Brent and all:  Am joining this late due to an ongoing deadline.  Some of my favorite ladies have included, from the  18th century, Martha Washington, who taught everyone who followed her how to be the First Lady.  As a young widow, she managed her late husband's estate with a firm hand, and took his attorney in Williamsburg as well as British vendors to task when they did not do the right thing by her.  She traveled with George all during the most devastating parts of the Revolution, and Patricia Brady's new biography really helps bring her to life.  Even though Martha and President Washington never lived in our national Executive Mansion, I've always thought it interesting that she was from a place called "White House" in New Kent County. Lady Jean Skipwith of Prestwould Plantation in Mecklenburg County is another interesting lady.  Englishwoman Jean Miller was a single, intelligent lady in her early forties when her sister, who was married to the only Virginia born Baronet Peyton Skipwith, passed away.  Her widowed brother in law asked her to marry him, and away she went across the Atlantic, carrying in tow her own personal library - perhaps one of the very few ladies' libraries in Virginia at that time (1788).  She and her new husband quickly produced four children (remember, she was in her forties when she came to Virginia) and eventually built Prestwould, one of the most impressive structures of its kind still standing and being preserved by its historic foundation.  The house remained in their family until 1914. Julian Hudson, the director there said that her papers are at the Virginia Historical Society.  She would make a fascinating research subject. To me, even though she wasn't born here, she assimilated by being married to a Virginian. Another more modern (20th century) favorite is someone who reversed Lady Jean's course, and moved from Virginia to England, and there made her fortune.  That would be Lady Nancy Astor, born Nancy Witcher Langhorne, sister of the famous "Gibson Girl" Irene Langhorne (who married Dana Gibson).  Nancy married a Lord and went on to become the first woman member of Parliament in 1919. And finally, although this list could grow huge, another significant 20th century woman was the Honorable Mary Sue Terry.  She went from being the basketball and bridge playing daughter of a Henry County hog farmer to the Commonwealth's first female Attorney General, and the first to win in a statewide election.  She served for most of two terms before running for Governor unsuccessfully.  ATW, Virginia Review

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html