Upstairs at the White House

by J. B. West

  Without even glancing at the budget, I knew we couldn’t stand that kind of expenditure, nor could I see changing the stately colonnade for one President’s pleasure.

  Instead, we cut a door through the flower shop, another through the exercise room, and when President Kennedy left the office at 1:30 every afternoon, he stopped by the pool, shed his clothes, swam nude for half an hour, wrapped himself in a towel-robe, and padded through the exercise room, through the banks of flowers, through the ground-floor corridor, to an elevator which took him upstairs, where he shed his robe, climbed into bed, and ate lunch (usually a hamburger or a glass of Metrecal) from a tray. He closed the door, firmly.

  Mrs. Kennedy dropped everything, no matter how important, to join her husband. If she had visitors in tow, they would be left for me to entertain.

  During those hours, the Kennedy doors were closed. No telephone calls were allowed, no folders sent up, no interruptions from the staff. Nobody went upstairs, for any reason.

  At about three, the President, showered and dressed, walked back to his west wing office. Mrs. Kennedy went outside on the south lawn with her children, and then back inside to resume her business with redecorating, or to have her hair done. Usually at 5:30 she came upstairs to read, paint, or relax, and at 6:30 she would spend an hour with John and Caroline in their bedrooms or the West Hall.

  The President, on his way back from the office, stopped at the swimming pool, and went through the same ritual again—swimming nude, walking over in his bathrobe, then changing clothes for dinner. George Thomas, his valet, had been over to retrieve his morning suit and deposit another bathrobe. (Some of the servants had bets on what the President would do if George forgot to take over the bathrobe: Would he dress, again, in the clothes he took off, or would he stride through the flower room and up the elevator, stark naked?) John F. Kennedy wore three separate suits of clothes every day of his White House life.

  While he swam, Mrs. Kennedy dressed for dinner, then joined her husband for cocktails upstairs.

  Rather than the White House tradition of dinner on-the-dot at 7:30, the Kennedys’ dinner hour was different from day to day. The butlers might serve two or twenty, the menu might feature grilled cheese sandwiches, or pheasant-under-glass.

  Jacqueline Kennedy accomplished an astounding amount of work during her husband’s short administration. And she drew amazing work out of the White House staff and her personal staff.

  When she came to the White House on Inauguration Day, Mrs. Kennedy brought the statuesque Letitia Baldrige, who was to change the job of social secretary into a Position; petite Pam Turnure (“What in the world do I want a press secretary for?” Mrs. Kennedy asked me); good-natured Providencia (Provy) Parades, her personal maid; George Thomas, who as the President’s valet learned to delegate authority and shoeshining to the upstairs housemen, (“George opens the door for the butler to bring in the breakfast tray,” President Kennedy joked); Pearl Nelson, their oversized cook; and Mary Gallagher, who took dictation and helped with the Kennedys’ personal bills. They were all put on the government payroll, which posed a few problems for me.

  The Chief Usher is personnel officer for the mansion, which makes life simpler for the President, but probably makes it rather frustrating for people who work for the President. For they no longer work for the family, they work for the White House. As manager of the household staff, I was responsible for hiring—and firing. And through the years, I found that the First Families’ personal servants took more delicate handling than those on the regular White House staff. Provy and George, for example, both had families, and they did not “live in” at the White House. Yet, as family servants, they often worked longer hours, staying to dress the President and Mrs. Kennedy, for example, than those on the regular eight-hour White House shifts. We could not pay them less than the minimum wage, neither could we afford to pay them hourly overtime, for they’d soon be making more than the White House staff, who had achieved government seniority. The solution was to “give” them servants’ rooms on the third floor of the White House.

  “Why am I paid less than the butlers [who made $4,000 a year]?” George demanded to know one day.

  “Because the President’s personal servants are allotted a room in the White House,” I explained, “and the regular staff do not have that allocation.”

  “But I don’t live in my room,” he argued.

  “Yes, but the room is there, and it is assigned to you …,” I explained.

  George would take care of the President’s clothes, but the housemen would do the cleaning; Provy would take care of Mrs. Kennedy’s personal effects and dresses, but the upstairs maids were to attend to the linens and rooms. And other matters, they soon found out.

  That first evening, after dressing for the Inaugural Ball, Mrs. Kennedy sent Provy home. I asked Wilma Holness, the trusted second-floor maid, to spend the night, in case the First Lady should need her.

  “I’m sure glad I was here last night,” Wilma told me the next morning. “She couldn’t have gotten out of that ballgown by herself if her life depended on it. There were so many buttons on that thing and hooks and all—why, I’m sure she’d have had to sleep in it.”

  From then on, Provy stayed late whenever there was an Occasion.

  Mrs. Kennedy was thoroughly prepared for one aspect of White House life—running a large mansion. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy had grown up in a privileged, sophisticated environment, had the advantages of a superior education, both in this country and in France, and the experience of eight years of marriage to a very wealthy man. All her life, she had been surrounded by servants. She knew what to expect from them, how to evaluate them, and how to get a polished performance from them.

  The morning after Inauguration, Mrs. Kennedy was up bright and early.

  “I’d like to meet all the staff today,” she phoned me from the Queen’s Room. “Could you please take me around the White House to meet them at their work?”

  I thought fast. In the first place, I didn’t want her going all over the house. There are many areas in which our work goes smoothly without the First Lady’s knowledge. Or intervention. No President’s wife had ever looked into the electricians’ shop, for example. Or the staff lunch room, where servants eat. I knew there would be enough to do in the weeks ahead without Mrs. Kennedy’s taking note of conditions in the linen closets or the butler’s pantry.

  “Mrs. Kennedy, I’ve already arranged for the employees—those with whom you will be working most closely—to come up to the second floor to meet you,” I answered. “I realized that you still might not be strong enough to make a strenuous tour of the entire house, so they are waiting to come to you. There’ll be plenty of time later on for you to meet the maintenance staff—carpenters and so forth—since you won’t have much communication with them anyway. I can bring them up two or three at a time to meet you, if that is all right….”

  “What about the florist?” she asked. “Flowers are going to be very important to me. I couldn’t stand the arrangements around here!”

  “Shall we set up an appointment to meet the garden staff separately?” I countered. “That way, you can discuss your plans in detail.”

  “Fine, Mr. West,” she acceded. “I’m going out for a walk around the south driveway. You can bring them up at eleven.”

  Our staff had never before been subjected to such formal review by a First Lady, and they were a bit apprehensive. With the first group of three, I rode the elevator to the second floor. There, perched on a corner of the large octagonal desk, was the new President’s wife. She was wearing jodhpurs, a shirt, and low brown boots, and her hair, so carefully coiffed the night before, was tousled.

  “Mrs. Kennedy, these are the ushers.” I introduced them, “Ray Hare, Tom Carter, and Rex Scouten.” Smiling, the First Lady repeated their names. Mabel Walker, who had been waiting on the elevator, walked over. “Miss Walker supervises the maids and housemen, the linen room, and household bookkeeping,”
I explained. Next, I brought up the maître d’, Charles Ficklin, who supervised food preparation and service. “Charles.” Mrs. Kennedy nodded, brushing back her unruly hair.

  Charles was followed by the four butlers, his brother John, Eugene Allen, Fate Suber, and John Johnson. Next were the kitchen staff—three cooks and their helpers, who plainly were startled by the sight of a First Lady in pants. The second- and third-floor maids, five of them, then came forward. “Wilma, Lucinda, Julia, Viola, Clara….” she repeated their names, slowly. Mrs. Kennedy was not taking notes, nor was there a secretary present. I wondered whether she could remember any of them. (She did, I soon discovered.) Following the maids were the two upstairs housemen, the Filipino Navy stewards.

  “Is there enough work for everybody?” Mrs. Kennedy asked, as the parade ended.

  “Plenty!” I assured her.

  (Yet I remembered Margaret Truman’s comment when I took her around the renovated third floor in 1951. “What are those two bedrooms?” Miss Truman asked. “Those are for visiting servants,” I said, meaning the servants brought by such houseguests as the Queen of England.

  “Visiting servants? That’s an appropriate name because that’s what they do around here all day long. Visit and visit and visit!” said Margaret Truman.)

  By the time all the employees had trooped in and out, Mrs. Kennedy’s eyes were glazed.

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  “Well, there are three men in the flower shop, two women in the laundry, five downstairs housemen and three plumbers, three painters, two in the storeroom, twelve engineers, seven carpenters, and eight gardeners.”

  “You’re right, I will see them another day,” she laughed. Then she asked, “How much, again, is our total operating budget, Mr. West?”

  “$500,000 a year,” I replied. “But that does not include your personal expenditures.”

  “Well, just remember this. I want you to run this place just like you’d run it for the chinchiest President who ever got elected!” she stated.

  Then her voice dropped to its near-whisper.

  “We don’t have nearly as much money as you read in the papers!”

  There was a buzz as the servants went back downstairs. Mabel Walker, the housekeeper during the entire Eisenhower Administration, commented:

  “How could she tell what she was looking at, with all that hair falling in her face?”

  And Mabel Walker was the first to go.

  The cardinal rule in the White House every change of administration is Adjust. (There are always dozens of others waiting in the wings for the honor of working in the President’s house.) Strangely enough, if you are wise enough to last long enough to make the adjustment, it soon turns out that “they”—the First Family—are the ones to adjust. And life resumes the old tried-and-true ways. There never can be any personal loyalties to any President or his family. So the normal, workaday gripes and snipes at the boss have to be suppressed. At the White House, the walls have ears. Literally.

  For those reasons, the servants never hinted to me what they thought of Mrs. Kennedy. But Mrs. Kennedy told me, often, what she thought of them!

  The President’s wife began scribbling notes to me, concerning ashtrays, empty cigarette boxes on the third floor, current magazines for the guest rooms. More than once, she wrote, “Could someone please rev up Miss Walker?”

  I was surprised to find that at first the White House staff never quite came up to Mrs. Kennedy’s standards. Bess Truman inspected for cobwebs and dust; Mamie Eisenhower erased footprints; Jacqueline Kennedy judged servants on performance and style. Her first assessment of the upstairs maids (written in her breezy, mock-autocratic fashion), arrived shortly after she did.

  Mr. West

  I just saw a new maid named Gloria—Apparently she has been here 6 months & isnt allowed to come to 2nd floor (she didnt tell me that—dont blame her) She seems bright & willing. My suggestion is this—In fact tell Miss Walker I want it done—let her come to 2nd floor—she can help Provy & Cordenia—they are the only ones who would be nice to her—if she follows Provy around 2 days a wk—she will be trained lady’s maid in no time.

  But our maid situation is this:

  Wilma—excellent—but getting on

  You will be lost when she goes—like Julia

  Lucinda—very good—good maid for guests

  Cordenia is shaping up beautifully—I know I am monopolizing her for the children

  But she has learned so much & is bright & a wonderful person

  Gloria looks same—nice bright type as Cordenia—but big problem with W.H. maids is they are so terrified of being in W.H.—of First Family, etc, that they are rigid with fear & get panicky—even Lucinda who knows me well still apologizes 10 minutes if she drops a pin.

  I can’t teach them anything—nor have time—when they are that scared—as they are too panicky to remember—The only way they will get to be good maids—like Wilma—easy is to be around the family & house enough so some terror leaves them.

  So Gloria should come off 3rd floor & be told to follow Provy 2 days a wk (She can do my room & bath—Provy will tell her how—while Provy does my clothes) She can learn how to lay out clothes etc etc etc

  Provy is the only good maid who will be nice to her—Wilma is too grand! And Provy can train a ladies maid—she is tops—about 90 times faster than Miss Walker can.

  JBK

  As she assessed the abilities of the staff, Mrs. Kennedy quickly learned to utilize their particular talents. Lucinda Morman, she discovered, was an excellent seamstress. Before long, that maid who was “good for guests” spent most of her time making alterations on the First Lady’s Oleg Cassini originals—many of which were designed from Jacqueline Kennedy’s own preliminary sketches.

  Later, when she had established a smoothly running household, she came to appreciate each of the maids for their own individual contributions to the White House and to her family. She was quick to show gratitude, as well as concern about their getting adequate days off and raises in salary. And, I observed, she held them very high in her affection.

  And finally the President’s wife decided to bring fellow Vassarite Anne Lincoln over from the social office to take over as housekeeper. (“She knows how I want cigarette boxes placed, and everything else about the kind of house this should be,” Mrs. Kennedy told me. “Couldn’t Miss Walker be curator of the warehouse or something?”) Mabel Walker, who was nearing retirement age, was put to work on an inventory of White House furnishings, in an office out in our new warehouse. Janet Bowen, who had begun as Miss Walker’s assistant during the Eisenhowers and always declined promotion to the taxing job of housekeeper, remained as assistant housekeeper to provide the necessary continuity from one administration to another.

  Unfortunately, Tish Baldrige was not with me to hear Mrs. Kennedy request a tight—or “chinchy”—budget. Instead, the new social secretary breezily told the maître d’, “Just serve them champagne and caviar every day, and they’ll be happy!”

  The maître d’ did, but they were not.

  In fact, both President and Mrs. Kennedy almost went through the ceiling when they saw the first month’s bills. Entertaining in February, 1961, had been lavish, but strictly private—which meant that it came out of the President’s own pocket.

  “We’ve got to cut down drastically, Mr. West,” Mrs. Kennedy complained. “Do you think we could buy our food where the White House buys its food?”

  And so we arranged for the Kennedy grocery account to be transferred from the expensive French Market in Georgetown, to the same wholesalers who had supplied the Executive Mansion for years.

  One of Mrs. Kennedy’s most important early White House staff decisions was to hire the French chef René Verdon.

  The President, nervous about the country’s reaction to his importing “foreigners” for the White House kitchens, ordered the Secret Service to speed up citizenship papers for René and his assistant, Julius Sp
essot.

  “It can be stated,” reported the press office to the President, “that one is French and the other Italian by birth, but that they are in the process of becoming United States citizens.”

  But the President’s father, Ambassador Kennedy, had a better suggestion: “Tell them that the President feels there are so many Irishmen in the White House, the French and Italians ought to be given a chance, too!”

  When he arrived, René and his assistant, Julius Spessot, prattled away in the kitchen in French, much to the annoyance of the three demoted cooks. Also demoted was Charles Ficklin, the maître d’. From now on, René made out the daily menus, René ordered the groceries, René took over.

  As soon as the second-floor kitchen was completed, Pearl, the Kennedy’s Georgetown cook, was assigned to prepare the family meals. Mrs. Kennedy, however, soon realized that too many cooks just might spoil the pot au feu. And René and Pearl weren’t communicating very well.

  One morning, as we were shifting ashtrays in the Green Room for the hundredth time, Mrs. Kennedy said to me, “I’m going to have to fire Pearl, because we just don’t need her with René here. Wish me luck.”

  Several days later, the President’s wife knocked on my office door.

  “Help,” she whispered, dropping into a chair. Fixing her huge brown eyes on my face, she said, “Mr. West, would you please fire Pearl for me? I’ve tried to do it three or four times, but she just talks me down.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I said. “I’ll speak to her.”

  In the White House, you have to “release” people very smoothly, or else they can cause a big row. I called Pearl up to my second-floor private office, which overlooks the North Portico of the White House. She dropped her ample frame comfortably into the same chair Mrs. Kennedy had just vacated.

  “You know, Pearl, with the new French chef here, your talents are just going to waste,” I began. “You really should be working somewhere where your services could be appreciated more.”

  She shifted in the leather armchair, ready to do battle.