Archive for November, 2008

That is the title of a Washington Post front page article on Sunday, November 2, 1930 of an interview they conducted with Eleanor Washington Howard. Eleanor was the last person to be born at Mount Vernon, in George Washington’s former bedroom nonetheless, and grew up running around the gardens of Martha Washington. My favorite line in the article is, “Strange to say, the child born there that day has grown up to possess the strongest facial likeness to George Washington of any of his living kinsmen or kinswomen.”

The article is fascinating for a number of reasons: first, the fact that the Washington Post would run a front page article about an interview with a descendant of the Washingtons, 131 years after the death of George Washington. Secondly, the article explains how the Washington descendents despaired at being eaten out of house and home by the thousands of “pilgrims” that traveled to Mount Vernon and in true Southern hospitality were sumptuously housed and fed by the Washington family. It was this status as the nation’s first tourist attraction that led to Mount Vernon being obtained by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association in order to preserve the estate. Thirdly, much of the article is a list of Washington descendants in Book of Genesis style (so and so begat…). The article clearly shows how loved and admired George Washington, as well as every member of his family, was to his country over a century after his death. Do you think the Kennedy family will still be idolized in the year 2094? Leave a comment and let us know!

Thank you, Sue Keeler, for passing along this fascinating piece of history!