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It was the last brilliant event of Mrs. Nesbitt's career: soon, the strain of war permeated the whole establishment. The President fell into frequent "tizzies" ("Damn it, I don't want beef!" Mrs. Nesbitt heard him cry over the phone). Harry Hopkins kept phoning "for popcorn"; table cloths came back from military conferences perforated with cigarette burns; Mr. Churchill rolled down the passages zipped up in his zoot-suit; exiled monarchs filled suites of rooms.
It was a Thursday when the White House heard that the President had died at Warm Springs. By Saturday, when his body arrived in Washington, the whole staff was in tears and, for the first time in 13 years, "the House itself . . . was paralyzed." On Monday, Mrs. Nesbitt pulled herself together and "went right up to [Mrs. Roosevelt's] room for instructions, as if nothing had happened . . . She had all her clothes out of the wardrobes and over chairs, and was sorting them. 'I'll be out by Friday,' she said . . .
"I stayed on until the Trumans got settled." '