Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson by William Hazelgrove

This review first appeared in the Canon City Daily Record.


Social media and technology have made the private and secret choices of our nation's leaders hard to dispute or ignore. Yet following World War I, something unheard of happened in the White House: a woman became President of the United States. In Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson, William Hazelgrove describes how for five months Woodrow Wilson lay incapacitated and his second wife, Edith Galt Wilson, acted as leader and chief.

In the fall of 1919, while campaigning for the League of Nations across the country, President Wilson suffered a stroke that left him victim to paralysis, paranoia, unpredictable mood swings and cognitive loss. In her devotion to the man who courted and married her during his incumbency, Edith built a fortress of protection around her deathly ill husband. She governed "by assigning importance, and nothing was more important that the president's health." In short, quick moving chapters, Hazelgrove tells us how without much push back from Vice President Thomas Marshall - he didn't want the job of commander in chief - Mrs. Wilson was able to man and run a petticoat government with the minutest of help. This was unprecedented.

The last time a president was unable to perform the duties of his office was after the assassination attempt of President Garfield. Now, a self-taught woman would lead the country in the days after devastating war and destruction had rocked the world. 
 

With dramatic storytelling in this easy to follow narrative, Hazelgrove has introduced us to an ardent love story - full of romance and courtship - of a US President, a story of political intrigue and the tensions of war and government. Because it was a different time - a different era - this puppet presidency became a possibility, and a reality. Warfare tactics had changed; women were demonstrating for the right to vote; politics became an even more world-wide endeavor and the draft had become a nightmarish reality.

This is the true tale of the folly of love and medical ignorance. The morality of the life of a man or the term of a president is examined in a very human and logical way. With good solid and inclusive information, we are invited to see how exhaustion, stress, temperament, limited education and insular world views influenced weighty political decisions made with the signature of Edith Wilson. There were many who were incensed, and yet powerless to do anything about it.

In a romantic sort of irony, Mrs. Wilson died on Woodrow Wilson's birthday, in 1961. It was then that she was finally recognized, in European and American papers, as the "First Woman President."

Photo credit: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41PuMuxrdrL.jpg

I received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Carrie Welton by Charles Monagan

Charles Monagan is an award-winning journalist, writer, editor, and lyricist. Carrie Welton may just be one of the best indie-published historical novels I have read in a while.  It has its flaws, but here, finally is a complete and well-told tale... that also happens to be true!

Carrie Welton is the story of a young woman who is determined to remain untamed by an abusive father and acquiescent mother.  Hemmed in only a bit by propriety and social expectations, Carrie's life takes her from a wealthy youth in Connecticut, to the artistic communities of New York, and finally to the Rocky Mountains.  Readers can follow her childhood closeness with her horse and sympathetic companion, Knight, to her financial involvement in the beginnings of the ASPCA.  Twined with the changing politics and social temperature of the mid to late 1800s, Carrie's life is a perfect backdrop for the history that carved a new nation into a country that would not be divided.

Readers are introduced to Carrie in a prologue offered by neighbor and confidante, Frederick, who also narrates Parts 1 and 3.  It was thrilling to read the voice of a 19th century narrator written in the 21st century.  Part 2 is third-person limited, focusing on Carrie's experiences away from Rose Hill, the home in which she had met abuse and tyranny.  And here, I must admit, I missed Frederick's voice.  It was much more appealing to come through his perspective than merely watching Carrie as we do in Part 2.

Mr. Monagan's skill as writer and researcher is clear in this work.  Obvious, also, is his knack for stories that interest.  His abilities in perception and perspective carry the plot where there is little historical information available.  This made the rare moments of too-much-historical-detail forgivable.  The sense of reportage Mr. Monagan has is spot-on in his description of the effects of the coming Civil War on the communities of Connecticut.

Life doesn't have the same arc that fiction does, but Mr. Monagan gives it a hearty go in this fascinating book.  There are moments of beautiful imagery and even a few absolutely perfect sentences here.  And while I agreed to review this book because I have found myself in the same locations as Carrie (a New England childhood and adulthood in the Rocky Mountains), it is not a book that will just interest readers of local history.  It is a solid story of an intriguing personality that will haunt. 

Photo Credit: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51y1b1sGWeL._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

I received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.