LOU HENRY HOOVER: UNSUNG HEROINE, PART II
Upon Herbert's election as President, Lou moved into the White House ready for the new challenges. She declared the White House "as bleak as a New England barn" and quickly rearranged virtually every piece of furniture and added some of her own. More importantly, she organized a system of cataloging the mansion's furnishings. Many First Ladies had a priority of learning a new language, but Lou Hoover already spoke five languages. Yet, when questioned about her abilities, she equivocated. She did not try to make herself over with new clothes, though she could certainly afford it.
The White House staff found the Hoovers a mix of international sophistication and small town customs. At Christmas, Lou arranged for family and friends to trek through a darkened house with the girls and women ringing handbells and the boys and men carrying candles. The staff dismissed it all as "ghostly" and "another of Mrs. Hoover's ideas." Although she had a reputation for liking to talk (the servants called it "broadcasting"), she relied on hand signals during parties and official functions to communicate with employees. The staff considered it dehumanizing and complicated.
Unlike the Coolidges before them who were not used to having servants and tended to treat them as equals, the Hoovers had supervised large household staffs since their China days. More than one disgruntled White House servant complained in print about uncaring treatment from the Hoovers.
The housekeeper, Ava Long, described many examples, such as shopping for a luncheon for six people only to find that forty would be coming with only a half hour's notice. Once, she instructed the chef to grind up everything in the refrigerator and serve it as a croquette with mushroom sauce. When a guest asked for the recipe, she sarcastically called it "White House Surprise Supreme." The Head Usher called the Hoovers the least likeable of his bosses when he published his memoirs "Forty-two Years at the White House."
But others praised Lou Hoover as her husband's greatest asset. She was tireless in her willingness to welcome groups to the White House. In her busiest year, 1932, she gave forty teas and received eighty organizations. Camp Rapidan, the Hoover retreat in the Shenandoah Mountains, became an extension where Lou invited representatives of the Girl Scouts and spoke by radio to the nation's youth. Much of her generosity, including a school for poor children near Camp Rapidan, came from her own pocketbook.
Lou Hoover had a strong dislike of publicizing her personal life, and that kept her more appealing side private from most Americans. Like her husband, Lou Hoover had a deep resentment "of the intrusion of the press and public into our family life." Even Herbert did not learn until after Lou's death in 1944, how many people Lou helped. Many people who Lou Hoover had supported for years wrote to ask why the checks they were receiving suddenly stopped. Lou's desire to protect the privacy of the people she was helping led to the decision to keep her papers and records private for forty years after her death.
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