Martha, however, wouldn’t even entertain the idea of attending. “Mrs. Washington is become too Domestick, and too attentive to two little Grand Children to leave home,” he had written earlier in early May 1787.15 She was also comforting Fanny, who had buried her first child only two weeks after his birth. Experience had taught her this: Family was fleeting, and when Washington went to big meetings in Philadelphia, whatever tranquility they had come to know was about to be completely disrupted.
