con amor's blog

meet eugene allen

 abuse

I would LOVE to see the story of his life make it to the big screen.....(repost) Eugene Allen went to work at the White House in 1952. He ascended the ranks before finally being appointed butler.  He's now 86 years old.  To say this man has memories, and pride, is an understatement.

FOR more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land.

At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than the large desk in the Oval Office. Mrs Allen didn't care; she just beamed with pride.

President Truman called him Gene, while President Ford liked to talk golf with him.

He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. "I never missed a day of work," he says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print; the man in the kitchen. In 1952, a lady told Mr Allen of a job opening in the White House. "I wasn't even looking for a job," he says. "I was happy where I was, but she told me to go on over there and meet with a guy by the name of Alonzo Fields."

Mr Fields was a maitre d', and he immediately liked Allen. He was offered a job as a "pantry man". He washed dishes, stocked cabinets and shined silverware. He started at $2400 a year.

There was, in time, a promotion to butler. "I Shook the hand of all the presidents I ever worked for," he says.

"President Ford's birthday and my birthday were on the same day," says Mr Allen. "He'd have a birthday party at the White House. Everybody would be there. And Mrs Ford would say, 'It's Gene's birthday, too.' And so they would sing a little ditty to the butler. And the butler, who wore a tuxedo to work every day, would blush.

"Jack Kennedy was very nice," he says. "And so was Mrs Kennedy."

He was in the White House kitchen the day JFK was slain. He got a personal invitation to the funeral, but volunteered for other duty: "Somebody had to be at the White House to serve everyone after they came from the funeral."

The whole family of President Jimmy Carter made Mrs Allen chuckle: "They were country. And I'm talking Lillian and Rosalynn both." It comes out sounding like the highest compliment.

First lady Nancy Reagan came looking for him in the kitchen one day. She wanted to remind him about the upcoming state dinner for then German chancellor Helmut Kohl. He told her he was well ahead in the planning and had already picked out the china. But she told him he would not be working that night. "She said, 'You and Helene are coming to the state dinner as guests of President Reagan and myself.' I'm telling you! I believe I'm the only butler to get invited to a state dinner."

Colin Powell would become the highest-ranking African-American of any White House to that point when he was named President Reagan's national security adviser in 1987. Condoleezza Rice would have that same position under President George W. Bush.

The butler remembers seeing Mr Powell and Dr Rice in the Oval Office. He was serving refreshments. He couldn't help notice that black people were moving closer to the centre of power, closer than he could ever have dreamed. He would tell Helene how proud it made him feel.

Mr Allen was promoted to maitre d' in 1980. He left the White House in 1986, after 34 years. President Reagan wrote him a sweet note; Nancy Reagan hugged him."

Mr Allen has pictures of every president he served on a wall in his basement. There's a painting President Eisenhower gave him and a picture of President Ford opening birthday gifts, Mr Allen hovering nearby.

On Monday before the election, Mrs Allen had a doctor's appointment. Mr Allen woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged his wife again. He was all alone. "I woke up and my wife didn't," he said later.

Some friends and family members rushed over. He wanted to make coffee. They had to shoo the butler out of the kitchen.

The butler cast his vote for Obama the next day on Tuesday. He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/11/06/GA2008110603114.html?sid=ST2008110604101