Upstairs at the White House

by J. B. West

  After the painters had slapped on the last coat of paint, we moved the Green Room furniture into one room, the Red Room furniture into another, and the Private Dining Room furniture into the dining room.

  We made a little study for the President right inside the front door at Lee House.

  Our staff moved through the White House rooms with some trepidation, lifting furniture and paintings from beneath the big braces hastily installed to hold up the ceilings.

  “I don’t want the house to fall down on the President,” said one of the movers as he hauled the heavy portraits of past Presidents down from the Green Room wall, “but I don’t want it to fall down on me either.”

  We moved our staff and our equipment—china, silver, linen, curtains—across the street.

  What was left—and that was most of the White House furnishings and chandeliers—was stored at the very obliging National Gallery of Art. What an inventory! What a job of cataloguing, cross-checking, packing and storing of all that furniture—that wasn’t so great in the first place.

  The President went to Congress. Five months later, in April, 1949, a law was passed establishing the high-level Commission on the Renovation of the White House—two senators, two representatives, and two Presidential appointees.* And they immediately set about to solve the problem of the collapsing mansion.

  The Commission presented the President with three alternatives: (1) to demolish the building, preserving and storing the exterior stones for later replacement; and to rebuild the White House from the ground up; (2) to demolish the building and rebuild it entirely, in the same design but of new material; (3) to preserve in place the outer walls, to gut the interior completely, to add underpinning and strong foundations and basement, and rebuild from the inside.

  President Truman strongly favored the third solution, as did all of us whose lives revolved around the old building. In my view, the first two plans were terrible. The White House would have lost its history and become just another brand-new office building.

  I recalled the President’s fascination with that history when I’d taken him on his first tour. He loved it even more now because he’d earned his right to live in it.

  “There are so many memories here,” he said, “so many events that shaped this country, and some that didn’t. Why, I can almost believe in Lincoln’s ghost myself. And I can almost smell the big hunk of cheese at Andy Jackson’s inauguration. They say he sprawled around on the furniture with his boots on.”

  Mr. Truman pointed out the Commission’s newest discovery, on the landing of the grand staircase.

  “See?” The President pointed out some charred wooden beams uncovered behind the plaster and bricks. “That happened during the War of 1812 when the British set us on fire.”

  I wished that Mr. Churchill could have seen it. He would have enjoyed that visual reminder of Anglo-American history.

  “I’ll do anything in my power to keep them from tearing down the White House,” the President told us. “If only we can get Congress to agree.”

  Congress, however, was giving serious consideration to a new White House. To gut the mansion and rebuild from the inside would be more difficult, more costly (the estimate was $5,412,000), and would take longer.

  Rep. Clarence Cannon, a fellow Missourian, who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, thought it would be better to build a new, machine-cut marble Executive Mansion. Like most of President Truman’s requests to Congress, this one was not going smoothly.

  But finally the President got his way, thanks in a large measure to an uprising of popular support around the country. Americans, it turned out, were proud of this historic house and did not want to erase it.

  The Congress authorized the $5.4 million in June, and the agreement to renovate the building was signed in August, 1949.

  “It would have amounted to substantial desecration to have acted otherwise,” commented the Renovation Commission.

  B. Altman and Company of New York won the bid to furnish the house. The general contractor was John McShain, Inc. When the work began, the builder put up a big sign on the north lawn: John McShain, Inc., Builders.

  The President saw it as he walked across the street from Blair House.

  “Take that thing down right now,” he ordered Mr. Crim, and the sign disappeared immediately.

  The scope of the reconstruction was immense. New footings had to be placed, and a new supporting structural-steel frame erected on those footings within the existing limestone walls.

  First they built a high, protective fence around the job, partly to keep the curious workmen from peering in the windows at the President of the United States, as he worked in his west wing office.

  Then, after they’d “underpinned” the outer walls, they had to tear down and remove the interior walls. Every door, every window, every length of woodwork, mantelpiece, piece of molding or wood paneling, was carefully removed, measured, and stored—because they had to be put back inside the house.

  The inside work involved connecting the new steel frame inside the walls, building two new basements, and installing new, fireproof floors all over the house.

  Next, they set about to replace the interior rooms and facilities in the ground floor, first floor, and second and third floors, restoring the architectural detail of the State floors.

  Meanwhile other workers were digging vaults under the front lawn for the mechanical equipment for air conditioning and the extra power supply. Still others were installing modern plumbing, heating, electrical equipment, elevators, and central air conditioning, refurbishing the exterior, and replacing and landscaping the trampled-upon, dug-out grounds. It took fifty subcontractors and hundreds of workmen, all of whom got security clearance, to work on the White House.

  Despite the inconvenience to the President, with all the dirt from the excavating, and noise from the machinery rattling the windows in his Cabinet Room, Mr. Truman took great pride in the rebuilding of his home and spent many hours as a sidewalk superintendent.

  He was delighted with some of the discoveries—the decorative cornices of the Theodore Roosevelt renovation that later had been covered over with plaster, and underneath them the original 1792 decoration of architect James Hoban’s cornices.

  As workers gingerly threaded huge structural-steel beams in through the windows, excavation for the two additional underground floors brought forth more secrets. Among them was a well dug near the east wall, at the direction of Thomas Jefferson. In the foundation stones, they discovered numerous carved symbols of freemasonry, fishhooks, chevrons, and treelike sketches. Those early stonecutters would have been pleased to know that their signs would be cherished by a twentieth-century President, himself a Mason, and would be embedded decoratively in fireplace walls of his new broadcast room, which was the original kitchen.

  Each swirl and fleurette of the ornamental plaster cornices, so elaborately molded, had to be carefully diagrammed, so that they could be copied in fresh plaster. But after this was done, they couldn’t find a single craftsman in America who could replace the molding. Finally, the Commission imported skilled artisans from Italy, and the work went on as planned.

  Mr. Crim was totally involved in the renovation of the White House, while I concentrated on life at Blair House.

  By Inauguration Day, January 20, 1949, the Trumans were happily ensconced in their cozier quarters. We were delighted that the celebration itself would necessarily be less of a job for us than had the 1945 Inauguration.

  Because the mansion was out of commission, the traditional after-the-parade reception was to be held at the National Gallery of Art. The White House staff was to serve and arrange flowers, but we had to purchase the tea-party sandwiches from caterers and food suppliers in town. Our only function at Blair House was a buffet luncheon following the swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol.

  “Make it simple,” Mrs. Truman told us, “but as nice as any official luncheon. Guests will be strictly limited to members of
our families.

  “I’d rather be here with them than over at the Capitol,” Mrs. Truman added, but she dutifully attended the luncheon at the Capitol, given for the President and the leaders of Congress by the Inaugural committee. The diplomatic corps attended another traditional post-Inauguration luncheon at the State Department.

  All the dignitaries in Washington had some place to go, but Mrs. Truman, in a characteristic, gracious act, made sure that the Truman and Wallace clans also had a splendid luncheon. As we checked in the various Trumans and Wallaces from all over the country, however, a very familiar—but uninvited—guest arrived.

  Perle Mesta, the Washington party-giver, stepped out of the back seat of her open car, gave the Blair House doorman a glittering smile and swept past the policeman as if she owned the place.

  “What shall we do?” a policeman at the gate asked me. “She isn’t on the list.”

  “Never mind,” I answered. “She’s a good friend of the Trumans.”

  “I’m sure she’s had gate-crashers at her parties, but I wonder if this is the first time she’s ever crashed one herself,” Mr. Crim whispered.

  Later, when we told Mrs. Truman, she just laughed. “That’s all right,” she said. “I’m sure she livened up the luncheon.”

  Shortly thereafter, the vivacious Mrs. Mesta was appointed Ambassador to Luxembourg, a role that later was fictionalized in the musical Call Me Madam. The “hostess with the mostest” entertained that day, flitting from table to table, seeing to Bess’s brother, Fred, Harry’s brother, Vivian, all the cousins and other relatives, as if they were her family visiting her home.

  The Trumans and Vice President Alben Barkley rode back down Pennsylvania Avenue in open limousines to the reviewing stands in front of the White House. The sun beamed—such a contrast from that snowy, dreary wartime inaugural day in 1945, when there wasn’t even a parade. And so did Mr. Truman, in his high silk hat and striped trousers. The old World War I artillery captain really loved a parade.

  “When the band played ‘I’m Just Wild About Harry,’” Margaret reported, “Dad did a little jig to the music.”

  It was a great day for the three Trumans, and the entire family never stopped smiling until Margaret and her friends came limping in at about 1:30 a.m., after being crushed in a crowd of 10,000 at the Inaugural Ball at the National Guard Armory.

  Ever since Margaret had graduated from college, her second summer in the White House, she had been studying voice and trying to launch a career on her own. Now, her year of campaigning over, she was moving to New York to her own apartment and a serious singing career.

  Her mother, protective as always, sent along a companion to chaperone the aspiring young singer. Mrs. Truman entrusted that job to Reathel Odum, her own personal secretary. Reathel’s secretarial services had been greatly underutilized by the efficient Mrs. Truman, who almost always ended up writing her own correspondence.

  “Now that we’re going to be living a quiet life in Blair House, I can manage without her,” Mrs. Truman told me.

  The staff all missed Margaret and Reathel. It was strange at first, not to hear the young soprano vocalizing behind a closed door, hours and hours on end.

  We had watched her grow up from a fresh-faced young college student to a sophisticated performer. And she’d remained amazingly unspoiled, despite all the attention.

  Mrs. Truman insisted that her daughter learn the fine points of homemaking. I remember one morning, when the housekeeper and I went up for our meeting with the First Lady, we found Margaret sitting in her mother’s office, stitching a long strip of lace onto the edge of a white slip. She had a thread about a yard long, all tangled, and Mrs. Truman was laughing uproariously at her efforts. “Have you ever seen such a seamstress?” the First Lady laughed.

  “Why don’t you have one of the maids do that?” Mrs. Sharpe asked.

  “Indeed she won’t,” Mrs. Truman said. “She’s going to learn to do this if it takes her all day!”

  Even after four years as the President’s daughter, Margaret did her own personal maid work, and washed her own hair, using the new vogue, a beer rinse.

  Although none of us were music critics, we admired Margaret’s determination and wished her well in her new career.

  Her father, protective as always, kept an eye on her, concerned about her health in New York. He scribbled a note to me:

  Memo to Mr. West

  Call Jills (No. 6020) and make an appointment for Mrs. Truman with Jean or Doris for any time Monday 8th.

  Tell Wilma to bring vitamin pills for Margaret to N.Y. They are wrapped in celaphane [sic] and probably are in Margie’s cabinet.

  Tell Pennington to meet B&O National Limited at 7:30 a.m. Saturday at Union Station for baggage to go to N.Y.

  H.S.T.

  Without Margaret, without the official load of entertaining (State dinners were being held in the Carlton Hotel on 16th Street), Bess and Harry Truman got to spend a lot more time alone together. They’d sit out in the garden reading, having a light lunch, resting together. Very discreet, very private, they spent a lot of time behind closed doors in Blair House.

  The butlers no longer bet on “Two-gun Bess” in the mornings. Nor did the maids joke about the Three Musketeers. Instead, it was “the lovebirds are upstairs.”

  When Mrs. Truman left to take her mother to Independence for the summer, the President was disconsolate. He’d pick at his food if he had to eat alone, and often, on the spur of the moment, he’d call over a crony for an evening’s visit in the drawing room. Solitary thinking was not his favorite approach to solving problems. He liked a verbal sounding board. And he liked company.

  The President had the poker game come to the White House only once, in his earliest days in office. We’d even bought a special poker table. However, he preferred to spend his evenings alone with his wife. But when Mrs. Truman was out of town, the President returned to the poker game.

  When she returned that fall, the President was jubilant. He met her train at Union Station and they came back arm in arm.

  “It’s good to have the real boss back,” he beamed at me. “But we’ll have to mind our p’s and q’s around here from now on.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Truman were so obviously glad to see each other, butlers kept grinning as they went back and forth through the house.

  After a light dinner in the President’s library, they sent the maids downstairs.

  The next morning, I was in Mrs. Truman’s study at nine, as usual.

  She scanned the day’s menu, then, in a rather small, uncomfortable voice, she said:

  “Mr. West, we have a little problem.”

  “Yes,” I waited.

  She cleared her throat, demurely.

  “It’s the President’s bed. Do you think you can get it fixed today?”

  “Why certainly,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Two of the slats broke down during the night.”

  “I’ll see that it has all new slats put in,” I said hurriedly. “It’s an old antique bed anyway, and if he’d like a newer one….”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “This one is just fine.”

  But the Trumans certainly aren’t antiques, I thought to myself. The President’s wife was blushing like a young bride.

  In Blair House, we established a routine for the limited amount of entertaining, which seemed to work—at least for the staff.

  We served formal dinners for semi-State guests for no more than twenty-two persons in the Blair-Lee dining room. The White House staff had simply moved across the street and taken over. Mrs. Victoria Geaney, who’d been housekeeper at Blair House, had become more hostess than housekeeper.

  With the Usher’s office in residence, and Bess Truman as the only hostess we needed, Mrs. Geaney’s particular talents were going to waste. She was gently eased over as hostess at Prospect House in Georgetown, which the State Department took over as a temporary Presidential guest house.

  The White Ho
use housekeeper, Mrs. Sharpe, had resigned, thinking she’d only be in Mrs. Geaney’s way. So Mabel Walker, her young assistant whose principal job was keeping books, moved over to Blair House.

  Miss Walker protested to me that she didn’t know much about food—and after a month or two, Mrs. Truman agreed.

  “I think she has a list of menus exactly two weeks long, and at the end of two weeks she just runs them through again,” the First Lady chuckled. That gave me the idea for a long-overdue promotion.

  I went to Mr. Crim. “How about dividing the duties?” I asked. “Miss Walker could run the housecleaning and books, and Fields could be in charge of food preparation and services.”

  As head butler, Alonzo Fields knew entertaining inside out.

  Mr. Crim was dubious. He had never promoted from within the ranks. In the White House hierarchy, “servants” never became “executives.” Assistants, like Miss Walker, were always hired to inherit managerial positions, if they worked out.

  “Let’s see what Mrs. Truman thinks,” he said. As I already knew, Mrs. Truman admired Fields’ abilities and she was genuinely fond of the huge, genial butler.

  “I think that’s an inspired idea,” she replied—and even came up with the title for his new position: Maître d’hôtel.

  It worked out well.

  For State entertaining, we turned to the Carlton Hotel, which supplied a generally competent handling of our special needs, protocol, and very heavy guest lists.

  The State Department quickly found out that it was a lot cheaper to entertain their foreign visitors at the White House than anywhere else in town. The food prepared in the Carlton was much more expensive than that which we purchased wholesale and cooked in White House kitchens. Also, all the culinary employees of the hotel had to be security-checked.

  Mr. Redmond and his crew bought the flowers we used from local greenhouses, then arranged bouquets for the banquets in his quarters beneath the west terrace of the White House, which, like the social office, remained open during the renovation.