The joint gift of the Virginia delegation in Congress was a silver loving cup in the form of a beaker with massive silver handles. It stands two feet high on a pedestal of ebony, and is appropriately inscribed. Citizens of Wytheville, the birthplace of Mrs. Galt, sent handsomely framed miniatures of the bride’s father and mother, Judge and Mrs. Bolling, painted by Miss Ellen Douglass Stuart, a niece of the late Gen. J. E. B. Stuart and a talented artist.
Among the most unique of Mrs. Wilson’s gifts were a wonderful scarf sent by the former Queen of Hawaii; the statuette of Pocahontas, the gift of the Pocahontas Memorial Association; the queer old painting of Pocahontas sent from Scotland in recognition of Mrs. Wilson’s descent from the Indian maid; the gift of the splendid collection of furs from the Blackfeet Indians of the National Glacier Park reservation, consisting of the selected skins of forty-eight animals native to the western part of the United States; a bracelet of Brazilian gems and an ornament of rare tropical feathers presented by Dr. A. J. de O’lvera Botelho of Brazil, the first of the delegates to arrive in Washington from the Pan-American Scientific Congress; and a basket woven from Georgia pine needles and filled with the biggest Georgia pecans the Confederate veteran giver could find.
The Wilson honeymoon and all of its details were of such interest that papers published estimated summaries of the expense involved as follows:
COST OF WILSON HONEYMOON
| Special train | $ 400 |
| Room and board for the President and Mrs. Wilson | 480 |
| Rooms and board for President’s valet | 64 |
| Room and board for maid | 64 |
| Transportation autos | 120 |
| Room and board for stenographer | 96 |
| Room and board for seven Secret Service men | 352 |
| Salary for Secret Service men | 688 |
| Garage fees and gasoline | 48 |
| Servants’ wages | 48 |
| Salary of stenographer | 64 |
| Tips and fees | 75 |
| Flowers | 240 |
| ——— | |
| Cost to President | $2,739 |
| Cost to newspapers of telling Americans all about it | $16,000 |
Upon returning to Washington, President Wilson took hold of his problems with new vigour. Mrs. Wilson, a Virginian of distinguished lineage, proceeded to brighten up the White House and carry on its traditions of hospitality so charmingly inaugurated by Ellen Axson Wilson, whom she had never known, since she did not become acquainted with the President until a number of months after his wife’s death.
When the President’s friendship with Mrs. Galt was noted and their betrothal predicted, rumours were circulated that the political leaders of his party were filled with anxiety lest the wedding prior to the election result in his defeat. Their idea was that the influence of the women of the land would be directed against him if he were to remarry so soon after Mrs. Wilson’s death. While little conferences were held and it was agreed that the matter should be presented to the President, no one would undertake the mission.
In the last year of the first term, when criticism of his personal life and executive performances was at high tide, just prior to election, Professor Stockton Axson, brother of the President’s first wife, one who had long been a member of the Wilson household in Middletown and Princeton, was moved to write some of his reminiscences of the Wilson home and family life, through his own desire to present to the public a side of the President’s character little known.
This article appeared in a New York paper in October, 1916. In his story, Professor Axson painted a picture of two Southern families—neighbours. The fathers, Presbyterian clergymen, were close friends in perfect accord on the tenets of Calvinism and the causes and effects of the Civil War; their children typical of a friendship so strong that each set regarded the adults of the other family as relatives, calling them Aunt and Uncle through life. Each family adopted as its own, for special regard, the relatives and in-laws of the other, and they shared joys, sorrows, and successes. This was the environment in which Woodrow Wilson, then called “Tommy,” grew up. It has been said that, when Ellen Axson was a wee infant a few days old, little Tommy Wilson paid her his first call.
Of the romance of these two, Professor Axson wrote: