Martha Custis Kennon

So...as many of you know I am writing a "book" centered around the family of Robert E. Lee. Well, I'd had my plot taken care of, and most of my characters, except for the most important one: the protagonist. I had to find someone who lived within a near enough proximity to the Lees to have a close relationship with them. She would have to be a young woman between the ages of 15 and 20. And she would have to be a relative of Mary Anna Lee, who was of the family of Martha Washington.

I spent hours in the library and hours online, deciphering geneologies and family trees, before I discovered Martha Custis Kennon.

Martha, or "Patsy", was born in 1843, the great-great-granddaughter of Martha Washington through her son, Jackie Custis. Patsy's mother, Brittania Peter, married BeverlyKennon in1842. She was 27 and he was 50. Beverly died a year after Patsy's birth, leaving his wife and daughter alone in their giant mansion, Tudor Place, in Georgetown, Washington DC.

I knew I'd found my protagonist. Teenaged descendant of Martha Washington, cousin to the Lees, offspring of an arranged marriage cut short, daughter of a staunchly Virginain woman living in the heart of the Union capitol. An only child growing up in a huge old house that once entertained celebrities such as John and Abigail Adams, Marquis de Lafayette, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun. Can't you just picture it? I could. It was not exactly the recipe for a normal and carefree childhood.

It was perfect.

And so I got carried away with all the what-must-it-have-been-likes? and my protagonist was born. Ahhh! It's all so exciting and perfect!!

Okay anyway. Obviously, the portrait is of Patsy Kennon around the time of her wedding in 1867. (I think its a rather pretty portrait - I love the fact that her hair looks like it might have been red.) Her husband (whose name will remain unrevealed as a plot-spoiler) was three years her senior - a young doctor in charge of a smallpox hospital during the war.

So the whole point of this post is basically I LOVE HISTORY. History is nothing but the stories of ordinary people who found themselves in un-ordinary times. This is the reason I love historical fiction and have such a passion about writing it. Because I want people to really see this, that history is so much more than dead names and dates! History is simply this - God's hand at work in the lives of his people throughout the generations. I get chills just thinking about it!

Sorry you all probably think I'm a pathetic maniac by now. That's okay. We're all different, no? :) Hats off to you if you've made it through my rambling thoughts on history once again!