Margaret Truman (9 page)

VII

The White House doorkeepers had a reputation for being independent but a couple of the housekeepers could give them a run for their money. One of the most difficult was Elizabeth Jaffray, who arrived with the Tafts.

Helen Taft may have been imperious but her housekeeper was a veritable despot. She would not allow her subordinates to sit down in her presence and they could not speak to her unless she spoke first. She also disapproved of automobiles, which were rapidly becoming popular. She dismissed them as “vulgar contrivances” that would never last, without mentioning the fact that she was scared to death to ride in one. When the White House acquired a fleet of cars, Mrs. Jaffray took over President Taft's discarded horse-drawn brougham. It would pull up to the North Portico each morning and the housekeeper would appear wearing a large hat with a veil and toting a parasol, to be driven off to do the marketing.

Elizabeth Jaffray's reign of terror continued through the Wilson and Harding administrations but the tyrant met her match in Calvin Coolidge. Cal started calling her “Queenie” behind her back, refused to treat her with the deference she felt she deserved and, unlike previous presidents, took an interest in what was going on in the kitchen. He revised the menus for state dinners and demanded to know what happened to the leftovers.

After a couple of years of Cal's needling, “Queen” Elizabeth decided to retire. The rest of the staff silently cheered. Coolidge replaced Queenie with a genial dietician from Boston named Ellen Riley. He liked her so much he invited her to join his guests at White House musicales and movie screenings and gave her the combination to the vault where the gold and silver services were stored. He also gave her a wacky title: Custodian of the Plate, Furniture, and Public Property of the Executive Mansion. Despite his public image as a dour New Englander, Coolidge was a master of deadpan humor. Only a few people have noted that at his Amherst College graduation he was chosen by his classmates to deliver the Grove Oration, which gave the college and the professors a farewell horse-laugh.

VIII

Another tyrannical housekeeper, Henrietta Nesbitt, arrived at the White House with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. She had worked as a cook at the Roosevelt home in Hyde Park, and Eleanor, impressed by her frugality, brought her along to Washington. The Roosevelts not only had a large family, they often invited friends for lunch or dinner. Since the president has to pay for his personal entertaining, Eleanor was counting on Mrs. Nesbitt to keep the expenses from getting out of hand.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had always loved good food; quail and pheasant were among his favorites. Fluffy, as the staff referred to the new housekeeper when she was out of earshot, disapproved of such delicacies. “Plain foods, plainly prepared” was her motto. FDR had announced more than once that he disliked broccoli. “Fix it anyhow,” Fluffy told the cooks. “He should like it.” At one dinner, when the president and his guests requested hot coffee, Fluffy sent them iced tea instead. Her explanation: “It was better for them.”

Mrs. Nesbitt also had her own ideas about what the president should eat for breakfast: oatmeal. After one too many bowls of the stuff, FDR exclaimed to his secretary, “My God! Doesn't Mrs. Nesbitt know there are breakfast foods besides oatmeal? It's been served to me morning in and morning out for months and months now and I'm sick and tired of it!”

Later that day, the president ripped out a newspaper ad for several other cereals including Corn Flakes and Cream of Wheat and had the secretary take it to Mrs. Nesbitt as a “gentle reminder.”

Unfortunately, the Trumans inherited Mrs. Nesbitt. There was some improvement after Mother took over the meal planning, but when she had to go out of town and left me in charge, Dad and I found ourselves on a steady diet of brussels sprouts. Dad detested the things, but did Mrs. Nesbitt care? Of course not.

I got the impression Mrs. Nesbitt enjoyed ignoring my father's preferences and disregarding the menus I planned. I was ready to evict her on the spot but Mother told me to hold off; she would speak to her when she got back. By that time, Mrs. Nesbitt informed us that she was planning to retire, which saved Mother the trouble of firing her and guaranteed that we would finally get some decent food.

IX

Out of the thousands of people who have worked at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over the years, two lemons—Queenie and Fluffy—are not a bad average. In the Trumans' experience and that of other first families I've talked to, the staff gets universally high marks for going out of their way to be helpful.

Barbara Bush was amazed when she arrived in 1989. “By this time I had lived [in] or visited many places but never had seen a household where every living human's only concern was to make us, our children, and our guests happy,” she said.

One of my favorite memories of the White House staff underscores Barbara's comment. It involves Alonzo Fields, the tall, personable maître d'hôtel during our seven-year-and-eight-month sojourn. I loved the bread pudding the house chefs prepared to accompany the pheasant they generally served at state dinners. (Now you couldn't pay me to touch anything so fattening.)

At these sumptuous affairs, with everyone in white tie and tails and evening gowns galore, I was seated so far below the salt, I was practically in the kitchen. Seating at these fêtes was (and still is) done by rank, and a president's daughter has none worth mentioning.

With pheasant and bread pudding on the menu, there was high anxiety for yours truly. Were they going to run out before they got to me? The stuff was so popular, it was all too possible. But I soon learned that Fields had stored in his capacious head some precious information about me. One evening, I watched the bread pudding supply dwindle as the butler who was serving it got closer to my place. My hopes sank until I heard Fields call softly into the kitchen: “More bread pudding for Miss Margaret!”

X

The White House staffers have some interesting memories of their own. I particularly like a couple of stories involving my father. Dad was in the habit of doing some work in his private study on the second floor while waiting for lunch to be served. When he left, houseman George Thomas would go in and make sure the room was tidied up.

One day Thomas yielded to temptation and sat down in Dad's big leather chair. Who should appear in the doorway but the chief executive himself, returning to pick up some papers he'd forgotten. “George,” Dad said to the paralyzed Thomas, “I'll tell you one thing. You're in a mighty hot seat!”

With that, Dad picked up his papers and returned to the Oval Office and George Thomas breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

Another houseman, Herman Thompson, handled the dozens of phone calls that came into the kitchen from various people both inside and outside the White House. One day Herman answered the phone and a voice he didn't recognize said: “I'd like to order lunch for Mrs. Wallace [my grandmother] and me.”

“Who is me?” Herman jauntily asked.

“I happen to be the president of the United States,” the voice replied.

The rest of the staff told Herman to clean out his locker. He was definitely out of there. But, of course, he wasn't. Instead of reprimanding him, Dad got a good laugh out of the episode.

XI

Working at the White House has become a way of life, not only for individuals but for families. Johnny Muffler was hired as an electrician in 1945 and celebrated his fiftieth year on the job by making sure every clock in the place was ticking and telling the same time. Johnny's father-in-law had been a chauffeur, and his son Rick worked in the calligraphy office, where the invitations to the state dinners and receptions are penned by a professional staff.

In recent years there have been three butlers named Ficklin: Charles, who later took Fields's job as maître d'hôtel; John; and Samuel. Samuel Ficklin recalled the training he received from his brother, Charles, and Fields before he got the job. He was told to take some bricks and use them to strengthen his hands and arm muscles by hefting them until he could hold a heavy tray without the slightest tremor. He was also trained to set the table with each plate exactly the same distance from the edge.

The tradition of impeccable service and the determination to keep first families contented and comfortable has been exhibited in hundreds of ways. Plumber Howard Arrington was proud of using his metalworking skills to build the elaborate stand for Tricia Nixon's wedding cake. Preston Bruce, who was a doorman from the Eisenhower through the Ford administrations, liked to say that people had only to visit once before he could greet them by name the second time around.

All these men and women are imbued with the same dedication that my favorite among them, Alonzo Fields, epitomized when he said in an interview at the age of ninety-two: “I never felt like a servant to a man. I felt I was a servant to my government, to my country.”

There it is again, backstairs as well as frontstairs: glory.

Questions for
Discussion

What job skills does a chief usher need?

What problems occurred when presidents had to pay for the expense of running the White House?

Why does it take so many people to run the residential area of the White House?

II

The second most famous White House guest room is also one of the prettiest: the Queens' Bedroom, which is just across the hall from the Lincoln Bedroom. This was the president's secretary's bedroom when the job was a live-in post. During the Lincoln administration it was shared by John Hay and John George Nicolay—and I'll bet any amount of money it would never have been called pretty.

The room was converted into a guest room after the White House renovation of 1902. It became known as the Rose Room because the curtains and bed hangings were in shades of red, rose, and white. The Rose Room was rechristened in 1942 after a parade of royal refugees bedded down there. Among them: Queens Wilhelmina and Juliana of the Netherlands, Queen Frederika of Greece, Queen Sonya of Norway, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, and her daughter, Princess Anne.

Queen Elizabeth II made her first visit to the White House during the Eisenhower administration in 1957. (She had previously visited Washington as Princess Elizabeth and stayed with Mother and Dad at Blair House.) For Mrs. Eisenhower, the queen's visit was the high point of her husband's presidency and the Queens' Bedroom became almost sacred territory. When Jack Kennedy was elected to the presidency, Jackie made a study of the White House floor plan to see which rooms they could use while the family quarters were being redecorated. “Please put me in the Queens' Room,” she told Chief Usher J. B. West, “and my husband will stay in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

West passed the word along to the White House staff but when Inauguration Day dawned and the departing first lady read in the papers that her successor would sleep in the Queens' Bedroom, she was quite perturbed. Mrs. Eisenhower thought the Queens' Bedroom should be reserved solely for queens. Jackie didn't qualify.

III

The visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England in June of 1939 was a momentous occasion. It was the first time a British monarch had set foot in the former colonies. The royal couple came at President Franklin Roosevelt's invitation—an effort on FDR's part to send a signal to Adolf Hitler that the two countries had a special relationship that could lead to trouble if Hitler decided to declare war on England.

The imminent arrival of these ultimate royals touched off a frenzy of activity in the White House. Rugs and draperies were replaced or dry-cleaned and the staff waxed floors and dusted furniture until everything gleamed to housekeeper Henrietta Nesbitt's satisfaction.

The king and queen spent a mere forty-four hours in the White House and, as you might expect, they behaved like proper houseguests. Their servants, however, were a different story. They ensconced themselves on the third floor and proceeded to treat the staff as if they were their servants. They demanded menus so they could order their meals as if they were in a hotel and haughtily explained that in Buckingham Palace they had their own servants to tend to their needs. Needless to say, this did not sit well with their counterparts in the former colonies. Chief Usher Howell Crim had to use all the diplomacy he could muster to avert a second American revolution.

IV

When Winston Churchill came to visit Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, shortly after the United States entered World War II, he stayed in the Rose Room. Churchill, who could easily qualify as the houseguest from hell, tried a couple of other rooms before consenting to sleep in the one that had been assigned to him.

The British prime minister's visit was shrouded in secrecy. A few days after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt asked his wife for a list of the people who were coming to the White House over Christmas but gave no indication of why he wanted to know. Not until December 22 did Eleanor discover the reason for the president's query. That day, FDR casually announced that Churchill would arrive around nightfall. The secrecy had been necessary to guarantee Mr. Churchill's safety.

When the British leader arrived, complete with cigar, he found the Roosevelts ready to offer him and his entourage tea in the West Hall on the second floor. “But they preferred more stimulating refreshments,” Mrs. Roosevelt noted.

Churchill's preferences continued to be at odds with his host's and hostess's. FDR was inclined to go to bed early and rise at a reasonable hour. Churchill was used to working until three A.M. and sleeping late. Eleanor Roosevelt reported that it took “Franklin several days to catch up on his sleep after Mr. Churchill left.”

The prime minister made several visits to the White House, often staying as long as two or three weeks. He was an unpredictable and demanding guest. A team of White House staffers had to be assigned to get him the food and drink that he might ask for at any time. He also tended to take baths at odd hours and to rush up and down the corridors in his dressing gown.

In his memoirs, Churchill claimed that his and FDR's “work patterns coincided.” They both were in the habit of doing “much of our work in bed,” so they frequently visited each other's bedrooms to discuss outstanding problems. One of these visits produced a memorable scene. FDR unceremoniously pushed open Churchill's door and wheeled himself into the room to find the prime minister in the altogether. Churchill gave him a cheerful grin and said: “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide!”

On another evening, Churchill decided his room was overheated and tried to open one of the White House windows. The window, which probably hadn't been opened in decades, resisted. The prime minister kept at it with mighty grunts— and suddenly felt an excruciating pain in his chest. He summoned an aide, who in turn summoned a doctor, who told the great man he had strained his heart, and if he wasn't more careful, he could become the war's best-known casualty. Thereafter, when a window needed opening, the PM called on the White House staff.

The English leader's 1941 visit added a profoundly touching dimension to that first Christmas of World War II. The traditional community Christmas tree was set up on the South Lawn and an enormous crowd gathered behind the iron fence to watch the lighting. They cheered when the tree came aglow. Both leaders gave brief speeches from the South Portico. Churchill's talk summed up the struggle against Hitler in a few unforgettable words:

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of
Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the
full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern
task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that by our
sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their
inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

Deeply moved, the crowd began singing Christmas carols. Those who were there remembered the scene as one of the most unforgettable moments of their lives. It remains an imperishable part of the White House's glory—and more than made up for Churchill's deficiencies as a houseguest.

V

If there had been a Lincoln Bedroom back in 1824, one of its denizens definitely would have been the Marquis de Lafayette. President James Monroe had invited the Revolutionary War hero to cross the Atlantic to help the country celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution.

Lafayette spent the year after his arrival traveling through all twenty-four states and being fêted at dinners and balls in almost every town he passed through. By the time the old warrior returned to Washington in the summer of 1825, James Monroe was no longer in office. The marquis, dressed in his Continental Army uniform, was greeted at the White House by President John Quincy Adams, and invited to stay for as long as he pleased.

First Lady Louisa Catherine Adams was appalled. It meant she had to turn most of her family out of their beds to accommodate Lafayette and his party. She also had to find room for the staggering amount of luggage they brought with them, much of it gifts collected on their grand tour. One item that added to Louisa's consternation was a live alligator. The creature and the rest of the booty were stored in the East Room while the marquis enjoyed the final phase of his triumphal tour.

On September 6, 1825, Lafayette's sixty-eighth birthday, President Adams gave a farewell dinner to the nation's guest in the State Dining Room. The table was as splendid as the White House steward could make it. The speeches rang with patriotic fervor. At one point, the two men were so carried away, they burst into tears and embraced. The president summed up the meaning of the grand occasion in his closing words:

“We shall always look upon you as belonging to us. . . . You are ours . . . by that tie of love, stronger than death, which has linked your name for the endless ages of time with the name of Washington.”

VI

In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt's secretary released the following statement to the press: “Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee, Alabama, dined with the president last evening.” Washington was a distinguished educator and author of the popular book
Up from Slavery.

Across the country, especially in the South, headlines erupted in dozens of newspapers. With them came angry editorials, denouncing Roosevelt for daring to cross the “color line.” The incident was a dismaying example of American racism in full, ugly bloom. Roosevelt had no large agenda in mind when he issued the invitation. He had simply heard Washington was in town and invited him to dinner, as he invited many other celebrities he wanted to meet. He also wanted to “show some respect to a man whom I cordially esteem as a good citizen and a good American.” Roosevelt was finding out very early in his presidency how outspoken about certain issues the public could be. He never invited Washington or any other black American again.

Almost thirty years later, a courageous first lady, Lou Hoover, made another attempt to bring racial equality to the White House and found herself in similar hot water. She invited Mrs. Oscar DePriest, wife of an African-American congressman from Chicago, to the White House for tea.

Southern newspapers accused the first lady of “desecrating” the White House. The Texas legislature passed a resolution denouncing her. Sulfurous letters cascaded into the White House mail room. But Lou Hoover stood her ground. After carefully screening the other guests she had invited to the tea, she decided to split the group in half. The women who said they would be pleased to meet Mrs. DePriest were invited to one party, the naysayers to the second.

Years later, Herbert Hoover recalled that the incident had left his wife feeling wounded and appalled. But the president showed that he, too, had the right stuff. He coolly invited Dr. Robert R. Moton, Booker T. Washington's successor as president of the Tuskegee Institute, to have lunch with him a few months later.