Woodrow Wilson always enjoyed feminine companionship.

Woodrow Wilson and Women in General 

Like many men with high intellect and matching egos, Woodrow Wilson was drawn to the company of women. If they were attractive, intelligent, lively, gentle-natured and content to be a good audience, he was delighted to bask in their admiration.

He was also a devout Presbyterian. His family tree was peppered with ministers, including his own father. He prayed on his knees every night, until his health made it impossible. The teachings of his religion and its morality were of vital importance to him.

Very little is known of Wilson’s adolescence and early manhood vis-a-vis romantic interests. Most historians tend to believe he was generally shy around the opposite sex, believed himself to be “homely,” and if there was any “romance” involved, it was likely cerebral and certainly unfulfilled.

The First Mrs. Wilson

Wilson was 25 when he met Ellen Axson, a 22-year old Presbyterian minister’s daughter, and fell deeply in love. Immediately. He wooed her, mostly by correspondence, with passionate letters, opening up his innermost soul, dreams and hopes.

Woodrow was a brand new college professor, fast-tracked to being one of the top governmental history (political science) experts in the country. Their house was a revolving door of assorted long-term guests, relatives on both sides. Her 10-year-old brother Eddie lived with them from the start. Her other brother Stockton stayed with them on vacations from college. The three Wilson daughters were born within five years. Money was always tight, and Wilson wrote a book a year to augment his sparse salary. He also accepted extra seminars and lecture engagements.

Those extra engagements usually included invitations to other professors’ homes, where WW met many intelligent and scintillating female dinner companions. Ellen was an artistic woman of serious talents, and a serious nature. She shunned the limelight, and witty repartee made her uncomfortable. She encouraged him “go solo” to those engagements. She understood his needs, and at the top of that list, was his dependence on a woman’s nurturing companionship.

She made it a point throughout their 30-year marriage, to seek out his feminine admirers, and make them her friends as well. And she never doubted that Woodrow loved her.

The Rough Time

Some 20 years after they married, Ellen suffered a grievous loss. Her brother Eddie and his wife and baby died in a drowning accident. He was only 31. Ellen, as next of kin, did whatever was needed. She notified family members, arranged for funerals, handled his modest estate, and finally grieved. Like others in her family who were prone to crippling depression, she had generally warded off sadness over the years. This time she could not.

According to her daughter Eleanor McAdoo, her depression went deep, and she retreated into a world of silence. Woodrow could not reach her. He was overcome by her grief, and his own need to comfort her, which he could not do. She had always been his steel magnolia. Now he had no one to comfort him.

Wilson’s physical and emotional health had always been tightly intertwined. He could plunge into a deep abyss if a letter hadn’t come when expected. His body usually paid the price. For years he suffered periodic gastric problems, headaches and a couple of undiagnosed strokes. A quiet and solitary change of scenery, with Ellen’s encouragement, seemed to restore him to his usual productive life.

Bermuda

In early 1907, about a year after Eddie Axson’s death, with Ellen still “not herself,” Woodrow took a solo vacation to Bermuda. The sea air and quiet surroundings were recommended.

Mary Allen Hulbert Peck was a comfortably situated woman who spent winters in Bermuda “for her health.” A few years Wilson’s junior, she had been widowed several years earlier, and had remarried a well-to-do businessman. That marriage was unhappy. Ergo, Bermuda “for her health.”

Mary was delight and a charmer, and quickly became Bermuda’s premiere “hostess.” On a small island in the off-season, socializing was easy, and an invitation for the then-President of Princeton University was quickly extended. Woodrow found Mary to be wonderful company and a warm friendship ensued, lasting for several years. As always, Woodrow an ardent correspondent, wrote to her often. And returned solo to Bermuda.

Smoke, Fire and Smudge-Pots

The likelihood that anything even remotely akin to “unPresbyterian-like” behavior occurred is difficult to imagine – considering Woodrow. Both he and Mary Peck always insisted that despite their effusive correspondence (common for that time), their relationship was never more than a warm friendship. His marriage to Ellen was always loving and happy, and he would never put that in jeopardy.

Naturally, Woodrow told Ellen about Mrs. Peck, who eventually divorced and re-assumed her widowed name of Hulbert and moved to New York. Ellen characteristically sought opportunities to meet her husband’s dear friend, and even made it a point to introduce her daughters. It would be a rare stretch for the morally pious Woodrow to have his wife and daughters in the company of a woman if it was an immoral relationship. She was even their guest at the White House.

Nevertheless, Ellen commented to a friend that it was the only time in their marriage that her husband had caused her pain.

Several years later, when WW was a serious political figure, there were the usual gossipy innuendos. Candidate Theodore Roosevelt was advised of the “situation” in 1912, and declined to make it an issue, stating that it would be hard to believe that someone who looked like an apothecary clerk was a Romeo.

And as long as Ellen Wilson lived, their friendship with Mary Peck Hulbert would never seriously harm Woodrow Wilson’s reputation.

Sources:

Heckscher, August – Woodrow Wilson: A Biography – Scribners, 1991

McAdoo, Eleanor Wilson – The Woodrow Wilsons – Macmillan, 1937

Saunders, Frances Wright – Ellen Axson Wilson – University of North Carolina Press – 1985

Weinstein, Edwin A. – Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography – Princeton University Press, 1981

https://www.americanheritage.com/love-and-guilt-woodrow-wilson-and-mary-hulbert