White House staff in the Woodrow Wilson administration experienced both the death of Wilson's first wife, Ellen Axson Wilson, on August 6, 1914; and Wilson's second marriage, sixteen months later. Chief Usher Ike Hoover recalls this sensitive period in the life of President Wilson, and its effect on the White House as a home and workplace.

After Ellen Wilson's death, writes Hoover, "the place [became] strangely lonesome and different. Mrs. Wilson had . . . endeared herself to all."¹ The President, comments Hoover, "accepted the inevitable with a grace and a charm that was inspiring to all about him."²

Within a few months, Wilson began seeing a widow, Mrs. Edith Bolling Galt.³ By the summer of 1915, notes Hoover, "Everyone about the place still had sweet memories of [the first Mrs. Wilson], and yet their sympathies were with the President in his new enterprise. . . ."⁴

The couple married on December 18, 1915. Ike Hoover records that Wilson had to arrange for the marriage license "in the regular way. . . . He had to pay his fee of a dollar out of his own pocket, and answer all questions just like the humblest citizen."⁵