December 18, 1915: President Woodrow Wilson Marries Edith Galt

No photograph of the wedding is known to exist.

December 18, 1915: President Woodrow Wilson marries Edith Galt, a wealthy widow and jeweler, at her home in Washington, D.C.

Edith Bolling was born on October 15, 1872 in Wytheville, in the Virginia Panhandle. She was related, either by blood or through marriage, to Pocahontas, George Washington's wife Martha, Thomas Jefferson, William Henry and Benjamin Harrison, and John Tyler's 1st wife Letitia Tyler. Her father was a slaveholding lawyer, and the family was proud of its Southernness and its support for the Confederate States of America. Which was also true for President Woodrow Wilson, and for his 1st wife, the former Ellen Axson.

In 1896, Edith met Washington jeweler Norman Galt. In 1903, she gave birth to a son, who lived only a few days, and due to complications, she could have no more children. Norman died in 1908, and she paid off his debts, and ran his business better than he ever did.

In March 1915, she was introduced to recently widowed President Woodrow Wilson at the White House, by his cousin, Helen Woodrow Bones, who was filling in as White House hostess after the death of Ellen Wilson on August 6, 1914. The President had been deeply depressed by Ellen's death, but took an instant liking to Edith, and proposed soon after meeting her.

The relationship was threatened by vicious rumors, that Wilson was already seeing Edith before Ellen died, and even that they had Ellen murdered. He was so disturbed by this that he tried to do the gallant thing, and offered to let Edith go. She refused, conceding only to postpone the wedding until after a year had passed since Ellen's death. In the end, it took a bit longer than that.

They had a common love of golf, and Edith's surviving diary contains notations of her having beaten him at the game. It's not surprising: Both a Sports Illustrated article during Bill Clinton's time in office and an article recently published on the Southern California Golf Association's website suggest that he was one of the worst golfers in Presidential history. The SCGA article suggests his handicap was between 25 and 30, and quotes him as saying, "Golf is a game in which one endeavors to put a small ball into an even smaller hole with implements ill-adapted for the purpose."

(The article says 2 Presidents were worse: Calvin Coolidge, who once said, "I did not see the sense in chasing a little white ball around a field"; and Lyndon Johnson, who admitted, "I don't have a handicap. I'm all handicap." The best ones? The SI article said John F. Kennedy was the best, and the SCGA article ranks him 3rd -- behind Joe Biden, who admits he hasn't played since 2018; and Donald Trump, who says his handicap is 3, but lies about everything, but they took him at his word. Before Trump, the Presidents most criticized for playing too much golf were Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald Ford, and both sources put them in the middle of the pack.)

On October 9, Wilson became the 1st incumbent President to attend a World Series game. He and Edith Galt went to Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, and saw Boston Red Sox pitcher George "Rube" Foster limit the Philadelphia Phillies to just 3 hits, and single home the winning run himself in the bottom of the 9th, to win Game 2 of the Series, 2-1.

It's not clear what team Wilson usually rooted for, although he did teach at Bryn Mawr University, near Philly, and attended Princeton University, taught there, and was its President, before becoming Governor of New Jersey. From 1887 onward, when the predecessor ground to Baker Bowl opened, the Phillies were the closest team to Princeton, 7 blocks closer than the Athletics.

It wasn't all a good day for the future Mr. and Mrs. Wilson: The Washington Post printed an article about a trip to a Washington theater the night before. It was, the article said, "their first appearance in public as an engaged couple."

All editions after the first said, suggesting that the play wasn't especially interesting, "The President gave himself up for the time being to entertaining his fiancee." The first edition, however, said, "The President gave himself up for the time being to entering his fiancee." Whoops... (No, I'm not making that up. This was in 1915. And it was almost certainly a mistake, not a purposeful attempt to embarrass Wilson.)

This was just 50 years after Abraham Lincoln took his wife Mary to Ford's Theatre. Moral of the story: If you're the President of the United States, don't go to a theater in Washington with the woman you love.

Two months later, on December 18, at Edith's home in Washington, the couple were married. As with his 1st marriage, the wedding had each family's pastor presiding: For Woodrow, the Rev. Dr. James H. Taylor; for Edith, the Rev. Dr. Herbert S. Smith.

Wilson thus became the 3rd President to marry while in office, following then-widower John Tyler in 1844 and then-bachelor Grover Cleveland in 1886. (There has not been a 4th.) The President was only 3 years older than his 1st wife, but 16 years older than his 2nd. That said, she was no kid: She was 43.

As First Lady during World War I, Edith Bolling Wilson observed gasless Sundays, meatless Mondays, and wheatless Wednesdays to set an example for the federal rationing effort. Similarly, she set sheep to graze on the White House lawn rather than use manpower to mow it, and had their wool auctioned off for the benefit of the American Red Cross.

She became the first First Lady to travel to Europe during her term, with her husband in 1918-19, to visit troops and to sign the Treaty of Versailles. (That is, he was among the signers, she wasn't.) During this time, her presence amongst the female royalty of Europe helped to cement America's status as a world power and propelled the position of First Lady to an equivalent standing in international politics.

She also accompanied him on his train trip around the country in the Summer of 1919, trying to lobby people to contact their State's U.S. Senators, and have them approve the Treaty of Versailles, allowing America into the League of Nations, thus making America part of the effort to preserve peace following the recently-won World War.

But he had run himself ragged, and his wife Edith saw he wasn't well, and on September 26, she ordered their return to Washington. It wasn't soon enough, and he suffered a massive stroke on October 2. He was paralyzed on his left side, and nearly blinded.

His inner circle concealed the extent of his impairment, and Edith and his private secretary, Joseph Tumulty, controlled who could see him and with what he would be presented in terms of official business. For this reason, Edith Wilson has been called "the 1st female President of the United States." It would be much fairer to say that she was the 1st female White House Chief of Staff. In real life, through October 2, 2022, neither of those positions has ever been held by a woman.

The 28th 1/2 President of the United States?

Wilson's stroke left him both physically and politically paralyzed. But he refused to resign and let Vice President Thomas R. Marshall take the job, due to an intense personal dislike for him that both he and Edith had developed. With no law in place to cover a living but incapacitated President at the time -- the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967 -- for all intents and purposes, for nearly a year and a half, at a time when the nation really could have used some leadership, it had no functioning President.

Wilson recovered somewhat between the stroke and leaving office on March 4, 1921. He became the only former President to establish a permanent residence in Washington, D.C. after leaving the White House. He died in 1924.

Edith maintained her house in Washington, attending President Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech asking for a Declaration of War against Japan in 1941, and President John F. Kennedy's Inauguration in 1961. She was scheduled to be the guest of honor that year, on December 28, the anniversary of her husband's birth, for the dedication of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, carrying Interstate 95 across the Potomac River at the southern corner of the District of Columbia. But she died that morning, at the age of 89.

Having outlived her husband by nearly 38 years, she was buried next to him at the National Cathedral in Washington, the only President and First Lady laid to rest in the capital city.

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December 18, 1915 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. Football season was over, except for the upcoming Rose Bowl, won by Washington State over Brown University, 14-0 at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California. Professional basketball existed only on a minor-league level.

The season of the National Hockey Association, predecessor to the National Hockey League, opened that night. The Montreal Canadiens, the one team from the NHA still playing today, beat the Toronto Blueshirts (not the Blue Jays, and not the forerunners of the Maple Leafs), 2-1 at the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto.