Edith Galt Wilson
Edith Galt was a widow when she was introduced to widower President Woodrow Wilson by Helen Bones, who was serving as the unofficial First Lady at the time. The introduction occurred during the official mourning period over the death of the President’s first wife, and the rapidly blossoming romance between Wilson and Galt set Washington tongues wagging, including a pernicious rumor that the pair had conspired to kill Wilson’s first wife. Nonetheless the pair were married in December 1915, and Edith Wilson became the second official First Lady of the Wilson Administration.
During the First World War, Edith had sheep purchased and let out to graze on the White House lawns to keep the grass clipped, saving on both the use of fuel and manpower. She scheduled Mondays to be meatless days, and on Wednesdays banned the consumption of wheat products. Both were established to be examples to the home front on ways the public could support the war effort. When the United States formally entered the war in 1917 she was extended Secret Service protection, the first person besides the president to be so afforded.
When Wilson went to France to attend the Versailles conference she went with him, solicitous of him due to his failing health and strenuous schedule. Upon his return he undertook an ambitious schedule lobbying for entry into his proposed League of Nations. His work schedule overwhelmed him and Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke. He was partially paralyzed, and full recovery was deemed unlikely. Edith took steps to protect the president from overwork.
There was at the time no recognized position of the President’s Chief of Staff. Edith undertook a role very much like that of the modern Chief of Staff. She screened applicants for the president’s time, determining whether there was a need for the president to be involved or whether another officer of the government would suffice. She did the same with documents and briefs routed to the president’s desk, delegating the paperwork wherever possible. At times she made requisite decisions herself.
Edith Wilson later claimed that the only decisions she made were whether or not an issue was worthy of the president’s attention. For the remainder of Wilson’s term she served in the role of screening what did or did not received the attention of the nation’s Chief Executive. Nobody got to President Wilson but through her, making her the most powerful woman – if not person – in Washington until the pair retired in 1921. Forty years later the still spry Edith Wilson attended the inauguration of another Democratic president – John F. Kennedy.