(Text taken from the 2005 Woodrow Wilson House exhibition, The Misses Wilson, Margaret Nowack, curator.)

Jessie Woodrow Wilson was the second child of the Woodrow and Ellen Wilson. Considered the most striking of her sisters, Jessie was more than just a pretty face. From very early on, she showed a unique dedication to reading and learning. Jessie attended Goucher College with her older sister Margaret and took classes at Princeton University where her father was President. Jessie also applied her dedicated nature to the world outside of books, working at the Lighthouse Settlement House for women mill workers in Philadelphia. She was vocal in supporting women’s suffrage to her father and in lectures, and was triumphant when the 19th Amendment passed in 1919.

In 1913, Jessie married Francis B. Sayre and they had three children. However, becoming a wife and mother did not stop Jessie’s activism. She continued to work diligently for lower income children, women, and workers, as well as for her father’s Versailles Treaty and League of Nations. Because of her striking beauty and her intelligence, Jessie had to refuse the proposals of many well-intentioned beaus. However, when Francis Bowes Sayre, or Frank, was first introduced to Jessie by his matchmaking Aunt, sister Nell noticed that “unaware of the plot, they were instantly attracted to each other, and for the first time in our lives Jessie seemed to have forgotten my existence.”

Jessie married Frank on November 25th, 1913 at a White House wedding. Reporters and citizens had a keen interest in the lives and romance of the young couple, investigating every minute detail of their lives and following them on every walk or drive they could. The American public was so enthralled by Jessie and Frank’s White House Wedding, that when the couple finally decided upon this announcement, The Washington Post featured an description and a picture--even if “Mrs. Everybody” in Iowa wasn’t invited to the event of the year, at least she could see the announcement and pictures of the “Nation’s Daughter-Bride” for herself.

The Washington Post even published Jessie and Frank’s wedding vows and noticed that the progressive couple did not include the traditional word, “obey.” The beautiful Jessie and her lawyer beau were a great spectacle for the American public—as if one of their very own daughters were betrothed. Jessie’s wedding captured the American imagination and because her father was President, she received many extravagant gifts from important public officials and government dignitaries that were unlike the type she might have normally selected, including a 6.25 caret yellow diamond from the Senate. At heart, Jessie remained a simple girl, not infatuated with the social status her father’s position had given her. When gifts kept pouring in before the wedding, Jessie cried, “What shall I do with these? What can a poor professor’s wife do with such things?” When Jessie and Frank moved to their rented home in Williamstown, Massachusetts many of their gifts stayed at the White House in storage. Included in the wedding gifts were this cameo, silver candlesticks, monogrammed linens and jewelry casket.

For the Wilsons, however, it was a time of both sadness and happiness. Although Woodrow jokingly claimed that Frank was “almost good enough for Jessie,” the marriage meant the first time that the close-knit Wilson family was officially losing a member. Ellen was overheard saying, “I know; it was a wedding, not a funeral, but you must forgive us—this is the first break in the family.”

Jessie and Frank’s first child, Francis B. Sayre, Jr. became the last baby born in the White House in 1915. The couple later had two more children, Woodrow Wilson Sayre and Eleanor Sayre. The Sayres first moved to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where Frank taught at Williams College and then moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where he was Professor of International Law for Harvard University. After living for several years in Washington, D.C., Jessie was overjoyed to have settled in another college town like Princeton. However, during the 1920s, Frank moved the family to Siam (now Thailand) where he worked as a legal advisor for the King who was trying to keep the country free from colonial rule. When the family moved back to the United States, Jessie continued her social work and dedicated much of her time to the Democratic Party of Massachusetts as their secretary. Jessie had long suffered from ill health and in 1933 she died from complications from an appendectomy.



Eleanor Randolph Wilson, the youngest child in the Wilson family, was called “Nell” because she was named after her mother, Ellen. Nell was considered the closest to her father temperamentally and ideologically, although she would never admit to it. Fashionable and vivacious, Nell also enjoyed entertaining family, friends, and suitors with her strong wit. Even as a young child, Nell immersed herself in acting, creative writing, and art. In 1911, she commuted to Philadelphia daily from Princeton to attend the prestigious Philadelphia Academy of the Arts. During the summer of 1913, Nell accompanied her mother to the Cornish Colony of writers and artists in New Hampshire where she honed her creative skills and developed lasting relationships with artists of the day.

On May 7, 1914, after a whirlwind courtship, Nell married her father’s Secretary of the Treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo. William Gibbs McAdoo, a widower, was one of Woodrow Wilson’s choices for Secretary of the Treasury when he first met Nell. In fact, Nell encouraged her father to choose “Mac,” as she called him, for the position. Woodrow jokingly wrote to Ellen that Nell thought her father should pick his cabinet members simply because she liked them. Nell and Mac were married May 7, 1914 shortly before her mother’s death. After Woodrow Wilson’s last term, Mac and Nell settled in California as Mac continued his career in Democratic politics and Nell continued to support her father’s work. Mac ran unsuccessfully for President in 1918 and 1924, but was elected to the Senate in 1933. A year later, he and Nell divorced. The couple had two daughters, Mary Faith and Ellen, during their marriage. Although the couple divorced, Wilson’s youngest daughter remained loyal and supportive to her ex-husband as he served the Senate until 1938.

Like her sister, Nell had a White House wedding. However, because of Ellen Wilson’s illness from Bright’s disease, the event was much smaller and less publicized in the press. Surprised at the extravagant gifts Jessie had received, Woodrow requested that only close family send Nell wedding presents. Politicians and dignitaries were asked to send flowers instead, and according to newspapers of the time, it was a florist’s dream

After Nell’s marriage, Woodrow wrote, “Ah! how desperately my heart aches that she has gone. She was simply part of me…and I feel the loneliness more than I dare admit even to myself. But just now I can realize, in my selfishness, only that I have lost her, for good and all…” After Nell and Mac married, Nell continued to visit with her father and her two children brought the President great joy. Just as he had done when Nell was sick as a child, Nell read to her father as his health declined.

Like Jessie, Nell remained active after becoming a mother. She wrote two non-fiction books about her family, several short stories that were published in national magazines, and one novel, Julia and the White House. She also remained a public servant, actively supporting America during WWII and, ever loyal to her father and his ideals of democracy, working towards the creation of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Nell died in 1967, at age 78, outliving her mother, father, and both of her sisters.