Jacinto T. Nivera

Jacinto Tornito Nivera, better known as Jack, was born in Agno, Philippines on October 15, 1925.¹ He served in the U.S. Navy as a mess attendant specialist during World War II and the Korean War; during the latter, he was stationed on board the USS Wiltsie.² In 1952, Nivera became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and in 1955, he was stationed at Washington, D.C.’s Navy Yard.³ He later worked at the Pentagon and served as a steward under President Dwight D. Eisenhower “at the White House and Camp David” before retiring from the U.S. Armed Forces in 1965.⁴

Jacinto Nivera worked as a barber for several years before returning to the White House, this time on the Residence Staff, in 1967. For the next fifteen years, he worked in a variety of roles including porter, laundry attendant, and kitchen steward.⁵ 

After retiring from the White House in 1982, he worked for Giant Food and was named one of their employees of the year in 1987.⁶ His obituary noted that outside of work, he was active in the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. and the Ilocano Society of America, a Filipino-American organization. He also “devoted himself to his passions of vegetable gardening, fishing and crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay “ and “drove senior citizens to polling places.”⁷ Jacinto Nivera died on December 26, 2005, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.⁸