"I am naturally the most unambitious of women and life in the White House has no
attractions for me." Mrs. Wilson was writing to thank President Taft for advice
concerning the mansion he was leaving. Two years as first lady of New Jersey
had given her valuable experience in the duties of a woman whose time belongs
to the people. She always played a public role with dignity and grace but never
learned to enjoy it.

Those who knew her in the White House described her as calm and sweet, a
motherly woman, pretty and refined. Her soft Southern voice had kept its slow
drawl through many changes of residence.

Ellen Louise Axson grew up in Rome, Georgia, where her father, the Reverend
S.E. Axson, was a Presbyterian minister. Thomas Woodrow Wilson first saw her
when he was about six and she only a baby. In 1883, as a young lawyer from
Atlanta, "Tommy" visited Rome and met "Miss Ellie Lou" again -- a beautiful
girl now, keeping house for a bereaved father. He thought, "what splendid
laughing eyes!" Despite their instant attraction they did not marry until 1885,
because she was unwilling to leave her heartbroken father.

That same year Bryn Mawr College offered Wilson a teaching position at an
annual salary of $1,500. He and his bride lived near the campus, keeping her
little brother with them. Humorously insisting that her own children must not
be born Yankees, she went to relatives in Georgia for the birth of Margaret in
1886 and Jessie in 1887. But Eleanor was born in Connecticut, while Wilson was
teaching at Wesleyan University.

His distinguished career at Princeton began in 1890, bringing his wife new
social responsibilities. From such demands she took refuge, as always, in art.
She had studied briefly in New York, and the quality of her paintings compares
favorably with professional art of the period. She had a studio with a skylight
installed at the White House in 1913, and found time for painting despite the
weddings of two daughters within six months and the duties of hostess for the
nation.

The Wilsons had preferred to begin the administration without an inaugural
ball, and the First Lady's entertainments were simple; but her unaffected
cordiality made her parties successful. In their first year she convinced her
scrupulous husband that it would be perfectly proper to invite influential
legislators to a private dinner, and when such an evening led to agreement on a
tariff bill, he told a friend, "You see what a wise wife I have!"

Descendant of slave owners, Ellen Wilson lent her prestige to the cause of
improving housing in the capital's Negro slums. Visiting dilapidated alleys,
she brought them to the attention of debutantes and Congressmen. Her death
spurred passage of a remedial bill she had worked for. Her health failing
slowly from Bright's disease, she died serenely on August 6, 1914. On the day
before her death, she made her physician promise to tell Wilson "later" that
she hoped he would marry again; she murmured at the end, "...take good care of
my husband." Struggling grimly to control his grief, Wilson took her to Rome
for burial among her kin.