Etiquette and U.S. First Ladies

Of her brisk morning walks, “only Mrs. Wilson's closest friends would think it in proper etiquette to engage her in conversation, so that beyond an exchange of ‘good mornings,’ or more frequently just a bow and smile, her walk is uninterrupted.”– Public domain image of former American First Lady, Edith Wilson, photographed in 1915. Formerly Edith Bolling, she was a descendant of the first settlers to arrive at the Virginia Colony. Through her father, she was also a descendant of Mataoka, better known as Pocahontas.

First Lady of Land Takes Pleasure in Much Walking

Mrs. Wilson, who has settled down to the usual routine of each successive Mistress of the White House, is endeavoring also seemingly to give any leisure she may have to a brisk walk every day. Her exercise ground is like that of many other widely known matron or maid, Potomac Park and its neighborhood, and her method is the same, motoring to the start of the walk, and off again up town in a White House limousine when her inclination or pedometer says enough.

Miss Bones is generally along with the President’s wife on these morning jaunts, as well as on many others, and both meet many they know. Only Mrs. Wilson's closest friends would think it in proper etiquette to engage her in conversation, so that beyond an exchange of “good mornings,” or more frequently just a bow and smile, her walk is uninterrupted.

Mrs. Wilson in carrying out the social duties of her position receives callers by appointment on certain afternoons each week. Sometimes her 5 o’clock At Homes of this kind are large, and other times they are quite the reverse. She meets her guests in the red room, where some of the younger military aids make the presentations. A tea table, which either Miss Wilson, Miss Bones Miss Edith Benha presides, is arranged in the window corner. Mrs. Wilson’s taste for flowers is shown by a plentiful grouping of roses in the vases and blooming plants on the mantel.

With the regularity of the weekly entertainment and the fact that the President and his wife are often on the Mayflower for Saturday and Sunday, the latter leads quite as busy a life as any of her predecessors. She maintains, too, it must be remembered, her interest in the activities of church, charity, family and friends, which formerly filled her life. The President lately has enjoyed going to the theater in the afternoons with his wife, once to a musicale and another time to a matinee, and it is said has, because of the many demands on his time, practically abandoned the long walks he formerly took through the city streets. –The Morning Union, 1916

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