Ladies' Day

When Mamie Eisenhower called her first White House press conference last week, Washington's newshens, elegantly hatted and with pencils poised, flocked to the White House radio-TV room (once part of the kitchen) for the big event. Mamie invited the male correspondents, too, and though they outnumbered the ladies, the men hung shyly back, asked only one question: How was the White House food? Fine, said Mamie.

The First Lady looked radiant and chic in a grey suit, handled herself with aplomb. After the picture-taking, she flashed a big smile at the ladies, sat down at a desk and said "Good morning." "Good morning, teacher," burbled the New York Times's Bess Furman. "That's just what I feel like," said Mamie. Then, as if she had done it a thousand times before, she reached for her engagement list and read it off, tea by inexorable tea. Among the coming events: a tea for Mary Pickford, with some old Pickford films ("I think it'll be a lot of fun").

News of Upstairs. Then Mamie was ready for questions. While pencils flashed like knitting needles, Mamie let the girls in on some of the upstairs news. She had converted Bess Truman's sitting room into her own bedroom, had painted it a restful green, and moved in pink furniture. The White House, she confided, was not such a bad home: "I think it's really livable for as large a house as it is. I love the high ceilings."

Adroitly sidestepping a political question (she was in favor of tax reduction, "as who isn't?"), the First Lady gave the impression of a busy, happy household manager. She was equal to the formidable daily schedule: "I enjoy it thoroughly." The only drawbacks are the President's long working hours and the fact that "there isn't time to do the personal things you'd like to." She seldom sees Ike before dinnertime. In the evenings, the President is usually "too tired to talk," retires shortly after dinner, to which the Eisenhowers sit down at 7:30. Mamie usually stays up until 10:30 or 11, alone or with her mother, watching television.

News from the Zoo. After the conference, the First Lady hurried upstairs where some special house guests were waiting: her three grandchildren, who had arrived with their mother, Mrs. John Eisenhower, the evening before. Young Dwight David Eisenhower II, who will celebrate his fifth birthday this month, Barbara Anne, 3, and Baby Susan Elaine, 1, were paying their first visit to grandfather's new house. One fine afternoon they played on the back lawn under the budding magnolias. When the photographers arrived, David obligingly lifted Skunky, the family's portly Scotty, for a moment, but had to give it up. "She's too fat," he puffed. Then he and curly-headed Barbara Anne peddled their tricycles over a stretch of grass made slightly mangy lately by grandfather's golfing divots.

Exciting as their first visit to the White House was, the young Eisenhowers had more important business on their minds. On their very first afternoon in Washington, David and Barbara Anne went off to inspect the zoo, chaperoned by a sheepish Secret Serviceman (Mamie and Barbara Eisenhower went to a matinee). David thought the zoo was fine until a lion roared at him. And though Barbara Anne wandered fearlessly into the lion house, David stayed outside, peered through the door. "I can see all right from here," he explained. When he got back, young David had some afterthoughts about the zoo. "You know what I liked best?" he asked. "I liked the crocodiles best, because they're so ugly."

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