Mamie's Week

When the parade finally passed and the cheers faded away, the new President took his lady by the arm and walked, beaming, up the portico steps and into the White House. For gnarled old John Mays, the doorman who bowed them in, it was an old story: Mamie Eisenhower was the ninth First Lady he had served. For Mamie it was the start of the most exacting, exciting job in a busy career.

There wasn't time that first night for Mamie to unpack or even to look around her new home. There wasn't even time for a family dinner. Mamie ate her dinner from a tray, alone in her bedroom. Three hours later she emerged, resplendent in her pink inaugural gown, ready to continue the fatiguing rounds. She exercised an immemorial wifely prerogative, held up the family's departure for the twin balls for 15 minutes while she completed her toilette. Finally, at 2 a.m.. after a grueling, 18-hour day, Mamie and Ike got into the same beds which Harry and Bess Truman had slept in the night before.

Next morning, like any seasoned Army wife, Mamie was up with the sparrows, took her usual sparrowlike breakfast (a cup of Sanka, a piece of toast) in bed. Because of a cold (she had been sniffling for a month, ventured outdoors for the first time since Christmas when she left New York for the inauguration), the First Lady relaxed upstairs all morning, read mail, conferred briefly over menus and household matters with Major-Domo Howell Crim, had a quiet chat with John and Barbara Eisenhower.

Mamie skipped lunch, as she often does, begged off when the first callers, Colorado's Palomino Mounted Patrol and Denver's Junior Police Band, turned up. In the afternoon, feeling better, she stood in the Red Room and graciously greeted a group of 281 prominent Republican ladies. Later she slipped into the East Room for the swearing-in of the Cabinet.

Next day the pace began to quicken. There were chores to do, decisions to make. For one thing, Mamie had to supervise the unpacking of two vanloads of Eisenhower belongings. There were 25 suitcases and eight plastic garment bags to sort out and hang up--and Mamie discovered that her own closet space was woefully inadequate. Temporarily, she hung her frocks on rolling racks from the downstairs checkrooms. (Bess Truman got around the difficulty by keeping much of her wardrobe on the third floor.)

The family servants (ex-Sergeant John Moaney, Ike's longtime orderly, his wife Delores, who will preside over the upstairs kitchen, and Rose Woods, Mamie's personal maid) had to be squared away. Then there was the question of the press. The First Lady quickly decided on a compromise between the Eleanor Roosevelt system of weekly press conferences and the Bess Truman system of none. Mamie would hold nonpolitical conferences whenever she had anything to say.

Mamie Eisenhower, who has kept house in everything from a two-room flat to a French chateau, was undaunted by her new job. After the first few hectic days, the White House was running with the quiet precision of a watchmaker's convention at a Swiss inn. Mamie, already busy with the endless receiving line, had the situation well in hand. Most Washington observers were agreed that if anyone could make the White House a home, Mamie could, and Mamie would.

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