If you haven't seen the PBS show "Liberty!" yet, make sure you do! Check it out at pbs.org.

God bless our troops! We are praying for you. You guys make us proud!


A little bit about my namesake:

Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, came from a prestigious Massachusetts family, but like other women of her era, was never formally educated. Still, she learned to read, devoured whatever book she could find and wrote avid amounts of correspondence throughout her lifetime.

In letters to her husband we get a remarkable picture of what it was like to be a woman struggling through the daily realities of the Revolution while her husband served in Congress and abroad. She dealt with wartime shortages, ran the family farm with minimal help and taught four children when the war interrupted their formal education. In one letter, she tells of her house becoming a shelter for exhausted refugee women and children and vividly relays her personal fears about the war's outcome.

She also is sure to bend her husband's ear on the matter of women's rights.

Abigail: Dearest friend. In the new laws which you will be writing, please remember the ladies. Don't put unlimited power in the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would by tyrants if you gave them a chance. If you don't pay attention to the ladies, then you cannot expect us to obey any laws in which we don't have voice or representation.

John's response: Well, well, we were warned that our struggle with England is going to let everyone loose. Children are going to become disobedient, students will overthrow their teachers, ... But now I see a new tribe, more numerous and powerful than all the others, is beginning to rebel.

Abigail: Dearest Friend, I'm sorry, but I still find it odd that while you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating the nation, you still insist on retaining the absolute power of husbands over their wives. Remember John, arbitrary power, like everything else that's hard and brittle, is easily broken. In spite of all your "wise" laws, we, too, have it in our power to free ourselves.

After the war, Abigail began her life as fulltime wife of a politician. She joined John in his roles as diplomat to Paris, first United States Minister to Great Britain, first Vice President of the United States and , eventually, as President. In fact, Abigail was not only the wife of a President, she was the mother of one (John Quincy Adams) as well.