Tag: Quincy

Remembering John and Abigail (part two)

On By Phill GreenwaltIn Revolutionary War2 Comments

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Abigail StatuePart two of two

“Remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams wrote in a letter to her husband during his service in the Continental Congress. And those words are how we now most often remember her: “Remember the ladies.”

And John did. He pined for her. His long public career—in the Continental Congress, as a minister in Europe, as vice president, as president—kept them apart for long stretches. They spent ten of their fifty-four years of marriage separated by war, by sea, by duty.

So they wrote—some 1200 letters in all. “My dearest friend,” he addressed her, and he meant it.

The lively correspondence between John and Abigail illuminates not only a great American love story but also a great political partnership. Among the company of great Founders, Abigail was the one forced to stay at home—by social convention and family duty—but she refused to be forgotten. Continue reading “Remembering John and Abigail (part two)” →

Remembering John and Abigail (part one)

On By Phill GreenwaltIn Revolutionary War3 Comments

RevWarWednesdays-header

AdamsStatueFacePart one of two

When Abigail Adams died in late October, 1818, her husband, John, brokenhearted, said, “I wish I could lie down beside her and die, too.”

Today, the two are entombed side by side, along with their son John Quincy and his wife, Louisa Catherine, in a well-lit, whitewashed crypt beneath the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Mass. I’ve come here to pay my respects to the former presidents and first ladies, but mostly I’m here to say thanks to John, and to remember him because he worried he’d be forgotten. Continue reading “Remembering John and Abigail (part one)” →