European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 24, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday. December 24. 1985 the stars and stripes Page 17 Harry Truman with his wife Bess left and daughter Margaret viewing the lighted Trees on the North portico of the White House on Christmas eve in 1952. Mistletoe and Holly and once with a quarantine sign when Benjamin Harrison s granddaughter came Down with Scarlet Ever for opening presents or Church serv ices and caroling and Christmas creches beyond the reach of the civil libertarians and often for grim business As usual and sometimes for sorrow and even Romance. The Well organized Eleanor Roosevelt who began her Christmas shopping in january and wrote her Christmas cards in july delighted in holding a supper dance for her Homecoming collegians and their dates in the candlelit East room with the Marine band playing romantic aits but kept Youthful passions in Check by serving raw onions and garlic sausages with the scrambled eggs at the Midnight Buffet. The ghost of Christmas past dropping by on dec. 25. 1861, could hardly have witnessed a bleaker chapter in the history of what Abraham Lincoln called this damned old House Willie Lincoln our Days past his 11th birth Day lies wracked with fever in a tiny third floor room the Coverlet of his bed arrayed with toy Soldier purchased by the president on Christmas eve from a shop on 12th Street run by a crimean War Veteran. Thiee christmases later with Robert Lincoln threat ening to drop out of Harvard to enlist the president receives a Welcome wire torn Gen William Tecumseh Sherman i beg to present you As a Christmas gift the City of Savannah with 150 guns and plenty of ammunition also about 25.000 Bales of similarly a coded message from the aircraft Carrier Princeton off Korea on dec. 25. 1950, brought Harry tru Man the finest Christmas present i Ever received " a recon plane returning from the soldering port City of Hun Ginarn confirms that the final transport has safely joined the Long Convoy inching into the sea of Japan. In one of the greatest Rescue missions in the history of War. 105.000 . Troops and 91.000 civilian refugee have Boon evacuated from the onslaught of Tho red chinese army in the experience of while a Nus usher West who served six presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon no first lady Lovd Christmas in thai old House like Mamie Eisenhower. She helped hang the Huye Groen wreathe in every window arranged Tho Poi Senias. Had a Loudspeaker hidden in the boughs of the fast room tree to pour Forth carols. After services at National presbyterian Church our gun Inions gathered or Enrols around the family tree on the second floor with Mamie at the Organ accompanied on the Harmonica by her Mother mrs. John Doud who had a room on the floor above but at Christmas the Eisenhower while House really belonged to grandson David or whom the presidential Retreat in the Maryland mountains was renamed and his three Sisters the offspring of their Only son. John Mamie always kept a storage closet on the ground door crammed with toys for their frequent lengthy visits. Ardent conservation Theodore Roosevelt with a Brood of us boisterous youngsters in the White House tend to set a National example by banishing Christmas Trees from the White House bul was laced with a Palace revolt led by n 9-year-old Franklin of Loosvelt i my mod on an old fashioned Christmas despite the fire in the Hoover White House Thoie had to be lighted candles on the tree with Buck Etsol water and Long handled sponges at the As Eleanor Seagraves. The Roosevella first grandchild remembered Fleanor lost some of the Holiday spirit when Winston Churchill turned up on the Christmas five. 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 for s noun Fly stirred martinis but the prime minister got on famously with Tho president after some initial embarrassment Over his wardrobe As recalled by in Spector Walter Thompson of Scotland Yard who an swered a Knock at the door. I was astonished to discover the president of the United Spates in a wheelchair All the bodyguard wrote in his memoirs i opened the door wide for him then saw the president look curiously beyond me. Not with fright but with something very unlike approval Winston Churchill was Stark naked a drink in one hand. A Cigar in the the president turned his chair around in Retreat but Churchill waved him in. Come in. Franklin we re quite he boomed you see. Or. President. I have nothing to that evening Churchill pushed the president in his wheelchair now draped with a Gas mask out to the South portico or the last lighting of the tall outdoor tree until the end of the War. The next Day before sitting Down to a strategy session before maps set up in the Monroe room he endured Edh s Stow deliberate opening of the presents which Muht take hours it he unwrapped and began Reading a few chapters of a favorite Dorothy l. Sayers murder mystify protocol on Christmas at 1600 i Rui . I ave always has gone up the Chimney the of the Yule log. Which John and Abigail Adam-., to original tenants first burned in 1800. Aloft a with
