Today is George Washington’s Birthday — his “real” birthday, not the third Monday in February as dictated by Congress. I put the “real” in quotes because actually it’s not his real birthday… it’s complicated — check the blog entry for last year at this time if you’re interested in the real story. Anyhow, for sake of simplicity, let’s call it his real birthday.
As everyone knows, George was the first President of the United States and all through grade school I saw his picture hanging in our classroom every day. The picture hanging in our classroom always looked like he was wearing a wig, but the hair was his own. His hair wasn’t really white — it was reddish brown. It only looked white because he powdered it (a common practice in the day.) George was one of our biggest presidents — he weighed 200 pounds and was 6 feet, 2 inches tall. Some of his favorite foods were cream of peanut soup, mashed sweet potatoes with coconut, and string beans with mushrooms. He helped plan the nation’s new capital city that was named for him, but he never lived there. The nation’s capital was New York, and later Philadelphia when he was president.
We all know that he married Martha Dandridge Custis when he was 26. Martha already had two children, Jacky and Patsy. Washington never had any children of his own. Something not generally discussed much is that Martha wasn’t George’s first love. He met Sally Fairfax when he was 16 and fell in love. She taught George the best manners for moving in Virginia’s highest social circles and how to dance the minuet. Sally married one of George’s closest friends, George Williams Fairfax. Today you can’t go far in Northern Virginia with seeing the name Fairfax.
Happy real birthday, George!
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