National Geographic: Inside the White House Page #3

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the nation was still in mourning

for President John Kennedy.

One of the times that was

a throat gasping time

for me

was the morning of a December the 22nd,

when I came down to the first floor

where all of the chandeliers

had been draped in black net,

and to come back and see that gone

and the Christmas tree

brilliantly alight,

I think we had it in the Blue Room.

That was just a...

you just gasp with sort of a relief,

and now we are started,

and life will go on.

For the first families,

from the moment they move in,

life goes on in the public eye.

For their own sanity,

there must be a refuge

and at the White House it is upstairs.

Only above this stair

is privacy absolute.

Never, while the Presidential family

is in residence,

may cameras pass beyond this gate.

Cameras above the first floor

are still rare,

because this is where the families live.

The second and third floors

are one of the few places on earth

where the families

are not accompanied by Secret Service.

At the heart of the second floor

is the Yellow Oval Room

which leads to the Truman Balcony.

These rooms provide a haven,

a place safe from everything

but history.

For me, I would get so caught up

in what I was doing

that you forget where you are...

that this is home.

But then we'd sit down at dinner

at night

and here would be

Abraham Lincoln's plate,

and then it would all just kind

of come back,

here I am in this historic house,

and it was overwhelming sometimes.

While overwhelming, this public housing

does come with some useful amenities.

Living in the White House

is quite a dream for any homemaker.

There's somebody to do everything,

and it's not just the wonderful

butlers and maids,

but if you need a plumber,

all you do is pick up the phone

and the plumber is there right away.

Well, when President Johnson

first came into office,

the Chief Usher call me up and said

the President wants to talk to you

about the shower.

He says, "Come up," so I came up.

The President stepped off

the elevator coming down

going to the Oval Office that morning.

So, he told me he wanted more water,

colder water, and he said,

"If I have to, I'll go over

to the Elms and take my shower."

So the first thing I did,

I got a chauffeur and went to the Elms

to see what he had over there.

And we came back to the White House

and we thought we had it,

you know, perfect for him, you know.

We had it much better

than he had at the Elms.

But, he wasn't satisfied with that.

He wanted 50 degree cold water.

He wanted body sprays around him.

And then he told me that

he wanted a showerhead

about two feet off the floor.

He said, "I want a showerhead

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