A quadruple-stumper from Friday, February 18th, in First Ladies’ Maiden Names: “Edith Bolling.”
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| Edith Wilson |
The contestants didn’t take a guess on this one. I guessed “Roosevelt” because I knew Theodore Roosevelt’s wife’s name was Edith. Turns out her maiden name was “Kermit Carow.” Her last name appears to be “Carow,” and “Kermit” appears to have come from the name of a brother who died a year before she was born. I noticed that Mrs. Wilson’s whole name was “Edith Bolling Galt Wilson.” Turns out she was married to a jeweler named Norman Galt from 1896 until he died in 1908 of a liver infection when Edith was only 35. President Wilson and Edith married in 1915 when they were 58 and 43, respectively. It was only about 9 months after they met.