ExclusiveMartha Jefferson Daughter Defender First Lady

You see, he at the time already had a controversial reputation. It was well known that he was believed to be having some kind of an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Heming. And Martha, his daughter, took it upon herself to clear her father's name of any scandal. She was very upset when she saw that there were writings against him in the press. And she made it her sole lot in life to clear his name of any bad reputation. Later, after his death, she compiled his writings and published them, seeking to dispel any rumors about him and Sally Hemings, even saying that he wasn't at Monticello some of the times when it was said that she was going to have one of her children. Some of these have later been disproven. But she was dedicated to everything her father did. Thomas Jefferson later gave another plot of land to the Randolphs so that his daughter and his son-in-law and grandchildren would be close to him. She said in some of her writings that she couldn't bear to be separated from him because since her earliest age, his companionship had been what was most dear to her. One of the reasons why she didn't spend more time in Washington was because there was a lot of illness in the swampy lands around Washington and Jefferson didn't want her to get sick. Also, people were a little reticent to have the president's whole family living there. They weren't too keen on the idea of the first family because they thought it was too much like European royalty. Nevertheless, no one could dislike Patsy because she was noted as being a very charming, persuasive woman and one of the greatest political tools which Jefferson had because she was so winning and personable. She holds the reputation of being the first woman to give birth to a child in the White House because she bore her seventh child in the second winter which she spent there. Although she was not very active in politics herself, Patsy Jefferson stands out as being both the first acting first lady, sharing the duties somewhat with Dolly Madison, who was the wife of James Madison, current Secretary of State, and even the first lady of Virginia because her husband later became the governor of Virginia. In Jefferson's later years, he ended up having a lot of debt and being in ill health. During those last years, his beloved daughter Martha was by his side constantly caring for him and he said that the daughter who was the companion of his youth became the nurse of his old age. She wanted nothing more than to care for him in his waning years.