Pearl E. Wiggins
- Position
- Pantrywoman
- Years in President's House
- circa 1953 – 1988
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- Black or African American
- Biography
Pearl E. Wiggins was born on May 13, 1917 in South Carolina.1 By 1940 she was living in Washington, D.C.2 She found employment as a domestic houseworker and began working at the White House as a pantrywoman during the presidency of Harry S. Truman.3 White House Doorman Preston Bruce mentions her in his memoir From the Door of the White House. According to Bruce, Wiggins helped prepare food for a formal dinner hosted for Supreme Court justices in November 1953. “Pearl Wiggins and her assistants in the pantry had beautifully arranged the hot food on big silver serving trays. They had to work fast in very close, hot quarters.”4
Wiggins was still working at the White House as pantrywoman in the late 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.5 She passed away on April 26, 1988, and was buried at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood, Maryland.6
- 1920 Census, Red Bluff, Marlboro, South Carolina; Roll: T625_1703, Page 14B, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6061/records/52635767?tid=&pid=&queryId=6a2f6709-9b9e-4d28-848a-fe3f5969d6a3&_phsrc=KCT660&_phstart=successSource
- 1940 Census, Washington, D.C., Roll m-t0627-00554, Page 14B, National Archives at Washington, D.C.,https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/902016?tid=&pid=&queryId=fda8a5d7-54a4-4ab8-9cb9-3a62d424e78c&_phsrc=KCT652&_phstart=successSource
- 1950 Census, Washington, D.C., Roll 3463, Page 2, National Archives at Washington, D.C., https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/62308/records/15220297?tid=&pid=&queryId=3bd7ecf6-bf91-454a-be25-b6c7b3e06011&_phsrc=KCT632&_phstart=successSource; Kathy Lewis, “What Goes into the Preparations for a State Dinner,” The Houston Post, March 2, 1975, pg. 67.
- Preston Bruce, From the Door of the White House (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1984), 26.
- Box 29, folder “Birthdays (Residence Staff)” of the Betty Ford White House Papers, 1973-1977 at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0018/81556614.pdf.
- “Pearl E. Wiggins” in Social Security Death Index, Social Security Administration, Washington, D.C., Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/3693/records/67197825?tid=&pid=&queryId=25054962-2d50-47c5-b0c3-c1ba8059a588&_phsrc=KCT634&_phstart=successSource; “Pearl E. Wiggins,” U.S. Find a Grave Index, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60525/records/186713774
- Birthplace
- South Carolina, USA
- Fort Lincoln Cemetery