Today is the birthday, in 1872, of Edith Wilson. She was First Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921 as the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson. She married the widower Wilson in December 1915, during his first term as president. She became essentially the acting President during the last 18 months of his term.
Edith Bolling was born October 15, 1872, in Wytheville, Virginia. Bolling was a descendant of the first settlers to arrive at the Virginia Colony. Through her father, she was also a descendant of Mataoka, better known as Pocahontas. Her father was descended from Pocahontas’s granddaughter Jane Rolfe, who married Robert Bolling. a wealthy slave-owning planter and merchant. Additionally, she was related, either by blood or through marriage, to Thomas Jefferson, Martha Washington, Letitia Tyler, and the Harrison family.
While visiting her married sister in Washington, D.C., Edith met Norman Galt (1864–1908), a prominent jeweler of Galt & Bro. Norman Galt died unexpectedly at the age of 43. Edith hired a manager to oversee his business, paid off his debts, and with the income left to her by her late husband, toured Europe.
In March 1915, the widow Galt was introduced to recently widowed U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the White House. Wilson took an instant liking to Galt and proposed soon after meeting her. Wilson married Galt on December 18, 1915, at her home in Washington, D.C.
Following his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson returned to the United States to campaign against strong non-interventionist sentiment for the ratification of the peace treaty and of the League of Nations Covenant. However, in October he suffered a stroke that left him bedridden and partially paralyzed. Edith Wilson and others in the President’s inner circle (including his physician and a few close friends) hid the true extent of the president’s illness and disability from the American public.
Edith also took over a number of routine duties and details of the executive branch of the government from the onset of Wilson’s illness until he left office almost a year and a half later. Edith became the sole communication link between the President and his Cabinet. She required they send her all pressing matters, memos, correspondence, questions, and requests. Edith took her role very seriously, even successfully pushing for the removal of Secretary of State Robert Lansing after he conducted a series of Cabinet meetings without the President (or Edith herself) present.
She assisted President Wilson in filling out paperwork, and would often add new notes or suggestions. She was made privy to classified information, and was entrusted with the responsibility of encoding and decoding encrypted messages.
On December 8, 1941, the day after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war, taking pains to draw a link with Wilson’s April 1917 declaration of war. Edith Wilson was present during Roosevelt’s address to Congress. On April 14, 1945, she attended Roosevelt’s funeral at the White House. She later attended the January 20, 1961 inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
Edith Wilson died of congestive heart failure on December 28, 1961, at age 89. She was to have been the guest of honor that day at the dedication ceremony for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River, on what would have been her husband’s 105th birthday. She was buried next to her husband at the Washington National Cathedral.
Woodrow Wilson’s first posed photograph after his stroke. He was paralyzed on his left side, so Edith holds a document steady while he signs. June 1920.
Only applies to ice cream…
Ouch!
BADA BING!!
A very philosophical friend asked me, “What is Earth without art?” I just looked at him and said, “Eh?”
Baldwin is a cool name. It is the opposite of Hairloss.
Before the Internet, most people thought villages had only one idiot. Boy, were they wrong.
Them: How much faith do you have in the human race? Me: I’m a dog person.
My midlife crisis is over – I’m working on my senior life catastrophe.
“The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.” – Mark Twain
Guy1: Bro, have you ever had an argument with your girlfriend? Guy2: Nope. Me and my girl don’t argue. She tells me to shut up and I do.
Bankrupt farmland will be perfect for building data centers and then provide the groundwater to cool the data centers.
ICE agent: Stop calling us Nazis or we’re going to take you to one of our concentration camps.
People are so dumb cooking food at 350 degrees for 40 minutes when they could just do the math and cook it a 14,000 degrees for one minute.
Next they’re going to tell us autism is caused by the demand to release the Epstein files. – Steve Hofstetter
Eyelashes are supposed to prevent things from getting into your eyes. When I do have something in my eye it’s always an eyelash. Eyeronic.
Does this couch I’m lying on make me look unmotivated?
Today is the birthday, in 1946. of American record producer, arranger, pianist and composer Richard Carpenter, who formed half of the sibling duo The Carpenters alongside his younger sister Karen. They had the 1973 UK No.2 single ‘Yesterday Once More’ and the 1970 US No.1 & UK No.6 single ‘Close To You’. The Carpenters 1972 hit ‘Goodbye to Love’ was one of the first pop ballads to have a fuzz guitar solo and influenced the development of the power ballad. The duo hosted a television series during the summer of 1971, called Make Your Own Kind of Music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjFoQxjgbrs
Comments