A Lady, First: My Life in the Kennedy White House and the American Embassies of Paris and Rome

The first lady of American style and etiquette and former Kennedy White House social secretary chronicles her career in the Kennedy Administration and beyond. 50,000 first printing.

School Days

Most people look upon Miami Beach as a place where you go to get old and play golf, or as a place to go when you're young, to partake of "what's hot" at the South Beach nightspots. It was actually my birthplace, in 1926, in St. Francis Hospital. I was baptized in a properly posh spot-Star Island No. 2-replete with mansions, none of which belonged to the Baldriges. My father, Malcolm, a young lawyer from Omaha, Nebraska, at the time, had taken my mother and their two boys, four-year-old Mac and two-year-old Bob, to Miami Beach to make a quick killing in Florida real estate, which had begun to boom. My parents must have looked upon the experience as a sort of how-to-become-a-millionaire gamble, which unfortunately they lost. Shortly after I was born, the real estate along Collins Avenue in Miami Beach turned sour. At least I have one souvenir of this Florida experience: a birth certificate printed on pale pink parchment, with gold lettering, announcing "Your Treasure is Registered," a document that would cause me great embarrassment every time I entered a new school and had to present it.

In 1928 my parents packed us all up and took us back to Omaha, from whence they had come. My father returned to the practice of law in his strict father's office, smarting under the I-told-you-so attitude of his gruff parent. Mother, Regina ("Jean"), was the beautiful titian-haired daughter of one of the town's most respected horse-and-buggy doctors, James Connell. She and my father, a Yale football star, captain of the wrestling team, and a World War I hero, had married a couple of years after he had returned from France.

People who were born around the Great Depression of the 1930s, which began with the crash of the stock market in 1929, remember that period as a great leveler of society, a time that drove families together with iron ties and that made you appreciate your blessings more than ever before or ever after. I didn't understand or remember the economic theory and sociological results of that era. I just remember having young parents, two grandmothers whose lifetimes extended far beyond those of their husbands, and two brothers who were to make my life absolutely miserable, even though they were the best thing that ever could have happened to me.

Our grandfathers died before I was born, but we lived in Grandpa Baldrige's big old house in Omaha. Both grandmothers, as was the custom in those days, came to live with us, at separate periods, of course. World War II would have started early if they had shared the big house with us simultaneously. There was a real respect for grandparents in those days. They were considered special and wise, and were paid honor by the younger generations. They were instrumental in the installation of values in their grandchildren. Manners, too. At dinner they would make mental notes about everything from "Bobby was particularly noisy with his soup tonight" to "Malcolm and Letitia had an unacceptable fight over the last piece of cake, carried on under the table." There would be a private conversation with each child later about these transgressions, parents not included.

I remember every detail of that house at 124 South Thirty-ninth Street, it was so big and utterly fascinating. There was a large stained-glass window on the landing of the carved wood stairway, which culminated in a two-foot-tall bronze statue of a nude Winged Mercury. This statue was much scrutinized and disrespected. My brothers would adorn him with their neckties, sometimes a stocking cap or baseball cap over his curly head, and often a bandage taped with adhesive on his private parts.

My father, an only child, marveled at the wonderful calm and serenity that surrounded my mother, who had grown up in a family of boys and therefore knew what all the noise was about. My memories of my mother are clear, luminous, spiritual. She ran a perfect household, was always at the front door when my father came home, and spent every hospital stay of her three accident-prone kids by sleeping on a cot by our beds until we could go home again. She was a beautiful woman with shiny auburn hair and perfect skin. She welcomed all of her children's friends, fed them, soda-ed them, dispensed advice on their love life, and made them clean up any mess they made in the kitchen. Growing up, I heard so many times the reaction of our friends, "Gee, your Mom's great!"

There is no argument there.

My relationships with my brothers were always paramount in my life. We were combative in our younger years, but mutually supportive in our later ones. My earliest memory is also the first in a long line of encounters between my brothers and me. One day when I was two years old, they undid the safety gate at the top of the long stairway and pushed me down it as I sat on my kiddie cart. It was a head-over-heels action-perhaps Mac and Bob had wanted to see how well their little sister could bounce. My mother was certain that I had been killed, although she was together enough to call the pediatrician instead of the funeral home. Dr. Brown heard my screams over the telephone and asked, "Is that hollering coming from your daughter?" When told it was, he instructed my mother to bring me down to his office at once, but not to worry. I was "obviously fine and was possessed of an extremely strong pair of lungs." So it was that my first memory was also my first experience in practicing survival among my brothers, who explained their actions as an attempt to toughen up their sissy, overprotected sister.

The main drawback to our house in Omaha was that I had to share a bathroom with Mac and Bob. They were always leaving dirty things like sneakers and sweat socks on the floor of this room without locks. When girls came over to play with me, my brothers would burst in on us without so much as a knock on the door. A younger sister has no delusions about the opposite sex. She learns how to handle herself and to give as good as she gets. It's the kind of expertise that is very helpful later in life in the working world.

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As contentious as my relationship was with my brothers, my relationship with my father was loving. I could always count on a kind word and a straight answer from him. None of my friends were as close to their fathers. From a very young age I was aware that one of the tools used by "Big Mac," as my father was called, to make people happy was his ease of speaking, in public or in private conversation, and on any subject. I was his biggest littlest fan. I loved how he interacted with people-with everyone. I noticed how he had become intimate friends with the policemen in the neighborhood, the haughty art museum curator who lived around the corner, the butcher, and the mayor of the city of Omaha. As Mother explained it, "Your father knows how to talk to people." This attribute became especially valuable when he later became a congressman. He never said no to anyone, whether he was asked to submit legislation to raise the subsidy for museums, or support raising the retirement fund for police and firemen, or help a young boy who wasn't making good grades get into Andover, or labor to keep the Chicago stockyards from swallowing the Omaha stockyards.

It wasn't only that he knew how to talk to people, but that he made the time to do it. He was an artful storyteller, and whether he encountered an old man, a little child, or a young couple, he gave them his undivided attention and promised to help. He never talked about it or bragged about it. He just did it. His children did not have to be told to admire their father. We just did.

When my father ran for Congress, I was the only one in the family who wanted to accompany him on his campaign swings to western Nebraska in the old maroon Pontiac, hoping to pick up some votes. The candidate made a policy of giving a political speech only if there were more than four people sitting outside the grocery store on a town's main street. They were mostly men, smoking, leaning back on their wooden chairs, passing the time of day together. But they were voters, and my father was determined to reach them-ten-minute speeches, many handshakes. I did not understand the message my father was relaying over and over, but it was fun to see this part of the state that was so different from our big, sophisticated city of Omaha.

We would often be invited to lunch in a farmer's kitchen, served at a big round table that was usually covered with a printed oilcloth with a special scent. The women always looked tired, but also proud of their food, which took them all morning to prepare. There would be fried chicken, steaming mashed potatoes dotted with blobs of melting butter, platters of wholesome breads, and separate serving bowls of whatever vegetables happened to be available. Pies, too, hot delicious fruit pies. My father explained to me afterward that our host family would do without to serve us such a special meal. Many of them lived a humble life, some without indoor plumbing. I was amazed to see they used outhouses instead of bathrooms. Eventually other farmers would join the table to ask my father questions about what those overbred, elitist, patent-leather-pumped politicians in Washington were going to do about the drought-stricken bread basket of America. Because of the presence of the congressman's little daughter, they edited out the cuss words. I didn't understand what they were saying, but I certainly understood the emotions involved.

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By far the most important piece of furniture in the house in Omaha was the heavy oval mahogany dinner table. It must have weighed a ton. The ersatz Queen Anne chairs were constantly occupied at mealtime with family, adult friends, and child friends. Millie never knew how many would be coming for dinner. If Mac, Bob, or I were late for meals, woe be unto us, because certain small punishments would head in our direction. We had to come to the table with hands washed, hair combed, and clean clothes. The boys had to wear sweaters or jackets, with their shirttails tucked in. If there was no guest for dinner, I could get ...