Breast cancer took life of Mary Washington

BY JIM HALL

When tourists visit the Mary Washington House this afternoon, Genevieve Bugay, the costumed guide, plans to tell them that they have arrived on a sad day.

“Mrs. Washington has just died,” Bugay will say.

Today is the 223rd anniversary of Mary Washington’s death. Those who tend her home and memory plan to mark the occasion from noon to 3 this afternoon with recollections of the woman and the disease that killed her.

“She suffered dreadfully for some months with breast cancer,” Bugay said.

Mary Washington died in her bed at 3 p.m. at her white-frame home at 1200 Charles St. She was 81.

Family members were with her at the end, though her son, George, the nation’s first president, was in New York City, the new seat of government.

Burgess Ball, a family member, wrote to George that day to tell him of his mother’s death. For the last 15 days, Mary Washington was unable to speak, Ball wrote. For the last five days she was “asleep.”

Bugay, who usually serves as site coordinator at the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop, will move to the Mary Washington House today to receive mourners.

She has prepared for the day by studying Washington family correspondence and  medical texts from the period. She has learned that, like today, breast cancer in the Colonial period was widely known, little understood and often fatal.

Bugay said it appears that Mrs. Washington suffered from an advanced case of the disease. When her doctor wrote about her to Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, one of the most famous physicians in the colonies, Rush advised comfort measures.

Apply poultices of opium and camphor, Rush advised. Wash the infected breast with a solution of red clover, he said, and give her cocktails of wine and bark.

It’s not clear when Mrs. Washington first discovered that she had cancer or which breast was infected.

Surgery to remove a cancerous lump or breast was done during the Colonial period, Bugay said, though  Mrs. Washington apparently did not have an operation.

Because of the disease, Mrs. Washington’s breast was apparently swollen and discolored, and the tumor may have broken through the surface of the skin. She was likely  in pain.

In one letter, her daughter, Betty Lewis, told George Washington, “I’m sorry to inform you my mother’s breast still continues bad. God only knows how it will end.”

Jim Hall: 540/374-5433

jhall@freelancestar.com

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