Margaret Woodrow Wilson

Margaret Wilson
First Lady of the United States Acting
In role August 6, 1914 – December 18, 1915
President	Woodrow Wilson
Preceded by	Ellen Wilson
Succeeded by	Edith Wilson
Personal details
Born	Margaret Woodrow Wilson April 16, 1886 Gainesville, Georgia, U.S.
Died	February 12, 1944 (aged 57) Pondicherry, India

Margaret Woodrow Wilson (April 16, 1886 – February 12, 1944) was the eldest daughter of US President Woodrow Wilson and Ellen Louise Axson. Her two sisters were Jessie and Eleanor. After her mother's death in 1914, Margaret served her father as the White House social hostess, the title later known as First Lady. Her father remarried in 1915.

Early life and education

Margaret Woodrow Wilson (her middle name was her paternal grandmother's surname and father's middle name) was born in Gainesville, Georgia in 1886. Both her parents strongly identified with the South, and both of their fathers had been Protestant ministers. Wilson's parents were living in the North where her father was teaching, but her mother did not want her children born as Yankees. Ellen Axson Wilson arranged to stay with family in Gainesville for the births of her first two daughters. Margaret attended local schools, sometimes associated with the colleges where her father taught during her growing years.

Career

In his will, Wilson's father had bequeathed her an annuity of $2,500 annually (worth $34,519 today) as long as that amount did not exceed one-third of the annual income of his estate.^[1] Wilson sang, and she made several recordings around 1918.

About 1940 Margaret Wilson traveled to the ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, French India, where she chose to stay for the rest of her life. She became a Buddhist nun. After she became a member of the ashram, she was named by Sri Aurobindo as 'Nistha', meaning "sincerity" in Sanskrit. She and scholar Joseph Campbell edited the English translation of the classical work on the Hindu mystic, Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nikhilananda, which was published in 1942, by Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, New York.^[2]

	The Star-Spangled Banner (1915) A 1915 recording of the Star-Spangled Banner as sung by Margaret Woodrow Wilson, daughter of Woodrow Wilson
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Wilson died in India from uremia.^[3]

References

1. Wills of the U.S. Presidents, edited by Herbert R Collins and David B Weaver (New York: Communication Channels Inc., 1976) p. 176, ISBN 0-916164-01-2.
2. Nikhilananda, Swami (1942). "Preface". The Gospel of Ramakrishna. Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math.
3. "Woodrow Wilson Daughter Dead". The Milwaukee Sentinel. February 14, 1944. p. 1. Retrieved 29 January 2014.

External links

• Woodrow Wilson's Letters to his Darling Daughter from the Shapell Manuscript Foundation

Margaret Woodrow Wilson at Find a Grave