Jessie Woodrow Wilson was born in
Gainesville, Georgia, the second daughter of Woodrow and
Ellen Axson Wilson. She was the middle sister of
Margaret Woodrow Wilson and
Eleanor Wilson McAdoo. She was educated privately in
Princeton, New Jersey at
Miss Fine's School and at
Goucher College in
Baltimore, Maryland. Her fiancé, a 1911 graduate of
Harvard Law School, was the son of
Robert Sayre, builder of the
Lehigh Valley Railroad and organizer and general manager of the
Bethlehem Iron Works. On January 17, 1915, she gave birth in the White House to a son,
Francis B. Sayre, Jr. (January 17, 1915 – October 3, 2008), who became a noted clergyman and was a social activist like his mother. The following year, a daughter,
Eleanor Axson Sayre (March 26, 1916 – May 12, 2001), was born. In 1919 they were joined by Woodrow Wilson Sayre (February 22, 1919 – September 16, 2002).
Massachusetts and Siam After
World War I, the Sayres moved to
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Francis accepted a position on the Harvard Law School faculty. In 1928, she made the introductory speech for presidential nominee
Al Smith at the
Democratic National Convention. However, she declined. She became secretary of the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee instead. while others state that she had undergone an emergency
appendectomy. She is buried in
Nisky Hill Cemetery in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. ==References==