President Hoover’s personally-owned and -used historic brass tealight candleholder, measuring 4″ tall and 1.75″ in diameter, featuring a small curved handle on the back. Includes a detailed letter of provenance on White House letterhead from Lillian Rogers Parks, who was a best selling author as well as housekeeper and seamstress at the White House for over 30 years, from President Hoover through President Eisenhower. In part: “The brass candle holder was owned by President Herbert Hoover and Mrs. Lou Henry Hoover. If you read page 228 of my book…you will see more detail about how this was used at the White House on Christmas about 1930…The brass candle holder was given to me by Mrs. Lou Henry Hoover. President Hoover was a quiet and concerned man. He was somewhat aloof but one of the hardest working Presidents I ever served under. Mrs. Hoover was most gracious and went out of her way to be kind to my ‘mama’ [First Maid of the White House Maggie Rogers] and me.” Accompanied by a photocopy of page 228 from her book My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House, reading, in part: “On the first Christmas at the White House, Mrs. Hoover had a Christmas party for fifty…After the dinner, the President, whose dignity we admired, led a march all through the parlors. His partner was his little four-year-old granddaughter, and all the ladies who followed had to ring the bells that were at their places, and the men carried the candles in the darkened room. The march continued up to the second floor, where a surprise was waiting—a motion picture.” Also accompanied by an unused candle that fits the holder. The detailed letter of provenance from Lillian Rogers Parks makes this historic offering special. A fabulous memento from a light moment in the Hoover administration, used in the White House during a joyous traditional holiday celebration.
