Martha Dandridge Custis was a wealthy, good-looking widow and the mother of two young children when, in 1759, she started a new life as Martha Washington. Thus began an ardent love affair and one of our country’s most influential partnerships. For more than forty years, Martha was the mainstay of George’s increasingly powerful, stressful life. George Washington’s career might have been very different without his marriage to his “dearest Patsy.” Her fortune ensured the success of his Mount Vernon. But much more important was the emotional support she brought to their marriage. Under his glacial exterior, George Washington was often insecure, indecisive, and prone to fits of temper. His wife was the person who truly knew and loved the complex man behind the noble mask. Martha Washington’s name is one of the most recognizable in American history and yet Martha herself is the invisible woman in American history. She burned her private correspondence after George’s death, but with painstaking research, Patricia Brady has finally recovered the real woman from the usual bit of decorative wallpaper behind the icon that is George. Never the kindly frump of popular mythology, she was an able landowner, an indomitable patriot, and her husband’s constant confidante in military, political, and personal matters for four decades. | Read More »