Children
Madison and Mary Hemings were the parents of 10 surviving children. According to his memoir, their daughter Sarah (named for his mother) and an unnamed son who died in infancy were born in Virginia; nine more children were born in Ohio. He had a quiet life as a modestly successful free black farmer and carpenter.
- Sarah, married Mr. Byrd. (Her descendants later reported that some family members' identified as white and families became fragmented as a result, even when living in southern Ohio.
Their three Ohio-born sons were:
- Thomas Eston (named for Madison's father and his brother Eston), enlisted with the US Colored Troops; died in the Civil War.
- William Beverly (named for brother Beverley), enlisted as a white man in the Civil War; died unmarried in a veterans' hospital in 1910.
- James Madison (named after his father), moved to Colorado and was said to have identified as white. He was not known to have married.
His six younger daughters were
- Julia (who died before 1870),
- Harriet (named for his sister),
- Mary Ann (named after Mary's mother),
- Catherine,
- Jane, and
- Ellen Wayles (named for Madison's maternal white great-grandmother)
In his memoir, Hemings said their son Thomas Eston Hemings died in Andersonville prison during the American Civil War, after having fought on the Union side with the United States Colored Troops. Their son William Beverly also served in Union ranks, where he was with the 73rd Ohio Infantry, having been accepted as white at enlistment.
Read more about this topic: Madison Hemings
Famous quotes containing the word children:
“Parents’ accepting attitudes can help children learn to be open and tolerant. Parents can explain unfamiliar behavior or physical handicaps and show children that the appropriate response to differences should be interest rather than revulsion.”
—Dian G. Smith (20th century)
“Television programming for children need not be saccharine or insipid in order to give to violence its proper balance in the scheme of things.... But as an endless diet for the sake of excitement and sensation in stories whose plots are vehicles for killing and torture and little more, it is not healthy for young children. Unfamiliar as yet with the full story of human response, they are being misled when they are offered perversion before they have fully learned what is sound.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“When our children see us expressing our emotions, they can learn that their own feelings are natural and permissible, can be expressed, and can be talked about. That’s an important thing for our children to learn.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)