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Most Washington hostesses of proper vintage remember Mrs. Grace Coolidge as the woman who was most to be admired during the years after Mrs. T. R. Her quiet charm put all at ease — a considerable feat, since Silent Cal sometimes had a servant rub Vaseline into the presidential hair while he ate breakfast, once ordered a toupee painted on the Red Room portrait of bald John Adams, and often almost paralyzed guests with his wordlessness. The Herbert Hoovers spent a great deal of money on entertainment, but their era was one of work and worry. Eleanor Roosevelt had little interest in purely social affairs. Mrs. Truman has done far more quiet entertaining than is realized; the Washington ladies rate her performance highly.
Great Expectations. As inauguration day grew near last week, however, hundreds of Washingtonians had high hopes for a change not only in the capital's political atmosphere but in that of the White House itself; Mamie Eisenhower is fondly expected to touch off a social renaissance and to lend a new warmth to the affairs of the presidency.
At first glance, it might seem that these well-wishers are doing the next First Lady an unkindness. She is not strong; she suf fers from a heart murmur which makes her hesitate before stairs, and in the past fell prey, for some time, to a disturbance of the inner ear which had a minor but annoying effect on her equilibrium. Last summer she made it clear to her friends that she would have been delighted, if fate allowed, to spend the coming years at the 189-acre farm near Gettysburg, Pa. which she and Ike bought in 1950.
She has never attempted to play the grande dame. During World War II, she was ailing and lived quietly at Washing ton's Wardman Park Hotel. Her social attributes are amiability, a gift for small talk, an ability to put people at ease and to draw them out. She can talk to total strangers as if they were old friends. But the Eisenhower campaign of 1952 demonstrated that Mamie also has a tremendous ability to rise to occasions and an almost startling gift for communicating her charm to the public. Some dubious Ike supporters thought. Mamie might be a drawback to the general—but Mamie turned out to be one of the greatest assets of Ike's campaign.
Rocky Mountain Belle. Her essential character and outlook were formed as the daughter of a well-to-do family in Denver, back in the comfortable years before World War I. Her father, bulky, hearty John Sheldon Doud, had retired as an Iowa meat packer at the gratifying age of 36, had moved his family west, built a massive, three-story brick house on Denver's Lafayette Street, and settled down to enjoy life with his four daughters* and a snorting series of early automobiles.