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A century-old ritual: Michelle Obama tours Executive Mansion
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-11 11:34 Monday's pre-Inauguration Day ritual between the two women dates back 100 years.
On December 11, 1908, Edith Roosevelt, wife of President Theodore Roosevelt, gave William Taft's wife, Nellie, a private tour. Nellie Taft overcompensated for her nervousness by acting a bit haughty, said Carl Sferrazza Anthony, historian for the National First Ladies' Library in Canton, Ohio. "After lunch as the two walked into the Green Room, Nellie quipped in a whisper loud enough for Edith to hear, 'I would have put that table over there."' Over the years, first ladies have shown little trouble putting aside politics when it comes to the tour, even if their husbands are from different political camps. President Lyndon B. Johnson's wife, nicknamed Lady Bird, was long acquainted with Richard Nixon's wife, Pat, so the meeting was warm and friendly. As they walked by the media on their tour, first lady Barbara Bush gave Hillary Rodham Clinton a warning: "They're going to be all over you," Bush said, according to Myra Gutin, a professor at Rider University in New Jersey who has written extensively about first ladies. Clinton thanked her for the advice, but said she already had firsthand knowledge about the pitfalls of dealing with the media. Other tours have led to tense, uncomfortable moments. During the Great Depression, incoming first lady Eleanor Roosevelt asked President Hoover's wife, Lou, to see the White House kitchens. "Mrs. Hoover pulled herself up and said 'Mrs. Roosevelt, I have lived in this house for four years. I have never stepped inside the kitchen and I do not intend to do so now,"' Anthony said. Jacqueline Kennedy had just delivered her second child by Caesarean section when she arrived for her tour. Her doctor had insisted she use a wheelchair, but she didn't ask for one and first lady Mamie Eisenhower didn't offer one. "They said goodbye," Anthony said. "Mamie Eisenhower went off to her bridge game and Jackie Kennedy got into the limousine and pretty much collapsed and had to be in bed for weeks." |
