Ellen Axson Wilson

Ellen Louise Axson Wilson (née Axson; May 15, 1860 – August 6, 1914) was First Lady of the United States from 1913 until her death in 1914, as the first wife of President Woodrow Wilson. Like her husband, she was a Southerner, as well as the daughter of a clergyman. She was born in Savannah, Georgia, but raised in Rome, Georgia. Having an artistic bent, she studied at the Art Students League of New York before her marriage, and continued to produce art in later life.

During her tenure as First Lady, she arranged White House weddings for two of their daughters. She was the third First Lady and the most recent to die during her tenancy.

Biography Ellen Louise Axson, born in Savannah, Georgia, where it won a bronze medal for excellence. They were engaged 5 months later, but postponed the wedding while he did postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins University and she nursed her ailing father. Ellen's father committed suicide while hospitalized for depression, after which she went North to study at the Art Students League of New York.

Wilson, who was 28 years of age, married Ellen, age 25, on June 24, 1885, at her paternal grandparents' home in Savannah, Georgia. The wedding was performed jointly by his father, the Reverend Joseph R. Wilson, and her grandfather, the Reverend Isaac Stockton Keith Axson. They honeymooned at Waynesville, a mountain resort in western North Carolina.

That same year, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania offered Dr. Wilson a teaching position at an annual salary of $1,500. He and his bride lived near the campus, keeping her little brother Eddie with them.

After Edward's death in 1905, Ellen set up a scholarship in his memory at the Berry College; the college held an Ellen Axson Wilson Homecoming event in 2014 to commemorate the centenary of her death.

Wilson was elected as president in 1912, bringing Ellen new social responsibilities. She took refuge from such demands in her art. As First Lady, she drew sketches and painted in a studio set up on the third floor of the White House. During her time at the White House, she continued to paint, but exhibited her work under an assumed name. She donated much of her work to charity. She arranged the White House weddings of two of her daughters.

She died of Bright's disease at the White House on August 6, 1914.