As documented on this site many times, I love me some American history. I am fortunate to live near Philadelphia and visited often as a child. It is where my grandparents lived their entire lives and my mom was born and raised there. The people and places that birthed this nation were as big a part of my upbringing as was school and Girl Scouts, and the older I got the more I wanted to know. I have been fortunate to go to many other significant locations that played a role in the creation of the United States, and I always manage to leave a few tears behind. I cannot get enough of this country’s beginnings and the tissue industry is all the better for it.
My husband recently surprised me with a birthday gift, a word written by a quill pen held in the hand of George Washington. It is not a reproduction. It was painstakingly cut out of a letter created by the soon-to-be general on May 4, 1775. It has been authenticated by a reputable expert and was penned at Mount Vernon before he left that same day for Philadelphia and the first meeting of the Second Continental Congress. In this nation’s history and mine, it all comes back to Philadelphia.
As I studied diary entries and letters to learn more about this time in Washington’s life using the website, the National Archives, Founders Online, it was fascinating and thrilling to be able to read the records from the man himself. How could he have known what was to come? Pass the Puffs, please.
That’s the thing about our passions. They live in us at a deep emotional level. And thanks to a very thoughtful man in my life, an unimaginable piece of mine now lives in my home as well.