Pago 2
Daily Nebraskan
Monday, December 16, 1985
Mews
'Digest
Ry The Associated Press
:" V F I ' if
Dan DulaneyDaily Nebraskan
James Sanders (42) of the Harlem Globetrotters pokes fun at Gerald Hooks (20) of the
Washington Generals after swiping the ball from him and giving him a purse in exchange.
'ales of GMstmas past
White House holidays from benign to bizarre
o
o
From the Associated Press
Ghosts of Christmas past, some
benign, some bizarre, haunt the old
house on Pennsylvania Avenue.
One Christmas, Dwight Eisenhower
received a set of telescoping Russian
dolls and handcrafted tree ornaments
from Nikita Khrushchev, to whom both
Christ and Santa Claus were non
persons. Dolley Madison got a box of snuff.
John-John Kennedy got a toy model of
the presidential helicopter that lifted
off outside his nursery window. Dou
bling as Santa's elves, White House
carpenters surprised Rutherford B.
French chef. Old Hickory, an orphan
who never had known Christmas, sur
veyed the battleground with eyes
brimming with laughter and tears.
Confronted with the tears of 8-year-old
Tad, his beloved "Tadpole," Abra
ham Lincoln interrupted a Cabinet
meeting to issue a presidential pardon
for Jack, the White House turkey, an
hour away from the chopping block.
Winston Churchill, rumbling around
naked in the Rose Room, ordered a
bottle of brandy for breakfast, then
squeezed into his unique jumpsuit and
went to the Blue Room to help Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt open the presents.
Abraham Lincoln interrupted a Cabinet
meeting to issue a presidential pardon for
Jack, the Vhite House turkey, an hour away
from the chopping block.
Hayes' 10-year-old daughter, Fanny, with
a Victorian dollhouse, which Pat Nixon
brought back a century later to high
light her Christmas decorations. Ben
jamin Harrison climbed a stepladder to
decorate the first White House Christ
mas tree in 1889.
At a Christmas ball in the East
Room, James Monroe's 16-year-old
daughter, Maria, received a whispered
proposal from Samuel Gouverneur, his
private secretary, and a few months
later became the first daughter of a
president to be married in the White
House.
Radiant as the sugarplum fairy at her
first holiday gala in the mansion, John
Tyler's new bride, Julia, 30 years
younger than he, created a tradition by
instructing the Marine Band to play
"Hail to the Chief whenever the presi
dent entered the room. Bachelor James
Buchanan invited a delegation of Paw
nee Indians to share the Great White
Father's groaning board in the great
white wigwam.
Herbert Hoover, pufing on a cigar,
watched from the roof of the conserva
tory as firefighters battled a blaze that
sent an enormous chandelier crashing
down in the president's office, while
Mrs. Hoover kept a Christmas party for
the staff and their families going in the
State Dining Room.
Andrew Jackson presided over an
artiScal snowball fight in the East
Room, arming his two grandchildren
and their little friends with balls of
cotton candy served up by his horrified
Early on Christmas morning, Thomas
Jefferson went to the old Marsh Market
to select the White House goose and
spent the afternoon playing the fiddle
for 100 noisy moppets, including his six
grandchildren. Lyndon Johnson
spent most of the day on the telephone,
while 16-year-old daughter Luci sere
naded the security command post with
the Broadway show tune "The Secret
Service Makes Me Nervous," at top
volume on her new stereo.
Childless, abstemious, no-nonsense
(no dancing or card playing, either)
James Polk labored over a tariff mes
sage to Congress. Woodrow Wilson
skipped church and went to play golf at
the Washington Country Club, distri
buting Christmas baskets to the needy
along the way.
Still in mourning for 16-year-old Cal
vin Jr., who had died of blood poisoning
during the summer, President Coolidge
joined carolers on the North Portico
while Mrs. Coolidge found consolation
in the nativity scene in the East Room,
where she wrote in her memoirs, "The
real spirit of Christmas seemed to
radiate to every recess of that old
mansion."
The dignified Martin Van Buren had
to stand on one leg and gobble like a
turkey when no young lady volunteered
to kiss him in a game of "Spin the
Dish."
Richard and Pat Nixon sent out
37,000 Christmas cards. The Carters
mailed more than 100,000. This year,
the Ronald Reagans sent more than
125,000, and Nancy had the big tree in
the Blue Room trimmed with orna
ments made from last year's cards by
volunteers at drug rehabilitation cen
ters. Christmas at the White House, ever
since the first one in 1800 when John
Adams' four-year-old granddaughter,
Susanna, bit the nose off the doll of a
playmate who broke one of her toy
dishes, always has been a time for tears
and laughter, of blessings disguised as
bedlam and chaos remembered as charm.
It has been a day for children and fam
ily, for games and feasting and gala
balls, for halls decked with mistletoe
and holly and once with a quaran
tine sign when Benjamin Harrison's
granddaughter came down with scarlet
fever for opening presents, for church
services and caroling and Christmas
creches beyond the reach of the civil
libertarians, and often for grim busi
ness as usual and sometimes for sorrow
and even romance.
The well-organized Eleanor Roose
velt, who began her Christmas shop
ping in January and wrote her Christ
mas cards in July, delighted in holding
a supper dance for her homecoming
collegians and their dates in the can
dlelit East Room, with the Marine Band
playing romantic airs. But she kept
youthful passions in check by serving
raw onions and garlic sausages with
the scrambled eggs at the midnight
buffet.
Ardent conservationist Theodore
Roosevelt, with a brook of six boister
ous youngsters in the White House,
tried to set a national example by ban
ishing Christmas trees from the White
House, but was faced with a palace
revolt led by a 9-year-old.
Eleanor lost some of the holiday
spirit when Winston Churchill turned
up on the Christmas Eve after Pearl
Harbor for a three-week visit, without
Franklin warning her in advance. She
never did get used to his strong Havana
cigars and that new health diet calling
for a pint of champagne daily, plus the
breakfast brandy and FDR's ritually
stirred martinis.
Protocol on Christmas at 1600 Pen
nsylvania Avenue always has gone up
the chimney with the smoke of the Yule
log, which John and Abigail Adams, the
original tenants, first burned in 1800,
along with 20 cords of wood to dry the
still-damp plaster, when the White
House was brown, unadorned Virginia
sandstone and called the "Presidential
Palace."
oliticians, artists
ltd screen legends
ohm 1985 deaths
From the Associated Press
From the superstar friends of Rock Hudson to the widowed mother of
Samantha Smith, the nation in 1985 mourned the passing of screen legends,
artists, business giants and those who worked in large and small arenas for
global understanding.
Deaths this past year included the actor identified with "The King and I,"
the bushy-browed senator who chaired the Watergate hearings, the author
of "Charlotte's Web," the developer of the Richter scale and the inventor of
Twinkies.
Entertainment
Hudson's revelation that he suffered from acquired immune deficiency
syndrome focused worldwide attention on the incurable disease. More than
$1 million was raised at a benefit for AIDS research the month before
Hudson's death at age 59. The handsome, rugged actor had been one of
Hollywood's top leading men for two decades, from "Giant" and "Pillow Talk"
to a stint on TVs "Dynasty."
Orson Welles was a Hollywood "boy wonder." At age 25, he experimented
with lighting, camera angles and daring subject matter to create the classic
"Citizen Kane." He never achieved such heights again. Welles, who also
created a panic with a 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast, was 70.
Yul Brynner died of cancer at age 65 after a record 4,625 performances as
the imperious, bemused monarch of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstin
musical, 'The King and I."
Cancer also claimed Simone Signoret, the activist and actress. Signoret,
64, won an Oscar in 1961 for "Room at the Top."
The stage and screen also bid farewell this year to Sir Michael Redgrave;
Edmond O'Brien; Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West in "The
Wizard of Oz"; Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, better known as
Stepin Fetchit; Phil Silvers, and Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck.
Art and Literature
E.B. White, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and essayist best known for
his long association with The New Yorker and for children's classics includ
ing "Charlotte's Web," was 86.
Eugene Ormandy, who led the Philadelphia Orchestra to world fame, was
85; Italo Cahino, 62, was one of Italy's leading writers; Taylor Caldwell, 84,
was the author of more than 30 best-selling novels, including "Captains and
Kings."
Business and Labor
Robert W. Woodruff, 91, transformed Coca-Cola from a soda-fountain drink
maker into one of the world's best-known businesses.
William M. Allen, president of the Boeing Co. for 23 years, was 85. Robert
H.W. Welch Jr., the candy executive who founded the John Birch Society, was
85; Sir William Lyons, founder of the Jaguar car company, was 83.
WA "Tony" Boyle, former president of the United Mine Workers, died at
age 83 while serving three life terms for the murder of a union rival and his
family. Arnold Miller, a reform candidate who then defeated Boyle for the
union presidency, died two months later at age 62.
Also: John Willard Marriott, who parlayed a root beer stand into a hotel and
restaurant empire; designer Laura Ashley, the empress of British country
charm; currency dealer Nicholas Deak; James A. Dewar, inventor and
defender of the Hostess Twinkie; and Hector Boiardi, founder of Boy-ar-dee
Foods.
Politics and Government
Konstantin Chernenko, selected at age 72 to serve as the Soviet Union's
sixth Communist Party chief after the death of Yuri Andropov, died at 73.
Henry Cabot Lodge, the three-term senator and former U.N. ambassador,
was 82. He had served as ambassador to South Vietnam, represented the
United States at the Paris peace talks and was Richard Nixon's running mate
in 1960.
Lodge's brother, John David Lodge, a former ambassador, congressman
and governor of Connecticut, died at age 82.
Former North Carolina Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr., the "country lawyer" and
constitutional law expert who presided over the Senate Watergate hearings,
was 88; Charles W. Sandman, a New Jersey Superior Court judge who as a
congressman staunchly supported President Nixon during the Watergate
impeachment hearing, was 63.
Patricia Roberts Harris became the first black woman to serve in a
presidential Cabinet when Jimmy Carter appointed her secretary of Housing
and Urban Development. Harris, who went on to the top spot at Health,
Education and Welfare, was 60.
Deaths among the political elite also included: Tancredo Neves, who died
the day before he was to be sworn in as Brazil's first civilian president in 21
years, and Dan White, the San Francisco city supervisor who killed Mayor
George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 197a White committed
suicide nine months after his parole.
Science
Charles F. Richter, who developed the scale for measuring earthquakes
that bears his name, was 85.
When Dr. Luther L Terry, 73, was U.S. surgeon general, he issued the first
federal report linking smoking to heart disease and cancer.
Religion
Spencer W. Kimball, who led the Mormon Church for 12 years, lifted the
ban on black males in the priesthood, added the first non-Americans to the
church hierarchy, spoke out against the MX nuclear missile and the Equal
Kignts Amendment and presided over a near-doubling of church member
ship, was 90.
