Nellie first met William Gibbs McAdoo at the governor’s mansion in New Jersey. He had been a guest of the Wilson’s and was taking an early morning train home. Nellie was assigned to see him off. McAdoo was a leader in the Democratic Party who had greatly impressed Woodrow Wilson and, unknown to the governor, had prompted a bit of a reaction from his youngest daughter, as well. Nellie was so nervous at breakfast that morning that she spilled the cream and almost spilled his coffee.
By the time Wilson was president, William McAdoo was actively pursuing Nellie Wilson, not that anyone noticed. He was the new Secretary of the Treasury, a fifty-year-old grandfather, a widower with six children. She was twenty-three and secretly engaged to a mysterious young man she had met months before on a Mexican holiday. Nellie was often seen riding horses along the trails in the Rock Creek Park and staying out at dances till three in the morning. The press, which had missed discovering Francis Sayre, was now on high alert. They speculated continually about each of Nellie’s dancing partners, but understandably missed the significance of the treasury secretary’s comings and goings at the White House.
One of the first times McAdoo had called late a servant had stepped into the Oval Room, interrupting the family with the imperious announcement, “The secretary of the treasury…” The president had almost stood until the servant added, “…for Miss Eleanor.” On her sister’s wedding day, Nellie had led Secretary McAdoo into the Blue Room, away from other guests, where she taught him the fox trot. In January, 1914 McAdoo proposed to Nellie and was rejected. But after the idea simmered awhile, when he proposed a second time she responded eagerly.
The wedding of Alice Roosevelt and Jessie Wilson had both been huge events involving widely-contrasting personalities. It hardly seemed likely that another one, happening so soon, could further pique the public’s interest or curiosity. But this one did it. Eleanor “Nellie” Wilson would be marrying a man who had a daughter her same age. She would instantly be a cabinet officer’s wife and a major social figure in the nation’s capital. McAdoo was often mentioned as a possible president himself. The press, including the new motion picture men, descended on the Secretary of Treasury and his new fiancée until they could hardly function. But there was a great tragedy afoot.
For some time, Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, the First Lady, had been in decline. She suffered from Bright’s disease, a fatal and incurable disorder of the kidney. Doctor’s withheld their diagnosis from the President and his family, but within months they began to realize that she was failing fast. The wedding was announced for May 7, 1914 and under the circumstances it would be a small, family event, held in Blue Room where, on the night of Jessie’s wedding, Nellie and Mac had briefly stolen away from the crowd.
The Blue Room was decorated with cherry blossoms and white lilies. Margaret and Jessie wore organdy gowns and carried shepherd’s crooks garlanded with lilies. The First Lady was seemingly experiencing a brief recovery that week and looked radiant. Nellie’s gown was classic white, trimmed with an exquisite lace that was said to have once adorned the Empress Eugenie in the court of Napoleon III. Rev. Sylvester Beach, a Presbyterian minister who had presided at the earlier Wilson wedding, performed the ceremony for Mac and Nellie.
William McAdoo and Eleanor Randolph Wilson would have two daughters and move to California where he would two times make a run for the presidency. In 1924 the convention was deadlocked for 99 ballots between William McAdoo and Al Smith, both of whom withdrew to let the nomination go to another. It was as close to the presidency as he would get. He was elected to the Senate in 1932, and he and Nellie were divorced two years later. Mac would remarry an even younger woman and fail in his bid for reelection. There was a move by some to promote him again as a presidential candidate. Nellie was ever loyal, defending his actions publicly but privately she poured out her grief over the failed marriage in letters to her sister Margaret. William McAdoo would die at seventy seven, “a disappointed man, having lost his long fight for the Presidency.” Nellie would write numerous short stories and two books, including an account of her family, The Woodrow Wilsons. She would become a frequent commentator on national radio and a popular public speaker, spending a number of years helping to establish the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.
Only three months after the famous Blue Room wedding, on August 3, 1914, the nations of Europe were plunged into what would soon become the Great World War. The news was kept from the First Lady, Ellen Wilson. But nothing could stop the relentless disease that was racking her body. Three days later she died. For the following forty-eight hours, a grieving Woodrow Wilson sat by her dead body. They had come to the White House a close knit family of five, suspecting that the stress would change forever the dynamic of their happy circle, but hoping that they would survive it intact. None of them had envisioned how quickly their circle would be torn asunder.
(Text excepts from Doug Wead's New York Times best seller, All The President's Children.)
Doug Wead is a respected presidential historian and New York Times bestselling author. He has been an advisor to two presidents and served on senior staff at the White House of George Herbert Walker Bush. Recent titles include The Raising of a President: the Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation’s Leaders.
