March Is Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month and there is one woman in our history who was responsible for causing the United States to even exist, Mary Ball, all but forgotten in history.

Born in 1706, an orphan by age 11, she married late for her day when she was 23 years old and produced her first of six children the next year. By the time Ball was 35 years old she was a widow, but unlike most women of her time she chose to raise her six children alone while keeping a 600-acre farm producing.

Historian Paula S. Felder wrote of Mary Ball, “She was simply educated, had no great social polish, was a stern parent presiding over her household with common sense which some have characterized as stubbornness.”

When her oldest son was 14 years old, he was asked to join the British Royal Navy and he sought his mothers’ necessary approval. She refused and he stayed at home. We shall all be eternally grateful for her decision.

She passed on her independence and leadership abilities to her children, her eldest in particular who at age 57 years old became our first President. His name will always be in our history, George Washington, eldest child of Mary Ball Washington.

Ball lived long enough to see George take a group of scraping, unprofessional colonists, lose battle after battle, but still remain the strong leader and motivator it took to eventually after 12 years of war with Great Britain to form the United States. The first person that Washington visited upon learning that he had been elected President was his mother, Mary Ball, who he referred to as “Revered Mother.” She succumbed to cancer only months after he took office in 1789.

Once said, we sometimes don’t get the leaders we deserve, but the ones we need. Thank you to all the women of this world and especially to the women who guide our future leaders.