Happy Birthday, Abigail!

It's a total stretch to find a link between Abigail Adams and Arkansas or Russia.  Her oldest son, John Quincy, did serve as the United States' Minister to Russia from 1809-1814, and I'm sure that she learned about the country from his letters and personal narratives.  But that's as close as it gets.  There are some stories just waiting to be told, though, remaining dormant in the writer's storehouse of possibilities, until the right moment.  When I read today's online edition of The Writer's Almanac and learned that it is Abigail's birthday (New Style calendar), I knew that the time had come.  (I will post a Russian story later in the week, but for now, indulge me.)

I walk in the front door of the Massachusetts Historical Society in February, 2010 looking for a connection, a real, hands-on connection to Abigail.  I had recently watched the HBO miniseries, "John Adams," listened to David McCullough's book on which it is based, and read My Dearest Friend Letters of Abigail and John Adams, containing the most recently published collection of  letters between the second U.S. president and his wife. The entire collection contains over one thousand letters, and I learned that the originals are housed in this building, this very building, only a 6 block walk from our hotel!  To see an actual letter, the handwriting of this woman I have grown to admire so much, leaves me breathless, not to mention the brisk walk on a cold Boston morning.

Why?  Why Abigail?

Portrait of Abigail Adams, shortly after marriage to John, 1766
Massachusetts Historical Society

"Good question," as persons being interviewed often say, when they have pondered the same issue and not arrived at a firm conclusion.   Is she that different from thousands, perhaps millions, of other women who have held their families together while the husband has been away much of the time, managing, in her case, a farm, the meager finances, raising and often educating 4 children, and grieving the death of two others?  Devoted to her husband, as many wives/partners are, she supported him with a listening ear and astute advice based on reading and study.  Wife and mother, yet still remaining Abigail, with strong opinions and beliefs that transcended day to day life.  Proponent of  equal education for girls and rights for women and opponent of slavery, she advocated for these causes in her letters to John and in her actions. All qualities much to be admired, indeed.

Still, there's something more that draws me to her.  She was a writer.  She needed to write.  It's how she coped, how she expressed what was gnawing at her from the inside.  The pen was her connection to her "self," her husband and the friends and family with whom she corresponded throughout her life.  Joseph Ellis, in his introduction to My Dearest Friend Letters of Abigail and John Adams, shares a quote from a letter that Abigail wrote to John in 1776 shortly after her mother, Elizabeth Quincy Smith, had died and Abigail had delivered a stillborn daughter, Elizabeth.  "There are particular times when I feel such an uneasiness such a rest less ness, as neither company Books family Cares or any other thing will remove. My pen is my only pleasure, and writing to you the composure of my mind." (original spelling)

Approaching the desk at the MHS, I ask if I can view some of the letters and am told, kindly but firmly, that they are not on public display, that I can see them on microfilm.  Disappointed, I adhere to the rules, secretly hoping that somehow, by some stroke of luck, I will still get to see one.  After 2 hours of less-than-satisfing microfilm viewing, I gather my hat, coat and gloves.  Seeing a lady sitting at a desk in the reading room, I take a risk.  "Excuse me, is there any chance that I could see just one of Abigail's original letters?" I ask in my kindest, most pitiful sounding voice.  "Weeell," she says scanning the room, which only contains one other person, "since there aren't many people here today, I guess I could run upstairs and get one for you."  On the inside, I'm jumping for joy, but simply say, "Oh, how nice of you!  I really appreciate it."

The letter is housed in a box, in a single manila folder.  She lays it flat on a table. I look upon a piece of paper that has a parchment-like quality, covered with a full page of swirling letters, written in brown ink, or perhaps the color reflects the passage of time.  Abigail's own hand. Abigail writing to John on March 31, 1776,
       "I long to hear that you have declared an independency.  And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors."


As tears begin to flood my vision, I thank the lady again, and walk into a gust of strong wind.