State Symbols

Life in the Mansion

Updated at October 28, 2006 12:19

GOVERNOR MATT BLUNT, FIRST LADY MELANIE, AND BABY MAKE A HOME IN THE GOVERNOR’S MANSION — TOURISTS, TRAINS, GHOSTS, AND ALL

By Danita Allen Wood

Missouri First Lady Melanie Blunt can relate to the words of former First Lady Carolyn Bond: “Living in the Governor’s Mansion is like living above the shop.”

But the Jefferson City Mansion is no corner grocery. With pink granite columns on the front portico, a nearly twenty-foot-wide grand entry hall with plush red settee by a black walnut fireplace mantel, prominent formal portraits of previous governors’ wives, and a gilded harp in the double parlor, the Mansion is a treasured Missouri landmark.

Life in the Mansion means welcoming about sixty thousand visitors ever y year, from dignitaries to tourists. Current residents Governor Matt and Melanie Blunt are in tune with the sounds of those visitors and those of the Mansion.

“The sound of school children touring,” the governor says, is among his favorite. Thousands of Missouri school children tour the first floor every year. At the height of school-trip season each spring, when fourth graders required to study Missouri history visit the capital city, as many as a thousand children a day tour the Mansion. Matt enjoys the excitement of the children as they discover the Mansion. In fact, the Springfield native first saw the Mansion’s exterior on a school trip.

Many children assume the Mansion is haunted. “ They don’t ask whether it’s haunted,” Matt says. “They ask how many ghosts we have.”

When his nephews spent their first night in the Mansion, Matt teased about ghosts. The typical old-house sounds — clanking furnace, creaking woodwork, noisy plumbing — helped convince them it was haunted.

There’s the sound of trains running just below the river bluff on which the Mansion is built. Several tracks there are used for changing train cars. While the low rumbling sound of a train rolling down a track in the distance can be lulling, at three in the morning, the nearby squeal of metal-on-metal and clanging of cars coupling and de-coupling can be disconcerting. “It kept us awake at first, but you get used to it … sort of,” the governor says, smiling.

Then, there are the sounds of ringing phones, the intercom, and staff scurrying about leading tours and events. Schedule permitting, the Mansion is shared with nonprofit associations for special events, and there’s almost always something going on. Sound-proofing was not a consideration when the Mansion was built in 1871, and the Blunts say you can hear the sounds of every tour and event from their second-floor living quarters.

“It’s an honor and privilege to live here, but what we miss about our own space is the quiet and privacy,” says the first-term Republican governor.

But there are compensating sounds: those of a baby. William Branch, the couple’s first child, was born in March.

“One of the best things about being here is the proximity to work,” Matt says. “I can come back for lunch with Melanie and the baby.”

The governor feeds Branch his morning bottle in the study off the small galley kitchen. The study also is where the family relaxes. “Branch’s toys make it homey,” Melanie says. When entertaining family, they use the second-floor dining and living rooms.

The Blunts just moved into another historic-style house — Southern plantation — in an older neighborhood than the Springfield home they sold in September. Rather than bring their own furnishings to the Mansion, Melanie pulled things out of the Mansion’s storage for their living quarters. She says she found wonderful items, such as a bronze sculpture, an antique partners desk, leather chairs, and silver serving pieces donated by previous residents and citizens. She wanted to honor them by restoring the pieces to use, she says.

She also duplicated the nursery in their Springfield home, ordering two of every piece of furniture and using the same fabrics to make the Mansion more familiar and less disruptive to Branch.

When Melanie considers the history of the home, she says she thinks about previous governors’ children who were raised in the Mansion, including those of Christopher “Kit” and Carolyn Bond and John and Janet Ashcroft. She also thinks of Governor Thomas and Caroline Crittenden’s daughter, Carrie, who died of diphtheria five days before Christmas 1882 at age nine.

The Blunts appreciate the bluff-top and Missouri River views their private quarters offer, especially from a porch that runs along the west side of the Mansion.

“I really enjoy the sunrises and sunsets over the river,” Matt says. “Branch and I enjoyed a sunrise this morning.”

Melanie describes poetic scenes of ice floating down the Missouri River and the State Capitol dome in different lighting.

They enjoy those rare peaceful moments, like any other family.

“It’s a home, like any other,” Matt says, “except for the seventeenfoot ceilings.”

And maybe the sounds.

‘IF WALLS COULD TALK’

FORMER Missouri First Lady Jean Carnahan’s book If Walls Could Talk: The Story of Missouri’s First Families provides 600 photographs and an engaging history of the Governor’s Mansion. The 430-page book, published in 1998 by Missouri Mansion Preservation Inc., is a thoroughly researched, well-documented history of the Mansion and its first families. The book and Mary Pat Abele, executive director of MMPI for thirty years, are the sources of the following information. Jean Carnahan also wrote Christmas at the Mansion: Its Memories and Menus. This 160-page book features 180 photographs of Victorian decorations and a hundred Mansion-tested recipes. Both books are available with holiday discounts at www.missourimansion.org or by calling toll-free 877-526-8123. Proceeds from sales benefit the Mansion’s restoration and education programs.

THE FAIRYLAND MANSION

Carey Shannon, niece of First Lady Jennie Woodson, 1873 to 1875, described the Missouri Governor’s Mansion as “a real fairyland, huge rooms, magnificent furniture, magic carpets, chandeliers ablaze with rainbows gleaming through crystal pendants.”

The Renaissance Revival Mansion is still a magical fairyland, especially at Christmas.

The Mansion was built in 1871 after an embarrassing incident when fearful guests refused to attend a reception planned at the dilapidated previous governor’s residence, a poorly built 1834 structure near the site of the present Mansion. Before 1834, the governor lived in the same two-story, forty-by-sixty-foot Statehouse used by the General Assembly.

St. Louis architect George Ingham Barnett designed the new Mansion — built for seventy-five thousand dollars — with red brick, stone trim, and a mansard roof. Governor B. Gratz Brown, his wife, Mary, and their six children were the Mansion’s first residents, moving in on January 20, 1872. Today, the Mansion remains one of the oldest in the country built for and still used as a governor’s residence.

The Browns’ first official guests were Grand Duke Alexis of Russia and George Custer, who came for lunch. The men arrived by train from hunting buffalo in Nebraska just three days after the Browns moved into the Mansion.

Other famous guests who have dined at the Mansion include Jefferson Davis, Eugene Field, William Jennings Bryan, Harry S. Truman, Henry Kissinger, and Barbara Bush.

The first governor to live in the Mansion was also the first whose children enlivened the home. One day as he walked toward the Capitol with a senator, Governor Brown looked back and saw his children running along the edge of the roof, just inside the ornate grillwork. They had climbed through the attic to the roof of the three-story Mansion. He is reported to have said, “Go on to the Senate, Henderson, while I go back and spank the children.”

Governor Brown donated the granite columns that grace the front portico, starting the tradition of each first family leaving a gift to the Mansion. The columns arrived nine inches too short, but the problem was solved by adding a white stone base to each column.

Governor Brown also started the tradition of inviting the next first family to the Mansion to view their new home.

Young Carey Shannon, whose father was the governor’s brotherin- law and assistant, moved into the “fairyland” mansion during the 1873 to 1875 term of the second governor to live there, Silas Woodson. His wife, Jennie, was known for her lively parties. Just twenty-six when she moved in, Jennie threw frequent parties, in spite of her strict upbringing as a preacher’s daughter in Columbia.

The inaugural party entertained guests with the rollicking polka and schottische, which had replaced the sedate minuet after the Civil War. It was reported that dancers swirled “all through the magnificent parlors, waltzing around, through doors, and from one room to another, galloping over people who came in the way, and schottisching recklessly about … until long after the noon of night.”

Several early governors entertained children at Christmas, especially children of prisoners at the nearby state penitentiary. Governor Joseph Folk, 1905 to 1909, even donned a Santa Claus suit to present toys to children at a Christmas party.

CORN FOR THE REINDEER

Children living at the Mansion made the holidays especially joyous. The three children of Governor Herbert Hadley, aged two to six at the beginning of his term in 1909, prepared for Santa by placing grains of corn for the reindeer on the bedroom windowsills of the Mansion.

Once, when First Lady Agnes Hadley came downstairs to greet an Episcopal bishop, she found the churchman and her children kicking a football in the great hall.

Governor Forrest Smith, 1949 to 1953, enjoyed Christmas and other holidays with his grandchildren. He could be seen sneaking around the Mansion on Easter mornings hiding colored eggs. His grandchildren caused excitement at the Mansion at other times, too. One had to be rescued from a locked bathroom by the fire department, and another released a squirrel in the Mansion. When First Lady Mildred Smith’s portrait was unveiled, the covering dropped and blanketed her two-year-old granddaughter, who laughed with delight.

But Governor Smith said: “Sometimes I feel like I am confined in a glorified jail. ... I miss seeing and visiting with my many friends.”

A more recent child pretended she didn’t live there. Julie Hearnes, the first-grade daughter of Governor Warren and Betty Hearnes, lived at the Mansion from 1965 to 1973. She tried to avert attention when her class toured the Mansion. She rode the bus, toured with the rest of the children, and never let on that she lived there. As she left with her classmates, she turned to her mother and politely said, “Thank you very much.”

EGGNOG AND WHISKEY

Governor William Stone, 1893 to 1897, and others of the twelve governors native to Kentucky entertained adult friends at Christmas with their special eggnog blends containing Kentucky whiskey.

The holidays haven’t always been festive at the Mansion, though. Governor John Sappington Marmaduke died at age fifty-four, three days after Christmas in 1887, the date of the traditional children’s party he hosted. The only first lady to die at the Mansion, Mary Dockery, wife of Governor Alexander Dockery, died in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1903. Nine-yearold Carrie Crittenden, daughter of Governor Thomas and Caroline Crittenden, died of diphtheria on December 20, 1882.

While researching her book, If Walls Could Talk, former First Lady Jean Carnahan was struck both by the story of Carrie’s death and the picture of the Hadley children playing on a fountain that once adorned the front lawn. As a result, Missouri Mansion Preservation Inc. commissioned a sculpture and The Missouri Children’s Fountain for the Mansion’s 125th birthday.

ENTERTAINING LADIES

A common theme among the stories of first ladies is the responsibility to be gracious and nonpartisan hostesses presiding over “at homes,” luncheons, teas, dinners, and dances.

Many enjoyed the social whirl. Maggie Stephens, wife of Governor Lawrence “Lon” Stephens, 1897 to 1901, thrived on entertaining and became known as the Queen of Missouri, partly because of her costume at one of her convivial masquerades, but also because of her love of entertaining.

Maggie gave one of the earliest documented public tours of the Mansion. It was a success, and she continued allowing tours. One time, she came home to find tourists looking through her closet.

Hers was the first portrait to be placed in the Governor’s Mansion and started the tradition of first ladies leaving their portraits. When she was a sixtynine- year-old widow, she married a twenty-nine-year-old.

Some first ladies preferred quiet evenings at home to entertaining. Sarah Louise “Lula” Stone, who lived at the Mansion from 1893 to 1897, was one. When their grown children visited, the family gathered before the library fireplace to listen to Governor William Stone read poetry aloud, as had been their habit at home in Nevada.

While she enjoyed those evenings the most, Lula was a proper hostess, who also returned calls promptly. During the Victorian period, ladies established times they were “at home” to receive visitors. Part of the protocol required the caller to leave his or her name card on a silver tray, or salver, prominently displayed near the front door.

Lula noted the difference in protocol between Missouri and Washington when her husband later became a United States senator. In Washington, a visitor could simply leave a card without actually visiting. As well, the lady of the house had the option of receiving a guest or sending word that she “begged to be excused” or was otherwise engaged. Lula disapproved of these social shortcuts. “I thought everyone in Washington was in very much of a hurry,” she said. “No one had time to be at home or finish a sentence.”

Mark Twain once made fun of the etiquette of calling cards. Folding the bottom right corner meant, “I came in person, but you were out.” Folding the top right corner conveyed condolences, and folding the bottom left corner meant congratulations. Twain observed it was “very necessary to get the corners right, else one may unintentionally condole with a friend on a wedding day or congratulate her upon a funeral.”

First Lady, Jerry Dalton, wife of Governor John Dalton, 1961 to 1965, missed casual visits from old friends.

“Everyone feels they have to dress up and put on white gloves when they come to the Governor’s Mansion,” she said.

Whether or not they liked entertaining, one thing most first ladies came to share was a passion for the fairyland Mansion.

“To live in this house is to have a handclasp with history,” Jerry Dalton said. “You can’t live there long and not grow to love the building.”

First Lady Janet Ashcroft said, “Sometimes I walk through this house and look up at these beautiful walls and ceilings, and I still can’t believe I really live here.”

MAINTENANCE WAS A CONSTANT PROBLEM

THE Governor’s Mansion hasn’t always been the fairyland it is today at Christmas. Many of Missouri’s first ladies worked diligently to maintain, restore, and renovate the historic building. Although they had household servants, early first ladies supervised the routine washing of windows, curtains, and the brick, which regularly became covered in soot from the coalburning steam engines that ran within a few hundred feet of the Mansion. One first lady noted the curtains had to be washed every three or four weeks to keep them clean.

Historical accounts describe how Governor Lloyd Stark, of Stark Nursery fame, and his family dealt with the then sixty-six-year-old Mansion in 1937: They stuffed rags around the windows to keep out drafts and set buckets in the ballroom to catch leaks from the roof. The Grand Stairway, temporarily braced with planks during the inaugural reception, needed permanent support. Even more disgusting, rats had moved into the dark, damp basement where the kitchen was located.

At this time, work crews attempted to remove several layers of soot-stained red paint, but the bricks began to crumble. The Mansion was painted white instead.

Governor Forrest Smith, 1949 to 1953, once fell through the seat of a chair in the Mansion. He had just lost twenty-two pounds and quipped, “I thought my diet was going well until this happened.”

By the time Governor James Blair spent inauguration night at the Mansion in 1957, it had deteriorated badly. He spent one night, declared the new quarters uninhabitable, and moved back to his own brick bungalow in Jefferson City. He complained of beds as hard as rocks, rats roaming freely in the basement, vermin-infested woodwork, peeling wallpaper, and cracked plaster walls. He gave a press tour to show non-functioning windows — one in the master bedroom was propped open with a rusty tire iron — threadbare carpet, fireplaces boarded up, worn out furniture, and toilets still operated with old-fashioned pull chains.

A General Assembly committee considered options ranging from total restoration to total demolition. The Assembly ultimately approved only forty thousand dollars to begin partial restoration. Blair’s wife, Emily, supervised the work of replacing faulty plumbing, updating electrical wiring, and removing thirty-eight rats’ nests found in the basement. The Blairs acquired a cat and moved into the Mansion in fall 1958.

But problems remained. Winters were drafty and uncomfortable, what with rotting frames around windows and doors and steam radiators unable to bring the temperature above sixty-five degrees. The Blairs, as the Starks had done, stuffed newspapers between cracks and wore wool coats indoors.

First Ladies Betty Hearnes and Carolyn Bond accomplished the greatest strides in restoration.

When Governor Warren Hearnes and his wife, Betty, moved into the Mansion in 1965, she faced the continuing maintenance problems of her predecessors. Floors were so uneven that there was concern about the heavy wardrobes used in place of closets. The second-floor porch had deteriorated so much it was unusable. When rain dripped through the leaky roof into a third-floor bedroom and onto her daughter’s nose, Betty took action. She had the ornamental ironwork repaired, the roof replaced, and wooden cornices and window casements restored.

While stripping woodwork, Betty discovered long-hidden enclosures for window shutters. The enclosures had been nailed shut and painted over. She had the shutters released and restored, as well as the back porch repaired and enclosed in glass. The Hearnes family had the longest continuous stay at the Mansion, until 1973, and it was Betty’s repair of many structural problems that paved the way for the next first lady’s extensive interior restoration.

Carolyn Bond lived at the Mansion from 1973 to 1977 and again from 1981 to 1985. She undertook the fund-raising of two million dollars to restore the interior to its original Renaissance Revival style with vibrant Victorian colors and period furnishings.

Carolyn started regular, open-to-the-public tours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, using local volunteer docents in period costumes, and she began the holiday candlelight tours. She also helped form Missouri Mansion Preservation Inc., a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that ensures the authenticity and continuity of the Mansion’s preservation. Mary Pat Abele, executive director of MMPI since its inception, says the organization will undertake a major capital campaign next year to fund major exterior and interior restoration, education programs, and an endowment for the future of the Mansion.

Mary Pat says their goal is to preserve the Mansion as a living restoration “where you can walk on the rugs, sit on the furniture, and touch things.”

“The house needs to be lived in,” Jean Carnahan said. “That’s what gives meaning to the restoration and continuity to its past.”

VISIT THE MANSION

THE Missouri Governor’s Mansion offers free holiday candlelight tours. The annual holiday lighting ceremony takes place at 7 pm Friday, December 2. Candlelight tours run from 7 to 9 pm that evening and from 4 to 6 pm Saturday, December 3. For more information, call 573-751-7929. Reservations are not necessary..

December 2005

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