Evening star., 1953-02-10
Defense Secretory's S
Wife Has Tailored
Her Life to His Job
By Isabelle Shelton


Moving to Washington will re-
quire no great adjustment for
Mrs. Charles e. Wilson. the wife
of the new Secretary of Defense.
For years Jessie Wilson has
kept an overnight bag constantly
packed so that she could take
off at a moments notice on busi-
ness trips with her husband.
often for a jaunt clear across the
country.
General Motors maintained a
fleet of private planes for such
trips by its president and other
top executives, and there were
many times when the Wilson's
few 5000 or 5000 miles in one
week.
IT had to go along with him, /"
Mrs. Wilson says. "It was the
only chance I had to see much
of him. He worked so hard all
the time"
The move to Washington is
just another way of "going along
with Erwin, wherever his work
takes him." so far as she is con-
cerned.
Eyes, I've always called him
Erwin" she declared.
"His family did and I got it
from them. Most Of his closest
friends around Detroit. do, too.
At General Motors they call him
CE. Here in Washington every
body calls him Charley. Yes,
the President too. What does he
cali President Eisenhower? Well,
I asked him that. He said Mr..
President
A Grandmother
Mother of six and grandmother
OF Is (almost 14), Mrs. Wilson
is plump, matronly looking
woman of medium height. She
has grey hair and brown eyes,
over which she wears rimless
glasses. She favors suits almost
exclusively in the daytime "be-
cause they are so easy to travel
in"
The ever-packed bag is sym
bolic of the way she has
tailored her life to conform to
her role as the wife of a great
auto magnate.
She never has taken an active
part in Detroit civic affairs. for
example. because I didn't want
to take on a job with any re-
sponsibility when I never knew
when I might be leaving town
on a trip" Also there was the
question Of "my husbands posi-
tion as president of General Mo-
tors" which made her feel she
had to be quite careful what she
lent her name to.
Sometimes, however, she was a
worker in the ranks" in the
Red Cross and similar groups.
And many years ago she occa-
sionally was a patroness of an
art show.
Three Houses
She also was kept reasonably
busy raising six children and
supervising three houses and an
apartment in Miami Beach.
The family's main residence is
a big, handsome early-American
style house of stone, clapboard
and white brick on the edge Of
Island Lake in Bloomfield Hills,
a 45-minute drive from down.
town Detroit. Mrs. Wilson
thought up its name, Long
meadow.
Their summer place, Teller
lodge, is on Walloon Lake in
Northern Michigan. A GIN hell
copter brought Mr.. Wilson to a
dock in his front yard in about
an hour-not much longer than
it took him to drive home to
Bloomfield Hills in the winter
time. The house is a big, ram
bling structure of virgin timber
from their own land.
"All our places are big. They
have to be. with so many chill
dren," Mrs. Wilson pointed out.
They also have two farms out
side Detroit, Windrow No. / and
Windrow No. 2. Their farm
house is at the latter, the larger
of the two farms, which has 13
tenant farmers. The Wilson's
have been raising Ayrshire
cattle there, but are in the proc
ess of moving the sturdier
AvYchirac, tn tho cnoo1la,. %oryo