what was George washington 's father ask him?
Answers
Explanation:
George Washington is often described as childless, which is true, but only in the strictly biological definition. When I started digging into his archives, I was surprised to see that in reality, he was raising children from his late 20s until the day he died. When Washington met Martha Custis, she was a wealthy widow with a young daughter and son, and when they married, he became the legal guardian to Patsy and Jacky Custis. Washington’s letters and ledgers indicate that he spent significant time and money (though he often reimbursed himself from the Custis estate) making sure the children were happy, healthy and well educated. His youth had been defined by relative struggle and deprivation, and he wanted them to have the very best of everything.
Instead, Washington the father was often heartbroken or frustrated. Patsy was likely epileptic, and no doctor or tincture or hot spring he found cured her, while Jacky, who was set to inherit the majority of his late father’s vast estate, preferred gambling and horses to hard work. The Washingtons had buried both by end of the Revolution, but they played an active role in his widow’s life, even after she remarried, and raised Nelly and Wash, his two youngest children, making them de facto “First Children.” Washington also played father to a rotating cast that included Jacky’s other children, Eliza and Martha, nieces and nephews and, for over a year, the Marquis de Lafayette’s son. All of them, in many ways, were his children.