Video: 'Edith Bolling Wilson: From Wytheville to the White House'

(Thursday, December 28, 1961, 10:45 p.m. EST) — Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, the first lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921 and the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson, died tonight of congestive heart failure at her Washington home. She was 89.

She was to have been the guest of honor that day at the dedication ceremony for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia, on what would have been her husband’s 105th birthday.

Wilson has been labeled “the Secret President” and “the first woman to run the government” for the role she played when her husband suffered prolonged and disabling illness after a stroke in October 1919. Some even refer to her as “the first female president of the United States.”