White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

Presidential cares were never so engrossing that Woodrow Wilson failed to respond to the appeal of a child.

On the first Easter Sunday that he was President, he and the family decided to attend the Eastern Presbyterian Church. During the service a little six-year-old girl in an adjacent pew divided her attention between watching the new President and admiring a cherished bundle in her lap. Just before the service concluded, she leaned over and handed the package to Miss Eleanor, who, noting it was for the President, smilingly passed it on to her father. The President glanced at the package so carefully wrapped in a paper napkin, read the name and message scrawled in childish script, and justified the child’s admiration, for he turned, smiled, and bowed his thanks to the little girl with as profound courtesy and as much evidence of pleasure in his expression as if the gift had been a priceless jewel instead of being only a gaudy Easter egg.

The first and most important of the social affairs at the White House during the first year of the administration was the marriage of Miss Jessie Woodrow Wilson to Mr. Francis Bowes Sayre, in the East Room, on November 26, 1913. She was the thirteenth bride of the home of the presidents. No fears of ill luck haunted her, for her entire family regarded the number thirteen as their mascot.

For the simple ceremony, a dais approached by two low steps was erected by the windows facing the Treasury Building, on the spot where Nellie Grant gave her hand to Mr. Sartoris, and where Alice Roosevelt became the bride of Nicholas Longworth. A prie dieu covered with white satin, bride roses, and lilies of the valley stood upon a beautiful white rug that had been presented by the Minister of Peru and Madame Pezet. This bit of vicuna fur from South America was especially interesting because of its virtue of bringing good luck to its owner. At four-thirty the President escorted his wife to the State dining room where the bridal procession was forming, and turned her over to Colonel W. W. Harts, his military aide, who took her to her assigned place in the East Room. Mrs. Sayre, the mother of the bridegroom, was escorted to a place opposite.

A fanfare of trumpets and Lohengrin’s march by the Marine Band announced the approach of the bridal party. The bridesmaids were the Misses Eleanor R. Wilson, younger sister of the bride; Mary G. White of Baltimore; Adeline Mitchell Scott of Princeton, and Marjorie Brown of Atlanta. With them walked the ushers: Benjamin R. Burton of New York; Charles Evans Hughes, Jr., of New York; Dr. DeWitt Scoville Clark, Jr., of Salem, Mass., and Dr. Gilbert Horax of Mount Clair, N. J., all college associates of Mr. Sayre. Miss Margaret Wilson preceded the bride, who, in the traditional white satin and veil, was escorted by her father. Miss Wilson was met at the improvised altar by Mr. Sayre, who was attended by Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell. The Reverend Sylvester W. Beach, D.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton, N. J., where Miss Jessie taught a Bible class and where the Wilson family attended, read the service. The Reverend John Nevin Sayre, brother of the bridegroom and missionary to China, pronounced the benediction.

For the supper, the table, with its huge wedding cake, was beautifully decorated. The cake had been made in New York, in two layers, and was two and a half feet high and three feet in circumference. It weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds and was reported to have cost five hundred dollars. To Miss Margaret’s lot fell the slice with the ring, and later she caught the bride’s bouquet. The collation in the State dining room, the same as served to the bridal party, consisted of Virginia ham, salads, sandwiches, relishes, bonbons, ices, cakes, coffee, and fruit punch, made in accordance with the bride’s expressed wish without wine or liquor of any kind.

With the aid of the President’s secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, and the White House police, the bridal couple escaped their friends. Then the ropes were removed and the young people had a delightful dance with the Marine Band to play.

Next in interest to the White House bride herself, at least to the women of the land, was her trousseau. In the opinion of critics, Mrs. Sayre’s wedding outfit, though modest, had been designed with artistic skill and carried out with materials whose elegance and quality made her gowns appropriate for all occasions. She planned her clothes to fit the wants of a college professor’s wife with ample provision for occasional jaunts to Washington and New York. The wedding gown was made of lustrous white satin, a product of the now famous Paterson, N. J., mills, and was adorned with orange blossoms and rare point lace, an heirloom in Mrs. Wilson’s family. The full court train, which was fastened at the shoulders, was also adorned with wedding flowers. The full-length veil was of the finest French tulle and completely enveloped the bride. It was arranged from a lace cap which was fastened close to the hair and was adorned with sprays of orange blossoms. Tiny clusters of the flowers were caught in the veil. The bouquet was a cluster of bride roses with a shower of buds and ribbon. Mrs. Sayre’s only jewel was a diamond pendant and chain, the gift of her husband.

The invitations and the announcements of the wedding, except for the embossed coat of arms of the United States at the top, were plain enough for any private family. The list of invited guests contained less than seven hundred names. It included, besides the relatives and intimate friends of the two families, the members of the Cabinet, Supreme Court, Diplomatic Corps, the New Jersey delegation in Congress, and the leaders in Congress.

The bridal presents were such as only a White House wedding could call forth. They varied in elegance and costliness from the tiny beaded hand-made purse presented by the four-year-old cousin of the bride, to the twenty-five hundred-dollar-diamond necklace presented by the House of Representatives. China and cloisonné vases—gold coffee spoons, candlesticks, mahogany furniture, and many beautiful gifts of silver rubbed shoulders with such humble but eminently useful gifts as two washtubs, six boxes of soap, coal scuttles, a barrel of potatoes, rag rugs, five bushels of Bermuda onions, a white knitted hammock, a washing machine, a sewing machine, and an eiderdown quilt.