Here’s an odd historical coincidence I’ve never seen remarked on, anywhere. Tomorrow — February 22 — is George Washington’s birthday, something that used to be celebrated as a holiday in its own right, before it was replaced by the generic Presidents’ Day in 1971.
The Father of our Country would have been 287 today, though he’s spent most of that time under a marble slab at Mount Vernon.
Many, perhaps most, educated Americans know this. But here’s a challenge for you: What very famous political figure of our own time was born on Washington’s 200th birthday?
Give up? It was … Edward M. “Teddy” Kennedy, the great lion of the U.S. Senate, who many people thought would get to the White House, but never really tried after losing a primary battle in 1980.
The two are seldom seen as being much alike. Teddy Kennedy battled problems with alcohol and was seen as a womanizer prior to his marriage to his second wife Vicki. Washington is, well, seen as an Olympian God, albeit one with painful wood-and-ivory false teeth.
But reality is, as usual, somewhat different than the myth. Kennedy was no angel, but was highly respected as one of the hardest –working and most capable U.S. Senators in his lifetime, if not in history. Washington was a public pillar of rectitude – but as historians now know, essentially hit on a married neighbor, Sally Fairfax, when he was engaged to the very wealthy widow Martha, who he of course soon married.
Towards the end of his life, after winning the American Revolution and serving two terms as president, he wrote Sally that the happiest moments of his life were those which “I enjoyed in your company.”
Did they? We’ll never know. They did not have smart phones or Facebook, which proves that some things were better in the old days. They had something else in common too.
Both were haunted by scandal.Yes, Kennedy was haunted forever by the scandal that resulted in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Less well known, however, is that the young Washington was the commanding officer of a group of Virginians who committed horrible atrocities, massacring unarmed French prisoners of war early in the French and Indian War.
George Washington was shaped forever by the untimely loss of an older brother in the future president’s youth. Teddy Kennedy, of course, went through the same traumatic thing …
Three times.
Today, whatever your politics, it might be nice to remember them, and wish their memories well.
—Jack Lessenberry
