Sigrid C. Nilsson

Sigrid Charlotte Nilsson was born in Lund, Sweden on January 3, 1886.¹ As a young woman, she trained at the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute in Paris and apprenticed at the Royal Yacht Club in Copenhagen. She immigrated to the United States in 1909 through Ellis Island.² 

Nilsson began working at the White House in 1915, accepting the position on the condition that she would only cook for the first family (at that time, the Wilsons). This quickly went out the window. At her first big event, she prepared over 2,000 biscuits for a diplomatic reception.³ Early on, a housekeeper, likely Elizabeth A. Jaffray, decided to let her go, “feeling she was too young for such an important job.” However, after serving crispy bacon to President Woodrow Wilson, Nilsson recalled, “he asked if it was the same kind he had been getting. They told him it was and he said it was so much better that he thought I did something different. When the housekeeper heard, she didn’t fire me.”⁴ 

When the Wilsons traveled to France in 1919 for the Paris Peace Conference, which ended World War I, Nilsson went along as First Lady Edith Wilson’s “personal maid.” In reality, the title maid was used because the French government asked that the first family only bring along personal servants. President Wilson preferred her cooking to French cooking and hoped that she would prepare his favorites while traveling. According to a later newspaper interview with Nilsson, she revealed that President Wilson had very bland taste. While she initially demurred on the question of Wilson’s culinary preferences, her daughter offered, “Mother, you told me once that he liked hominy and boiled rice.”⁵ She continued to cook for the Wilsons until her marriage in December 1920. According to an Evening Star article, “Miss Sigrid Charlotte Nilsson, chief cook at the White House for the past four years, had gone the way of all good cooks, having married during the holidays to Christian Larsen…” At that time it was common for women to leave their jobs upon marriage. The couple had two daughters.⁶ 

After leaving the White House, she continued to cater for parties and diplomatic receptions around Washington until the mid-1940’s.⁷ Nilsson died on December 6, 1964, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.⁸