The Residence - Inside the Private World of The White House (51 page)

President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter with White House workers at the state dinner for the Shah and Shahbanu of Iran, November 15, 1977.
Clockwise from top left:
Maid Viola Wise, Butler and Doorman Wilson German, Doorman Frederick “Freddie” Mayfield, and Frankie Blair, who worked in the kitchen.

Usher Chris Emery was asked to step in for an African American butler and shield President Reagan from a sudden downpour on the South Lawn during Soviet political leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s historic visit to the White House in 1987. Chief Usher Gary Walters didn’t want the White House to look like “the last plantation,” Emery said.

Nancy Reagan examines a Christmas arrangement as President Reagan and White House florists Nancy Clarke (
third from right
) and Ronn Payne (
second from right
) look on, December 1987. Mrs. Reagan was a perfectionist who could be hard to please. One incident in particular led a beloved staffer to resign.

The Reagans in the Oval Office saying good-bye to Eugene Allen on his last day in 1986. The longtime butler and maître d’ was the inspiration for the 2013 movie
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
.

President George H. W. Bush and Houseman Linsey Little playing horseshoes on the White House lawn, June 24, 1990. Bush set up a horseshoe pitch next to the White House’s outdoor swimming pool, where he’d play against residence staffers several times a week. Barbara Bush says she was especially sad to leave the White House because she knew the Clintons wouldn’t continue the tradition.

Barbara Bush admires an arrangement in the Flower Shop with Florist Ronn Payne in 1989. Mrs. Bush would often stop by the shop in the early morning hours wearing only her robe over a bathing suit as she made her way to the White House pool for her daily swim.

Hillary Clinton does a last-minute touch-up in the Blue Room before the 1996 National Governors Association dinner as longtime butler James Jeffries stands by. The Clintons, like the Kennedys and the Johnsons before them, loved to entertain, which took a toll on the staff. Jeffries remembers telling a weary Bill Clinton, “You need to take a break.”

The Clintons had an especially complicated relationship with the staff. Here President Clinton meets Executive Housekeeper Christine Limerick outside the linen room on the third floor of the residence on Inauguration Day, January 20, 1993. Maid Anita Castelo looks on.

Executive Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier with Hillary Clinton, March 8, 1996. Mesnier was there through the Lewinsky scandal, and he knew to expect a call from the first lady requesting her favorite dessert when she was having a particularly hard day.

Butler James Jeffries and his mother, Estelle, who is the sister of legendary White House butlers John and Charles Ficklin, at a White House Christmas party with President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, December 19, 2006.