Editing Edith Wilson (section)

==Early life and education==
[[File:Edith Bolling (married Woodrow Wilson) LCCN2011660893 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright=.95|Edith Bolling in her youth]]Edith Bolling was born October 15, 1872, in [[Wytheville, Virginia]], to [[circuit court]] judge William Holcombe Bolling and his wife Sarah "Sallie" Spears (née White).<ref>Dorothy Schneider and Carl J. Schneider, ''First Ladies: A Biographical Dictionary'' (New York: Facts On File, 2010), p. 191; and {{cite web|url=https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X5N1-CL3 |title=Person Details for Edith Bolling, "Virginia Births and Christenings, 1853–1917" — |publisher=Familysearch.org |access-date=September 7, 2016}}</ref> Her birthplace, the Bolling Home, is now a museum located in [[Wytheville Historic District|Wytheville's Historic District]].<ref name=VAnom>{{cite web|url=http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Wythe/139-0029_Wytheville_Historic_District_1994_Final_Nomination.pdf|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Wytheville Historic District|first=J. Daniel|last=Pezzoni|date=July 1994|publisher=Virginia Department of Historic Resources|access-date=October 14, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215105125/http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Wythe/139-0029_Wytheville_Historic_District_1994_Final_Nomination.pdf|archive-date=February 15, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Bolling was a descendant of the [[First Families of Virginia|first settlers]] to arrive at the [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia Colony]]. Through her father, she was also a descendant of Mataoka, better known as [[Pocahontas]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-donald-trump-be-the-first-president-who-has-been-divorced/|title=Will Donald Trump be the first president who has been divorced?|agency=CBS News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.ajc.com/news/national/who-pocahontas-seven-things-know-about-the-woman-president-trump-keeps-referencing/RNE5HS2T7ZLl5tybcF2rKI/|title=Who is Pocahontas? Seven things to know about the woman President Trump keeps referencing|first=Debbie|last=Lord|newspaper=The Atlanta Journal-Constitution}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Stebbins|first1=Sarah|title=Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend|year=2010|url=https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm}}</ref> Her father was descended from Pocahontas's granddaughter [[Jane Rolfe]], who married [[Robert Bolling]],<ref name="Biography, Volume 7 1899, pages 352-353">''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography'', Volume 7, 1899, pages 352–53.</ref> a wealthy [[Slavery in the colonial United States|slave-owning]] planter and merchant.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ordhal Kupperman|first=Karen|date=2000|title=Indians & English: Facing Off in Early America|location=New York|publisher=Cornell University Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Ordhal Kupperman|first=Karen|date=1980|title=Settling with the Indians: the Meeting of English and Indian Cultures in America, 1580–1640|location=New York|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield}}</ref> Additionally, she was related, either by blood or through marriage, to [[Thomas Jefferson]], [[Martha Washington]], [[Letitia Tyler]], and the [[Harrison family of Virginia|Harrison family]].<ref>{{cite web| title=First Lady Biography: Edith Wilson| url=http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=29| publisher=[[First Ladies National Historic Site|National First Ladies' Library]]| location=Canton, Ohio| access-date=June 29, 2021| archive-date=May 9, 2012| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509090156/http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=29| url-status=dead}}</ref>

Edith was the seventh of eleven children, two of whom died in infancy.<ref>Mayo, p. 170; and McCallops, p. 1.</ref> The Bollings were some of the oldest members of Virginia's [[History of slavery in Virginia|slave-owning]], [[Planter class|planter elite]] prior to the [[American Civil War]]. After the war ended and [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|slavery was abolished]], Edith's father turned to the practice of [[Law of the United States|law]] to support his family.<ref>Schneider and Schneider, p. 191</ref> Unable to pay taxes on his extensive properties, and forced to give up the family's [[Plantation (settlement or colony)|plantation seat]], William Holcombe Bolling moved to Wytheville, where most of his children were born.<ref>McCallops, p. 1.</ref>

The Bolling household was a large one, and Edith grew up within the confines of a sprawling, extended family. In addition to eight surviving siblings, Edith's grandmothers, aunts and cousins also lived in the Bolling household. Many of the women in Edith's family lost husbands during the war.<ref>Mayo, p. 169.</ref> The Bollings had been staunch supporters of the [[Confederate States of America]], were proud of their Southern planter heritage, and in early childhood, taught Edith in the post{{nbh}}Civil War South's narrative of the [[Lost Cause of the Confederacy|Lost Cause.]] As was often the case among the planter elite, the Bollings justified slave ownership, saying that the slaves that they owned had been content with their lives as [[Personal property|slaves]] and had little desire for freedom.<ref>Gaines Foster, ''Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913'' (Oxford University Press, 1988).</ref>