Book Report: A life of Abigail Adams: Dearest Friend Abigail Adams was married to John Adams who was the 2nd president of the United States and was the mother of John Quincy Adams who became the 10th president seven years after her death. She was the daughter of a minister and his wife born November 11, 1744. As a young child, she knew only that she loved to read; as she got older, she became determined to educate herself, despite prevailing views about women’s intellectual capacities, and tried to read more systematically. She met John Adams when she was 15. However he was smitten with her cousin at their first meeting. Three years later at age 18 her cousin had married and Abigail and John began courting. They were married October 25, 1964. John and Abigail were the parents of four children that became adults. They had a daughter that tragically died before she was two years old. Abigail also gave birth to a still born child. She mentioned in one of the letters that she feared the child would be still born, which turned out to be true. The couple is historically know for exchanging letters because unlike most families of the era they spent a lot of time apart. The title of the book gets its name by the salutation in the letters they exchanged, dear friend. The first letters began during their courtship when John Adams was in Boston being inoculated against smallpox. Of all of the letters John and Abigail exchanged one can see that she was not highly schooled as often the words are spelled as they sound. But even though she might not have spelling skills, she was a highly intelligent self-assured woman. In one of her most well-known letters to her husband she urges him to remember the ladies and not to put unlimited power in the hands of their husbands. She believed in the rights of women, especially in education. In the letters