Country Vacations & Resorts

Time in Office: 1913 to 1921
Terms: Two
Birthday: December 28, 1856
Birth Place: Staunton, Virginia
Date of Death: February 3, 1924
Place of Death: His home, Embassy Row, Kalorama – Washington, DC
Buried: Washington National Cathedral

Notes:
~ May have had dyslexia
~ An avid baseball fan – first President to attend the World Series
~ Loved cars – his favorite was a 1919 Pierce Arrow
~ Loved to cycle and play golf
~ Only US President with a PhD – in History and Political Science
~ First American President to visit the Pope while in office
~ Awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize

Thomas Woodrow Wilson, America’s 28th President was born in Virginia but, due to his father’s involvement with the Presbyterian Church, young Woodrow spent most of his early years in Augusta, Georgia where his father was a minister. Woodrow had trouble reading but was able to overcome his limitations. He studied at home with his father and attended small classes in both Augusta and in Columbia, South Carolina where his father had moved the family for his new position as professor at the Columbia Theological Seminary.

After spending one year at Davidson College in North Carolina, he transferred to Princeton, then attended law school at the University of Virginia for one year. Never very healthy, Wilson left Virginia and headed home to Wilmington, North Carolina where he continued independent study. In 1882 at the age of 26, he opened his law practice in Atlanta but found practicing law interfered with his preferred studies. In 1883, Wilson entered Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland to study history and political science.

Woodrow Wilson was married twice. In 1885 he married Ellen Louise Axson who died on August 6th, 1914 from Bright’s disease. An accomplished artist, Ellen was not very interested in politics although she fought hard for improved housing conditions in the Negro slums of Washington, DC. Wilson’s second wife, Edith Bolling Galt, who he married on December 18th, 1915 was nearly the opposite. Ambitious and outgoing, politically savvy, and extremely protective of her husband, she all but ran the country after Wilson’s stroke in 1919.

After academic positions at Cornell University in New York, Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan University, Connecticut, Woodrow took a position as professor at Princeton, a short tenure at Evelyn College for Women, and spent time as a lecturer at New York Law School. While slowly gaining national exposure, the next decade would prove meteoric for Woodrow Wilson. By 1902 Wilson was President of Princeton College, a position he retained until he left in 1910 to enter New Jersey state politics. Elected Governor of New Jersey in 1910, Wilson was the Democratic Party’s winning candidate for President in the 1912 election and was re-elected in 1916. Wilson’s achievements as President in both his first and second term were considerable.

On April 2,1917, despite his many efforts at peace, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany. The first US President to travel to Europe while in office, he left for France aboard the SS George Washington, December 1918. Wilson went to Paris to work for peace but the election of 1918 had shifted the balance in Congress to the Republicans. By seven votes, the Versailles Treaty failed in the US Senate.

Wilson traveled frequently. Several trips to Bermuda and brief vacation there in 1912 (as President-Elect), and time spent at Shadow Lawn, his Summer White House – which became a National Historic Landmark in 1985. Wilson also took several cycling vacations in England’s Lake District. State visits to Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Belgium took place during his two terms as President.

In Pueblo, Colorado on September 25, 1919, Wilson collapsed during a nationwide public speaking tour. In October that same year he suffered a debilitating stroke which left him paralyzed on his left side and blind in his left eye. Wilson’s wife Edith protected Wilson – strictly monitoring visitors and all but running the country through delegation. This hid the severity of Wilson’s condition from the public until his death nearly five years later in February 1924.

Next, America’s 29th President, Warren G. Harding…

Traveling with American Presidents List