Ellen Louise Axson, was born Savannah, Georgia, on May 15, 1860. Her mother was Margaret Hoyt Axson; her father; the Reverend Samuel E. Axson, was a Presbyterian minister. At the Female Seminary in Rome, Georgia, Ellen studied literature, music, and art. She was a particularly gifted painter.
It was in Rome, in April 1883, that Ellen met Woodrow Wilson, a lawyer from Atlanta visiting his cousin. Woodrow was smitten at once with Ellen’s “splendid, mischievous laughing eyes,” and he discovered that she was intelligent and cultured as well. By September they were engaged, although they delayed marriage while he finished his graduate work and she studied painting in New York City.
Ellen was twenty-five and Woodrow twenty-eight when they were married at her grandfather’s home in Savannah on June 24, 1885, by two ministers: her grandfather and Woodrow’s father. The newlyweds moved to Pennsylvania, where Woodrow Wilson taught at Bryn Mawr College. As he moved on to Wesleyan University, in Connecticut, and then to Princeton University, Ellen Wilson devoted all her intelligence, talents, and quiet charm to making her husband happy and furthering his career.
Mrs. Wilson proofread Mr. Wilson’s articles and books, and she coached him in the subjects she knew well, such as art and literature. She ran the household, making ends meet on a college professor’s skimpy salary. And she educated their three daughters, Margaret, Jessie, and Eleanor.
After Woodrow Wilson became governor of New Jersey in 1911, he began thinking of running for president in 1912. During his bid for the Democratic nomination, Mrs. Wilson helped him rehearse his speeches, courted
Key politicians, and gave him political advice. She believed her husband was destined for greatness, and she was thrilled when he was elected president.
Although Mrs. Wilson did not care about the glory of being First Lady, she entertained with well-bred grace. Even with a hectic schedule, she found time to paint in a studio in the White House, and she remained her husband’s constant companion and supporter, going over his speeches, discussing the issues, and advising him.
Ellen Wilson also took an interest in the working conditions of people in the federal government departments, and she insisted that rest rooms be installed for the women. Appalled by the alleys of substandard housing where black people lived in Washington, she lobbied Congress for a remedial bill.
In the spring of 1914 Mrs. Wilson became ill with Bright’s disease, a then-fatal kidney ailment. When she died on August 6, 1914, Woodrow Wilson was grief-stricken. Ellen Wilson was buried with her parents in Rome, Georgia.
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