Ellen Axson Wilson

Ellen Louise Axson Wilson (née Axson; May 15, 1860 – August 6, 1914),[1] was the first wife of Woodrow Wilson and the mother of their three daughters. Like her husband, she was a Southerner, as well as the daughter of a clergyman. She was born in Savannah, Georgia, but raised in Rome, Georgia. Having an artistic bent, she studied at the Art Students League of New York before her marriage, and continued to produce art in later life.

Ellen Axson Wilson
First Lady of the United States
In role
March 4, 1913 – August 6, 1914
PresidentWoodrow Wilson
Preceded byHelen Taft
Succeeded byMargaret Wilson (Acting)
First Lady of New Jersey
In role
January 17, 1911 – March 1, 1913
GovernorWoodrow Wilson
Preceded byCharlotte Fort
Succeeded byMabel Fielder (Acting)
Personal details
Born
Ellen Louise Axson

(1860-05-15)May 15, 1860
Savannah, Georgia, U.S.
DiedAugust 6, 1914(1914-08-06) (aged 54)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Cause of deathBright's Disease
Resting placeMyrtle Hill Cemetery
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1885)​
ChildrenMargaret, Jessie, and Eleanor
Signature

She was the First Lady of the United States from Wilson's inauguration in 1913 until her death. During that period, she arranged White House weddings for two of their daughters.

Biography

Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, born in Savannah, Georgia,[1] the daughter of the Reverend Samuel Edward Axson, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Margaret Jane (née Hoyt) Axson, Ellen became a woman of refined tastes with a fondness for art, music, and literature. When she was eleven years old, she began studying art at the Rome Female College in Georgia,[2] where she studied until training at the Rome (Georgia) Female College at the age of eleven. After her graduation in 1876, Ellen's drawing titled School Scene was submitted to the Paris International Exposition.[3] where it won a bronze medal for excellence.[1]

In April 1883, she met Woodrow Wilson when he was visiting his cousin Jesse Woodrow Wilson in Rome, Georgia, on family business. At that time, she was keeping house for her widowed father. Woodrow Wilson thought of Ellen, "What splendid laughing eyes!"[4] They were engaged 5 months later, but postponed the wedding while he did postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins University and she nursed her ailing father. Ellen's father committed suicide while hospitalized for depression, after which she went North to study at the Art Students League of New York.

Wilson, who was 28 years of age, married Ellen, age 25, on June 24, 1885, at her paternal grandparents' home in Savannah, Georgia. The wedding was performed jointly by his father, the Reverend Joseph R. Wilson, and her grandfather, the Reverend Isaac Stockton Keith Axson. They honeymooned at Waynesville, a mountain resort in western North Carolina.

That same year, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania offered Dr. Wilson a teaching position at an annual salary of $1,500. He and his bride lived near the campus, keeping her little brother with them.

Together, the Wilsons had three daughters:

Ellen Axson Wilson by her friend Frederic Yates - 1906

Insisting that her children must not be born as Yankees, Ellen went to stay with relatives in Gainesville, Georgia for Margaret's birth in 1886 and Jessie's in 1887. But Eleanor was born in Connecticut in 1889, while Wilson was teaching at Wesleyan University.

Wilson's career at Princeton University began in 1890, bringing Ellen new social responsibilities. She took refuge from such demands in her art. As First Lady, she drew sketches and painted in a studio set up on the third floor of the White House. She donated much of her work to charity. She arranged the White House weddings of two of her daughters.

After Wilson was elected as president in 1912, the Wilsons preferred to begin the administration without an inaugural ball. The First Lady's entertainments were simple, but her unaffected cordiality made her parties successful. In their first year, she convinced her scrupulous husband that it would be perfectly proper to invite influential legislators to a private dinner.

Ellen Louise Wilson's grave in Myrtle Hill Cemetery, Rome, Georgia
Ruth Nelson portrayed Ellen Axson Wilson in the 1944 film Wilson

Wilson had grown up in a slave-owning family. As First Lady, she devoted much effort to the cause of improving housing in the national capital's largely black slums. She visited dilapidated alleys and brought them to the attention of debutantes and Congressmen.

She died of Bright's disease at the White House on August 6, 1914.[1] She was buried in Rome, Georgia among her family at Myrtle Hill Cemetery.

In December 1915, President Woodrow Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt.

References
  1. "First Lady Biography: Ellen Wilson". National First Ladies' Library. Retrieved 2006-10-06.
  2. "The Art of First Lady Ellen Axon Wilson: American Impressionist" (PDF). 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 March 2014.
  3. Heckscher, August (1991). Woodrow Wilson. Easton Press. pp. 71–73.
  4. Wilson, Woodrow, and Wilson, Ellen Axson. The Priceless Gift: the Love Letters of Woodrow Wilson and Ellen Axson Wilson, Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 1962
  • Original text based on White House biography, First Ladies
  • Miller, Kristie, Ellen and Edith: Woodrow Wilson's First Ladies (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010)
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Helen Taft		 First Lady of the United States
1913–1914		 Succeeded by
Margaret Wilson
De facto
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