BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – Abigail is the woman who comes to mind when we mention Mrs. Adams, but her daughter-in-law Louisa Catherine also holds a significant spot in history as both the wife of President John Quincy Adams and in her own right.
The Brattleboro Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) will celebrate Women’s History Month and the life of the other Mrs. Adams Tuesday, March 14 at 1 p.m. at the Brooks Memorial Library with a talk by Mary Ackerman Hayes of Keene, N.H., based on the biography Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams.
Ackerman Hayes helped bring the biography to fruition after its author, her sister Margery Heffron, died in 2011 before its publication. Heffron’s more than 30 years of research, combing through Adams family archives and the letters between the Adams’s of both generations, have resulted in a portrait of a woman who was shrewd, intellectual, articulate and a keen observer and commenter on the political and social scene of her time in London, St. Petersburg and Washington.
Through her skill as a hostess and keen sense of the moment, she is largely credited with her
husband’s successful bid for the presidency in 1824 in a close and controversial four-way race.
The talk is open to the public at no charge in the upstairs meeting room of the library.
AAUW advances education and equity for women and girls through advocacy, education,
philanthropy and research. Further information is available by contacting President Vivian Prunier at (802) 387-5875.
