Family Weekly 1 HHP 2Q, HMO
Inscribed photo dates friendship to 1943.
My Friend
V
Acquaintance with people like Clement Attlee and Sir
Winston Churchill never lets Mamie forget old friends.
Next Friday the President and Mrs. Eisenhower
celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary;
here is an intimate glimpse of the First Lady
by someone near and dear to her
MAMIE
By MARGARET DE MILLE
Prominent in the fashion merchandising world for 20 years,
Margaret de Mille is a niece of the late film producer-director Cecil
B. de Mille and is the sister of famed choreographer Agnes de Mille.
She has been a personal friend of Mamie Eisenhower since they first
met in wartime Washington in 1943. Twice a grandmother, Miss
de Mille lives with her husband in New Rochelle, N. Y.
I mkt my friknii Mamik. during the war, just after
General Eisenhower had Rone overseas to
launch the attack on North Africa. A Rill I knew,
Kitty, was staying at the Eisenhower apartment in
the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, and she
invited me down for a weekend.
She also invited me to shop for bedspreads and
curtains which, due to wartime shortages, were
more plentiful in New York than in the District
of Columbia. I arrived on a Friday evening in June,
1943, lugging my bulky package of curtains.
Kitty greeted me and introduced me to Mamie,
and I noticed for the first time those clear blue
eyes that sparkle with friendship.
It is hard to do Mamie justice either by words
or photographs. Nothing can convey the freshness
of her complexion, the delicacy of her coloring, or
her feminine daintiness nor can any still picture
convey her vitality or her healthy animation which
is as powerful as an electric current.
My first weekend in Washington was a quiet one.
It was fiercely hot (those were the clays befor
air conditioning). The curtains I had brought dow
proved to be too long for Mamie's windows, so w
sat hemming them up and chatting in our night
gowns! It was a completely relaxed and intimnt
two clays.
My wartime job was in the New York office i
the OPA (Office of Price Administration), an
every time I had to go to the national office i
Washington I stayed with Mamie in her spare roon
(Kitty had returned to her home in New Jersey)
Mamie lived quietly during the war years, stay
ing in her apartment most of the time. I sooi
learned it was the gathering place for the wivi
of other generals who were overseas. The wome
met in the evening to play mahjong, to talk, t
share news, and to comfort one another, thoucJ
the war, as such, was rarely discussed.
It was at this time that I learned that everythinl
in Mamie's life is placed on a very personal basi
I would hustle in from New York, full of what
Fut'iihi UVeUt,, June IM'I