Show Park' favorite The FDR: Mr In a mbiiataiN White House: She Ives r immaculate three-roo- a fiat in second-floo- m class area of lower-midd- le Washington DC The stairway Is had with photoyaphs of Presidents First Ladies and their children Most are autographed with warm personal messsagos Mixed with her own simple furnishings are While House paraphernalia: Mrs Calvin CooBdge’s perfume bottles Mrs Herbert Hoover’s phonograph FDR’s china figurines Lillian Rogers Parks and- - her late mother Maggie Rogers were as dose to eight First Famfites as one could get They shared their Joys their griefs and their everyday worries Although they were In a sense a world apart they knew the rarefied world of the White House and its secrets intimately Mrs Parks now 81 and her mother were maids at the White House each for 30 years For a combined 52 years they were privy to the personal fives of the Tafts Wilsons Hardings Cooldges Roosevelts Trumans and Hoovers Eisenhowers In 1961 when she retired Mrs Parks wrote in coBabaration with Frances Spate Leighton a best sefler My Thirty Yean Backstairs at the While Houte Because of Ms revelations bom the trivial (Bess Truman wanted al bars of soap replaced after even one use) to dwr scandalous (Florence Harding yelled over the banister to her husband Warren Don't you dare leave this house tonight!") incoming First Lady Jacqucfine Kennedy had her servants sign pledges (which didn’t hold up in court) never to write such memoirs Mrs Parks’ book has now been turned Bock-stair- s NBC mini-seriinto a nine-hoat the White Home a tort of ur UpstainDoumrtalrt “A real marriage: Ci’HrQ The Eltenhoutert brought back formality A WHITE HOUSE AMID RECAUS EIGHT FIRST FAMIES By Util Savon Grace Cooldge — Maggie's favorite First Lady — was "a perfect lady” says Mrs Parks But she had one strange aversion — women’s voices on the radio The regal Mrs Herbert Hoover’s aver sion was giving verbal directions So she devised a system of sign language — a step forward for instance meant the servant was dismissed Even In the Depression-gloom- y stranger Hoover Administration was fire system of befis Three bsfis ringing signaled that Hoover was leaving a room and anybody In the way had better get out of it — even If that meant the servants had to hide In halway closets d Then Hw a rain came the rambunctious Roosevelts and their never-entfinguests For Mrs Parks who by then began ful time as maid and seamstress (as her mother began her retirement) the Roosevelts "couldn’t be beat They were my favorite First Family" she says "It was an exciting household You worked hard but you were never under pressure Twelve long years and you became a part of them” While Mrs Parks loved and admired Eleanor Roosevelt — "That woman she could work” she says — Ben Truman was Mrs Parks’ first First Lady "We became very doss during those four years in the Blair House I Just grew to much-neede- g love her humor so much” Of al the Presidential marriages she came to know the Trumans seemed by far the best "Harry and Bess — now that was a real marriage” says Mrs Parks 1 don’t think he ever looked at another woman” As far die other Presidents she says discreetly "They had their ways" When the Eisenhowers moved into the White House in 1953 formality straightened Its back again She found Mattes IncredMy fussy Foot impressions on rugs had to be smoothed over immediately The affectionate nicknames used among the servants were no longer permitted neither were the customary tips and many of the lowly paid staff were forced to moonlght "Mamie didn’t know a thing about working with servants” says Mrs Parks “She was used to Army people She had no idea of how long it would take a person to do a Job” Akhoutfi Mrs Parks was as loyal as possMc to each Fbst Family her ultimate loyalty was to the White House itself "The White House belongs to the American people not to the families who live there temporarily” she says "Everything has been written about the Presidents and their wives and their children but the servants were the ones who really made the place go" “When you work at the White House Amcrican-styl- e starring LcsBe Uggams as Mrs Parks and OBvia Cole as her mother Mrs Perks a liny (4' 10") black woman with neat wavy pay fight-skinn- hair Is happy but not overwhelmed by her media success But she still loves to tel her stories With fire help of one of the same dutches she used In the White House — she had pofio in her childhood which affected her left leg — Mrs Parks proudly shows a visitor her home to fufl of history And Mrs Parks still a zestful woman Is a waiting history book of the nonpubfic passions and peccadillos of the Presidents and (heir famlfies "We knew those people their pecul-aritie- s what they Hied and didn’t Hie" she says as she fondles the rcplca of the White House on a necklace she rarely lakes off “Once the visitors left and the doors were dosed they were Hie any other as good or as bad” gold-char- FAMILY WEEKLY January The Truman jbmfy: 1 teTt LKSan Park flanked by Lett Uggamt (right) and OftvJa Cole NBC aerie tears it’s Hie taking the vefl" says Mrs Parks "You never know when you’re getting out" Though her days were long her mother’s were even longer "There was a time when my mother was working 14 16 hours a day and no exfca pay and only half a day off a week When she started In 1909 die was getting $20 a momn” When Mm Parks left in 1961 she was doing a Stile better r- - $10360 every two weeks The unexpectedly paltry pay in such palatial surroundings was made up for the government said by the staff's free meals and uteforms There were numerous unwritten rules that came as second nature to fire "backstairs” crew: give die fatnBer as much privacy as posrible Never ever tall the Incoming Fbst Lady how her predecessor Hied things done (One housekeeper was fired by Bess Truman for doing Just that) And don’t gossip Mrs Parks obeyed this rule fabhfuly When her book came out she had already retired and K cams about partly as a deathbed request by Mrs Parks’ mother who rfied in 1953 She had wanted to write her own book but haver got the chance So she passed her notes and clippings on to her daughter Mrs Parks who notes that Eleanor Roosevelt herself encouraged her to write her memoirs doesn’t consider her book gossipy and to this day defends every Juicy morsel 1 figured I had a right to tel It’s part of history” she says "And besides I didn’t fed that what I told was gossip Because you see I didn’t tefl everything I knew Personal things things you Just don’t tak about The kinds of arguments that occur in any famdy between any husband and wife” With her book and now the mint-seriHe has naturally changed for Mrs Paries She has not made a fortune and she certainly fives modestly "But” she says "since the book came out I haven't wanted for anything I’ve had Mps every year But I only buy what I have to have” Mrs Parks is proud of her profession "I never had any negative feefings about it Neither did my mother and she had been In service since she was 13” But still for all the beds she's made all the tables she's dusted and al the thousands of stitches she's sewn no Job well-dohas given Mis Parks as much pride as die Job of putting her fife first into a book and now on to television for melons to share 1 guess I don't show excitement much but I am excited” she says 1 feel I've accomplished something” What Mrs Parks — the woman who has witnessed decades of history being made — has accomptshed is the writing of a new page of history es Itself ED |