“To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.” – Abigail Smith Adams
(1744-1818) As wife of the first Vice President and later First Lady when John Adams became the nation’s second president, Mrs. Adams became a good friend to Mrs. Martha Washington and a valued help in official entertaining, drawing on her experience of courts and society abroad. Their son, John Quincy Adams, would later become the nation’s sixth president. When Former President Adams was elected, Mrs. Adams continued a formal pattern of entertaining, despite the primitive conditions in new capital in November 1800. The President’s House was nowhere near completion, for example. Mrs. Adams died in 1818 and left a legacy as a patriot and First Lady, wife of one President and mother of another.
Source: White House