The Widow Washingtonis the first life of Mary Ball Washington, George Washingtons mother, based on archival sources. Her sons biographers have, for the most part, painted her as self-centered and crude, a trial and an obstacle to her oldest child. But the records tell a very different story. Mary Ball, the daughter of a wealthy planter and a formerly indentured servant, was orphaned young and grew up working hard, practicing frugality and piety. Stepping into Virginias upper class, she married an older man, the planter Augustine Washington, with whom she had five children before his death eleven years later. As a widow deprived of most of her late husbands properties, Mary struggled to raise her children, but managed to secure them places among Virginias elite. In her later years, she and her wealthy son George had a contentious relationship, often disagreeing over money, with George dismissing as imaginary her fears of poverty and helplessness. Author: Martha Saxton. Paperback; 384 pages.

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