Adelbert Ames - Notable Descendants

Notable Descendants

His daughter Blanche Ames Ames (she married into another Ames family) was a noted suffragist, inventor, artist, and writer. The mansion she designed and had built is now part of Borderland State Park in Massachusetts.

His son Adelbert Ames, Jr. was a noted scientist.

His son Butler Ames was a businessman and politician, who represented Massachusetts in Congress for ten years.

Adelbert Ames was also the great-grandfather of George Plimpton. John F. Kennedy, through George Plimpton, is indirectly responsible for a full-length biography of General Ames. In Profiles in Courage, Kennedy relied on Reconstruction-era historical texts to produce a brief but devastating portrait of Ames's administration of Mississippi in his profile of Mississippi Senator Lucius Q.C. Lamar. Ames's daughter Blanche Ames Ames, a formidable figure in Massachusetts, bombarded the then-senator with letters complaining about the depiction, and continued her barrage after Kennedy entered the White House. President Kennedy then turned to his friend Plimpton to tell Blanche, Plimpton's grandmother, that she was "interfering with state business." Her response was to write her own book about her father, Adelbert Ames, in 1964.