Mary Peck and Woodrow Wilson
It is hard to imagine a more bookish President than Woodrow Wilson, both in appearance and in his chosen profession. When Wilson was elected to the Presidency his previous position had been as the Governor of New Jersey, prior to that he had been the President of Princeton University. Wilson, belied by his image in photographs where he appears aloof, possessed an almost violent nature. He was passionate and often had difficulty controlling his temper.
When photographers attempted to take pictures of Wilson for which he was unprepared he often demanded the plates be removed from the camera to the point that he would order aides to force compliance. He hated contradiction and suffered what he considered fools most ungladly.
Married in 1885 to the former Ellen Axson, he and his wife had three children – all daughters – and liked to vacation in places where Ellen could indulge her passion for painting. They were on a family vacation in Bermuda in 1906 when the President of Princeton met a socialite named Mary Peck. Their friendship almost immediately became very close, and Mary became a frequent visitor to the Wilson home, as well as maintaining an extensive correspondence with Wilson. Wilson began visiting Bermuda frequently without his wife and through his letters home Ellen began to believe that there was more than just a friendship between her husband and the socialite.
When Wilson ran for President in 1912 his opposition ravaged him in the press for what they alluded to as an illicit affair, with anti-Wilson newspapers referring to him as “Peck’s Bad Boy.” Teddy Roosevelt famously sniffed at the idea of Woodrow Wilson as a “Romeo” comparing him instead to a store clerk. Wilson won the Presidency and while in the White House, Ellen died. To the surprise of many, Wilson was soon remarried to Edith Galt in 1915 – rather than to the woman with whom he had maintained a long-term relationship to the voiced dismay of his wife.
Mary Peck tried briefly to stop the marriage by threatening to sell the letters she had received from Wilson; he undercut her threat by insisting to Edith that all he had done was to write “…too ardently.” He claimed the relationship was purely platonic, Edith evidently believed him, and for the rest of her life Mary Peck never publicly contradicted him.