Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-16
THE WASHINGTONS.
New YOrk's Famous Club OF Women
Badly Split on Martha Washington.
The Majority Claim the Little Lady was an
And So Forth" and That George Never
Felt the Real Pain of Love for Woman.

Special to the Gazette.
New YORK, March 15.-Sorosis has
stepped in between George Washington
and his wife. The famous club of wo-
men holds monthly dinners and discus
siops, and one OF the topics introduced
at the session closest to Washington s
birthday was that of great men g little
wives. Somebody referred to Martha
Washington as a wife coeQual with her
husband. Somebody else declared that
Mrs. Washington wasn't any such q
thing. The presiding lady, Mrs. Ella
Dietz Clymer, thereupon appointed
committee of three to investigate
and report upon Washington g conjugal
felicity or otherwise. Mrs. Jennie June
Croly was chaiTwOman of the committee,
and she has said that she will report that
Martha Washington was a model wife
But Mrs. CTOly's two companions will
take q contrary view-that the father OF
his country was the husband Of an I'M
congenial and unapDreciaIive spouse.
These two iconoclastic ladies are Miss
Irma Borden, principal of fashionable
physician in good practice. Your CORE
spondent is able to anticipate the deliv-
cry of their assault upon Martha Wash
lugton by quoting from the document,
which will be sure to disturb the next
meeting of SOrosis, and afford to the
reading public diverting subject. The
Indictment of Mrs. Washington runs as
follows:
The story of Washington s being way
laid on his journey to Williamsburg by
his old friend, Maj. Cham berlain, and
carried into the majors house and set
down in front of the charming Widow
Curtis, need not be gone over here.
Chamberlain played his part well, de-
tanned his guest till night fall, then OBJ
iected to his setting out until morning,
and then went off to bed early, leaving
the charming widow and the twenty six
year old colonel alone together.
BAH 1t is the old, old story. What
twenty young girls can't do in three
months a widow will accomplish in one
sitting. He was just the man she needed;
she was not just the woman he needed.
Why? For many reasons. She was O
widow with two children, with a soul
very little above their care and thoughts,
pretty well monopoliZed by her negroes
own age. She was a dumpy little woman
utterly without style, scarcely reaching
above his elbow. She was almost wholly
lacking in book culture, never could
learn how to spell, and in after life is
said to have destroyed her letters to him
on account of the ridiculous errors in
spelling and construction which they
contained. She was rich woman.
Washington had money enough, and her
advent into his family only served to in
crease and comp licate accounts of to-
bacco crops, etc. She was fussy, busy
little housewife, getting ruffled when his
dogs tracked the white sanded floors of
Mt. Vernon She was utterly without
wit or any sparkle OF the imagination.
She brought plenty of dignity to Mt.
Vernon, but of this commodity Wash
ington himself had enough for half a
dozen families.
Mrs. Curtis was exactly that kind OF
woman described in Proverbs, who
works so willingly with her own hands,
who never tires of spinning, who rises be-
fore daylight and feeds her household;
who makes fine linen and sells it; who
looks well TO the ways of the household
and eateth not the bread of idleness.
She wrought in the kitchen with her own
hand; her cherry bounce achieved con-
siderable fame. She took pride in her
loom, and often wore garments woven by
her own women. Nothing pleased her
more than to sit by the fire in cap and
kerchief and ply the knitting needles.
Some fine ladies who went to see her
found her arrayed in a russell gown, a
white handkerchief neatly folded about
her neck, knitting stockings for the gen.
eral.
As will be remembered, the marriage
did not take place till the year following
the betrothal. Washington returned to
Fort Duquesne, leaving the fair widow
in her own charge. Whether her ne
groes or tobacco crops took up all her
time does not appear, but the record
shows that she neglected her tall sweet
heart, and that he complained of it, too.
Mayhap some one is inclined to raise the
point that Washington got all he de-
served; that he wasn't able to compose a
love letter himself and had no right to
expect the fair widow to waste her valu-
able time at such nonsense; that she had
been all through that experience, and
would naturally not care to copy any of
her old letters to the late Mr.. Curtis.
But wrong again. Washington could
and did write her love letters. Here Is
one:
ga courier is starting for Williams
burg, and 1 embrace the opportunity TO
send few words TO one whose life is now
from mine. Since that happy
hour when we made our pledges TO each
other, my thoughts have been constantly
going TO you as TO another self (BravoD 4
That an all-powerful Providence may
keep us both in safety is the prayer OF