Edith Wilson (the Second Mrs. WW) was one of our longest lived FLOTUSES.

The Second Mrs. Woodrow

Edith Bolling Galt was a comfortably fixed 42-year-old widow when she met sitting President Woodrow Wilson, a recent widower fifteen years her senior.

He had dearly loved his first wife, who had died eight months earlier. They had been married for 30 years, and he was bereft and lonely. He met Edith eight months later and fell in love almost immediately. She had been a widow for six years. She took a little longer to woo.

It was 1915. Traditions and mores were different. A President courting, let alone contemplating remarriage so soon after his wife’s death, raised eyebrows. Wilson’s closest advisors insisted that remarriage would ruin his chances for re-election. He didn’t care about being reelected. He wanted Edith.

Fifteen months after Ellen’s death, Woodrow and Edith Galt married. To everyone’s surprise, the public was happy for them.

They liked her. She was statuesque, nice looking, stylish, and seemed to spiffy-up her new professor-husband. He dressed better and smiled more. The politicians however, had misgivings about the assertive bride, who seemed to marginalize them. There were cracks emerging.

The Steward

The Wilsons had four years of a happy marriage, despite rifts growing between the President’s advisors, the politicians and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. The politicians believed Mrs. W. had entirely too much influence.

In 1919, after reluctantly committing the USA to participate in The Great War (World War I), Wilson chose to attend the Peace Negotiations abroad personally, hoping to arrange an idealistic “League of Nations” to resolve issues diplomatically – and never again have such devastating wars.

The “League” was Wilson’s crowning achievement, but Congress balked, and Wilson was unwilling to amend. He undertook an aggressive speaking tour that took its toll on his always-fragile health. He suffered a massive stroke, and for the remaining 18 months of his Presidency, was a mere shell of himself.

Edith Wilson considered this period “her stewardship.” Her phrase. In her mind, her main function was to shield Wilson from any unpleasant stress that might cause another episode. She was first and foremost, a wife. A wife of a sick man who happened to be President of the United States. That she was the wife of the President of the United States who happened to be a sick man, was secondary.

After six weeks of bedrest, Wilson showed many signs of improvement, although he required two canes and his left arm was impaired. His mind was generally clear, albeit with some mild lapses. He was still calling the shots. His most pressing problem seemed to be the damage to his disposition and personality: What was once stubborn, was now intransigent. What was once wary, was now paranoia.

In semi-collusion with his doctors and private secretary, Mrs. Wilson assiduously kept the political/governmental leadership and the general public from information about the President’s health and ability to fulfill the needs of his office.

If Mrs. Wilson was unpopular among the Wilson circle before, she was now seen as imperious, and an impediment.

In March 1921, the Wilsons “retired” to a townhouse in Washington, where the former President continued to fail, and died in February, 1924.

The Widow

Edith was only fifty. She had no financial problems. Her health was excellent. What was she going to do? How would she spend her time?

As was common then, she became a “professional” widow.

Despite numerous opportunities, including requests from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to participate in civic or charitable programs, Edith kept her activities mostly Wilson-related.

Deciding that her position made her the “keeper of the Wilson flame,” she accepted the invitations to attend every opening session of the League of Nations. The League VIPs made a big fuss over their honored guest, who wore her trademark orchid corsage and was delighted to represent her late husband’s memory.

She worked closely with Ray Stannard Baker, Wilson’s choice as biographer, and helped prepare all the papers and documents the journalist needed for his massive undertaking.

But as former participants in the Wilson Administration began writing their memoirs, the SECOND Mrs. Wilson was not treated kindly. At least, she didn’t believe she was. The Wilson daughters became estranged from her for the most part as she generally erased any mention of their mother, the FIRST Mrs. Wilson. Wilson’s doctor, Cary Grayson and financier Bernard Baruch were practically the only two from the inner circle that remained her friends.

She vociferously denied she was “the first woman president,” but merely tried so hard to protect her husband’s health and wellbeing. “I myself never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs.…The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband.” Thus she wrote her own memoirs, and gave as good as she got. They were published in 1938, to mild success.

She arranged the purchase of Wilson’s birthplace in Staunton, VA (his family moved when he was only a year old), and turned it into a Presidential site. It now houses the Wilson Library. It is nice, but not spectacular.

She was a “consultant” on the movie Wilson, released during World War II as a tribute to the man who vainly strove to keep the world from war. It did fairly well – then. But it does not have “legs” today.

And she sewed a little for the Red Cross. Past that, if it wasn’t Wilson-related,” she kept her distance.

But since she outlived just about everyone of the Wilson circle, living to age 89 (and dying on Wilson’s 115th birthday), perhaps she had the last word.

Sources:

Berg, Scott A. – Wilson – G.P. Putnam’s Sons – 2013

Heckscher, Augustus – Woodrow Wilson: A Biography – Scribner’s – 1991

Wilson, Edith Bolling – My Memoir – Bobbs Merrill, 1938

http://www.woodrowwilsonhouse.org/league-nations

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edith-Wilson