of typhoid fever. She is buried beside her husband and near their son John Quincy in a crypt located in the United First Parish Church (also known as the "Church of the Presidents") in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was 73 years old, exactly two weeks shy of her 74th birthday. Her last words were, "Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long."

A strange finding

 

These beautiful stained glass windows were found behind a brink wall when the people went to do some work on their house. They saved them and displayed them where all could see. What a find! Reminds me of Frank Lloyd Wright.