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Document 17522 EDITH BOLLING WILSON "Madame President", 1919-1921. Signature: "Edith Bolling Wilson", 1p, 3½x1. On December 18, 1915, in Washington, D.C., 43-year-old widow Edith Bolling Galt, whose husband Norman had died in 1908, married 58-year-old widower President Woodrow Wilson, whose wife Ellen had died in the White House in 1914. President Wilson suffered paralytic strokes on September 26 and October 2, 1919 and, according to her 1939 autobiography, My Memoirs, Edith was told by neurologist Dr. Francis Dercum to "free him from worry". Edith read dispatches, referred matters to Cabinet officers, took Wilson's dictation and protected him from the stress of political problems. She claimed to have made no decisions regarding public policy but she did admit that her husband never read, never saw, never listened to and never signed anything she had not approved of first. The press called it a "Petticoat Government" or "Mrs. Wilson's Regency", and she was called "Madame President". Under his wife's care, Wilson lived another five years before dying in 1924 at the age of 67. Mrs. Wilson died at 89 on December 28, 1961, the 105th anniversary of her husband's birth. Mounting remnants on verso cause slight rippling of signature and slightly show through. SEE IF DOCUMENT 17522 IS FOR SALE RIGHT NOW!!
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