The Residence - Inside the Private World of The White House (33 page)

“Once you’re up in that college age where you’ve been out there drinking beer, running with guys, going to parties and all that, it makes a big difference,” he said.

George W. Bush’s daughters—affectionately described as “wild little girls” by their grandmother, Barbara Bush, when they were younger—were already familiar with the residence by the time their father was elected; they had played hide-and-seek when their grandparents lived there, and spent time in the Flower Shop
making arrangements. During their father’s presidency, they confided in Usher Nancy Mitchell about their boyfriend problems. (Jenna would later admit to a “little hanky-panky” on the White House roof.) Staffers say the girls acted like typical nineteen-year-olds, and Jenna grew so attached to the residence staff that she asked Head Florist Nancy Clarke to do the flowers for her Texas wedding.

Still there will always be certain constraints that come with life in that particular bubble. “It’s a miserable life for a teenager,” said Usher Nelson Pierce. “It was very difficult to be confined, knowing that you couldn’t do anything without [the Secret Service] right on your tail.”

N
OT SINCE THE
Kennedys’ departure have such young children lived in the White House. When the Obamas moved in, Malia was ten years old and Sasha was only seven. Now sixteen and thirteen, the girls have spent six years growing up with a slew of maids, butlers, and chefs, in a house with its own private movie theater, tennis and basketball court, and swimming pool. And that’s just their day-to-day life: that does not include the elegant dinners and catered parties they sometimes get to attend, or the private Jonas Brothers concert on the night of their father’s first inauguration.

Barbara and Jenna Bush, who graduated from high school the year their father was elected, gave Malia and Sasha a full tour before they left, including stops in the movie theater and the bowling alley and even a few secret hallways. Clearly enjoying the idea of another younger pair of sisters taking their place, they told them to slide down the banisters every once in a while, advice that Sasha Obama, the more bubbly of the sisters, no doubt enjoyed.

Like the Kennedys, the Obamas are committed to having their children lead normal lives. Florist Bob Scanlan, who retired in 2010,
describes seeing a scene that plays out in so many American households on Sunday mornings: air mattresses splayed out on the floor of the Solarium from a sleepover the night before.

The girls get dessert only on weekends, but when their grandmother, Marian, is in charge, they splurge, eating ice cream and popcorn. She “really gives the family their privacy. She lives on the third floor for the most part, [and] in the time that I was there took her meals separately. The girls eat with their mother and father in their own space on the second floor and Mrs. Robinson eats on the third floor,” Scanlan said. “I’m going home,” Marian would say before dinner as she walked upstairs to her private suite, giving her daughter time alone with her husband and children.

“She had fresh flowers put in her living room and her bedroom. She was always very kind, very gracious, very appreciative of everything that she got.” When Scanlan came in to replace a floral arrangement, she would often tell him not to bother. “That’s fine, but the other flowers still look good to me,” she’d say.

Michelle asked the florists to label all the flowers in the arrangements in their living quarters so that she and her daughters could learn the different names. The first lady also asked beloved longtime butler Smile “Smiley” Saint-Aubin, who was from Haiti and spoke beautiful French, to speak in his native language when serving her daughters so that they could start learning the language. (He passed away in 2009.)

Scanlan wanted the Obamas to have a special first Christmas season at the White House (they spend the holiday itself in Hawaii), so he made boxwood Christmas trees and put one on Malia’s dresser and one on Sasha’s mantel.

Malia especially liked hers. When Scanlan went into her room to check on the tree he found a sticky note waiting for him: “Florist: I really like my tree. If it’s not too much to ask could I please have lights on it? If not, I understand.” Her sign-off was a heart. Scanlan
took the note off the dresser and brought it down to the Flower Shop. “Now you tell me, how could I
not
put lights on that tree?” He laughed.

Staffers provide extra nurturing because they know what scrutiny these children face. In 2014, Sasha and Malia came under attack from a Republican House staffer during the annual White House turkey pardon ceremony. “Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar,” wrote Elizabeth Lauten in a Facebook post. Lauten, who was communications director for Republican representative Stephen Fincher at the time, was referring to the girls’ short skirts. Her disparaging comments came under criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike who mostly agree that the children of sitting presidents should be off-limits. Lauten resigned because of the media firestorm; the episode reinforces the incredible strain of growing up in the White House under constant surveillance. The glare of the spotlight has only intensified with an endless news cycle and the rise of social media.

C
AROLINE AND
J
OHN
-J
OHN
Kennedy, in turn, were the youngest children to live in the White House since Theodore Roosevelt’s brood famously wreaked havoc there at the turn of the twentieth century. Caroline was three years old, and her brother just two months old, when their parents moved into the residence. Jackie Kennedy desperately wanted to raise unspoiled children; she made them sign thank-you notes when they were invited to other children’s parties (young John-John merely scribbled) and always brought them down to the kitchen after their birthday parties to thank the staff. Caroline and John-John learned the meaning of “no” at just two years old, said Letitia Baldrige; when introduced to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s wife, they looked her straight in the eye and said, “How do you do, Mrs. McNamara?” (Though in John-John’s case it may have been more like “Mrs. Nama.”)

“It was ‘How do you do’ day and night, not only to Mommy and Daddy’s friends but also to the ushers, butlers, maids, policemen, Secret Service, and gardeners, and the people in the kitchen and in the butler’s pantry—whomever they happened to pass,” said Baldrige.

Unlike first ladies before her, Jackie Kennedy didn’t allow her children to address the butlers by their last names only; she considered that rude, especially since they were speaking to older, dignified gentlemen, most of whom had been working in the mansion for decades. “It was, ‘Mr. Allen,’” said Curator Jim Ketchum, referring to Eugene Allen. “They called Preston Bruce ‘Mr. Bruce.’ She was not about to have them say ‘Bruce’ or ‘Allen.’”

Sometimes, though, when Jackie wasn’t around, Caroline and John-John treated the staff with a familiarity that their mother might not have approved of. Usher Nelson Pierce’s favorite memory in all of his twenty-six years working at the White House involved simply reading a story to John-John. “Mrs. Kennedy’s stereo wasn’t working right, and I had to escort one of the Signal Corps men upstairs to work on it,” he recalled. “John-John picked up a book and brought it over to me and told me he wanted me to read it.”

Pierce did as he was told and sat on the edge of the sofa. He thought there was no way such an active little boy would sit still long enough to actually make it through the book. “I thought he’d stand beside me while I read the book, but no. He got up and then got down and pushed me in the chest and said, ‘Sit back, sit back!’ So I put my arm around him and we read the book. As soon as I read the story he jumped down, took the book, and put it back where it was.” For Nelson, spending time with the Kennedy children was a welcome break and a reminder of his four children at home.

One evening, the Kennedys’ nanny, Maud Shaw, called down to Pierce for help. She was in the Family Dining Room on the second floor and John-John hadn’t quite finished dinner. Meanwhile
Caroline, who was already done eating, was down on the floor trying to do a somersault—to no avail. She looked up at Pierce when he walked in.

“Mr. Pierce, I have a terrible time. My legs either go to the right or they go to the left.”

“Caroline, think very hard about making your feet go straight over your head,” he told her.

Her next attempts were much improved.

“Mr. Pierce, do somersaults with me!” she begged.

Pierce laughed at the memory, “Fortunately, Maud Shaw came to my rescue so I didn’t have to do somersaults with Caroline on the dining room floor!”

Decades later, Chef Walter Scheib explained how the staff viewed the first family. “While a state dinner is the most high-profile thing you do, at the same time, the day of the state dinner, you might get a phone call from the residence saying Chelsea or one of the Bush twins wants a bowl of oatmeal or blueberries or something, and suddenly that becomes your priority. It isn’t about cuisine, it’s about offering first families a little island of normal in a very, very crazy world.”

Sometimes, what the first family wants is mundane and frustrating for the skilled chefs, especially when there are kids living in the residence. John Moeller remembers one morning when he and a newly hired chef were making pancakes for Chelsea Clinton. The new hire spotted real maple syrup in the refrigerator but Moeller told him that Chelsea prefers the imitation maple syrup that most kids eat. The new chef fought him, insisting that the real thing is always better. Eventually, Moeller relented and sent the butlers up with the high-end syrup. Two minutes later it came back with a request from the first daughter for the fake stuff. The first family’s preferences override everything else.

Residence staff must provide a safe place for the president’s
children to be themselves. Johnson’s eldest daughter, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, remembered finding solace in the residence staff at a time when outsiders could never be fully trusted. “The people who worked there, they were just wonderful. I’m sure everybody who’s lived there has appreciated them and thought how lucky we are to be surrounded by people who want to help us and who are not trying to get anything from us. They were not going to go sell us out.”

Lynda met her husband, Charles “Chuck” Robb, when he was a military social aide at the White House. His job was to make sure the president’s guests were comfortable at receptions and dinners, chatting with partygoers who were nervous to meet the president and first lady, and directing them to their seats. No one outside the staff knew that Lynda and Robb were dating. After he was done working, Robb would rush up to the Solarium to play bridge with Lynda. The butlers saw them, of course, but they guarded her privacy absolutely.

Robb was first in his Marine Corps officers Basic School at Quantico, Virginia; he earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam, and later went on to become governor of Virginia and serve two terms in the Senate. When Robb was deployed, Lynda was pregnant with their first daughter, Lucinda. While she was lying awake at night, sick with worry about her husband, she could hear the shouts of Vietnam War protestors outside her bedroom window.

Lynda had Caroline Kennedy’s former room, facing Pennsylvania Avenue; there was nowhere to hide. Her younger sister, Luci, lived in what was once John-John’s bedroom. Between them was the small room that had belonged to Maud Shaw, which they converted into a walk-in closet for their out-of-season wardrobes.

President and Mrs. Johnson’s room overlooked the South Lawn, so they didn’t hear the shouting quite as clearly, but Lynda and her sister shuddered at the angry protests. “It was distressing to Luci
and to me when you could hear the people yelling from across the street all day and night about the war, particularly since both of our husbands were over there. They were sacrificing, and I was pregnant, and they would say things that were very hurtful about my father. I knew how much he wanted to end the war.”

Curator Betty Monkman remembers gathering in the Usher’s Office and looking out at the protestors. She’d turn to her older colleagues and say, “Those could be your children standing in the park.”