Early Life
Betsy Ross was born to Samuel Griscom and the former Rebecca James in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 1, 1752, the eighth of seventeen children. She grew up in a household where the plain dress and strict discipline of the Society of Friends dominated her life. She learned to sew from her great-aunt Sarah Elizabeth Ann Griscom. Her great-grandfather Andrew Griscom, a Quaker carpenter, emigrated in 1680 from England.
After she finished her schooling at a Quaker public school, her father apprenticed her to an upholsterer named William Webster. At this job, she fell in love with fellow apprentice John Ross, who was the son of Aeneas Ross (and Sarah Leach), an assistant rector at (Episcopal) Christ Church. The couple eloped in 1773 when she was 21 at Hugg's Tavern in Gloucester City, New Jersey. The marriage caused a split from her family and meant her expulsion from the Quaker congregation. The young couple soon started their own upholstery business and joined Christ Church, where their fellow congregants included George Washington and his family. Betsy and John Ross had one daughter, Sarah Ross.
Read more about this topic: Betsy Ross
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“What is art,
But life upon the larger scale, the higher,
When, graduating up in a spiral line
Of still expanding and ascending gyres,
It pushes toward the intense significance
Of all things, hungry for the Infinite?
Art’s life,—and where we live, we suffer and toil.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)