Later Years
In 1921, Edith Wilson retired with the former president to their home on S Street NW in Washington, D.C., nursing him until his death three years later. She later served as director of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Her memoir appeared in 1939.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Congress on December 8, 1941, he took pains to draw a symbolic link with the April 1917 declaration of war. To do so, he was accompanied by Mrs. Wilson.
In 1961, she attended the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
She died of congestive heart failure at the age of 89, on December 28, 1961, on what would have been Woodrow Wilson's 105th birthday. On the day of her death, she was to have been the guest of honor at the dedication ceremony for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia. She was buried next to the president at the Washington Cathedral.
Mrs. Wilson left her home to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to be made into a museum honoring her husband. The Woodrow Wilson House opened as a museum in 1964.
Read more about this topic: Edith Bolling Galt Wilson
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“One of the most difficult aspects of being a parent during the middle years is feeling powerless to protect our children from hurt. However “growthful” it may be for them to experience failure, disappointment and rejection, it is nearly impossible to maintain an intellectual perspective when our sobbing child or rageful child comes in to us for help. . . . We can’t turn the hurt around by kissing the sore spot to make it better. We are no longer the all-powerful parent.”
—Ruth Davidson Bell (20th century)
“So cruel prison how could betide, alas,
As proud Windsor, Where I in lust and joy
With a king’s son my childish years did pass
In greater feast than Priam’s sons of Troy?
Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour;”
—Henry Howard, Earl Of Surrey (1517?–1547)