Obama's election 'really something'
Eugene Allen has fond memories of working for the Reagans. (Family photo)
He trekked home every night, his wife, Helene, keeping him out of her kitchen.
At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than the large desk in the Oval Office.
President Truman called him Gene.
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," Allen says.
His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.
He was there while America's racial history was being remade: Brown vs. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington, the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations.
"We had never had anything," Allen, 89, recalls of black America at the time. "I was always hoping things would get better."
In its long history, the White House has had a complex and vexing relationship with black Americans.
"The history is not so uneven at the lower level, in the kitchen," says Ted Sorensen, who served as counselor to President John F. Kennedy. "In the kitchen, the folks have always been black. Even the folks at the door—black."
Gene Allen and wife Helene, 86, are sitting in the living room of their home off Georgia Avenue NW. A cane rests across her lap. Her voice is musical, in a Lena Horne kind of way. She calls him "Honey." They met in Washington at a birthday party in 1942. He was too shy to ask for her number, so she tracked his down. They married a year later.
In 1952, Allen was offered a job as a White House "pantry man." He washed dishes, stocked cabinets and shined silverware. He started at $2,400 a year.
There was, in time, a promotion to butler. "Shook the hand of all the presidents I ever worked for," he says.
"I was there, honey," Helene reminds him. "In the back maybe. But I shook their hands too."
"President Ford's birthday and my birthday were on the same day," he says. "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'd 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 goes on. "And so was Mrs. Kennedy."
"Hmm-mmm," says Helene, rocking.
He was in the White House kitchen the day Kennedy was slain. He got a personal invitation to the funeral. But he 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 Helene chuckle: "They were country. And I'm talking Lillian and Rosalynn both." It comes out sounding like the highest compliment.
Gene Allen was promoted to maitre d' in 1980. He left the White House in 1986, after 34 years. Reagan wrote him a sweet note. The first lady hugged him tight.
The week before Election Day, Gene and Helene speculated about what it would mean if a black man were actually elected president.
"It'd be really something," he said.
They've got pictures of the Reagans in the living room. He's got pictures of every president Gene's ever served on a wall in the basement. There's a painting President Dwight Eisenhower gave him and a picture of President Gerald Ford opening birthday gifts, Gene nearby.
They talked about praying to help Barack Obama get to the White House. They'd go vote together. And she'd get supper going afterward. They'd gone over their plans more than once.
"Imagine," she said.
"That's right," he said.
On Nov. 3, Helene had a doctor's appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again. He was all alone.
"I woke up and my wife didn't," he said later.
The lady whom he married 65 years ago was to be buried Friday.
The butler cast his vote for Obama on Tuesday.
He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office.
"Just imagine," she said.
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