Shirley A. Bender

Shirley Adelaide Bender (born Shirley Bailey) was born on January 28, 1923.¹ She grew up in New London, Connecticut, and attended secretarial school in New York City and spent one year at Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario. Prior to her employment at the White House, Shirley worked as a housekeeper at hotels in Boston, Florida, Texas, Virginia, and St. Louis, as well as England and Canada.² She was hired by the White House in March 1970 and named head executive housekeeper which placed her in charge of all housekeeping duties.³ 

In 1971, writer Allen Drury interviewed Shirley and other White House staff for his book Courage and Hesitation: Notes and Photographs of the Nixon Administration (Doubleday & Co., 1971). In the book, Shirley described a typical day as the head housekeeper, which included beginning work before 8:00 am. “Every day, the floors have to be polished, the furniture and china have to be dusted, the gloss of hundreds of brass fixtures has to be restored.” The numerous “dust-catchers” in the White House, including the ornate objects and artwork, made cleaning particularly difficult, as did the constant stream of tourists. In Drury’s book, Shirley complained about tourists who did not respect the White House: “people will put children on antique chairs, they will sit down and eat food and scatter crumbs on the rugs. They will touch the tapestries and the wallpaper and get them dirty. They will throw cigarette butts in the fireplaces . . . I wish there was some way to convince them that this is an historical house and they should take care of it.”⁴ 

On August 20, 1971, Shirley married fellow White House staff member Heinz Bender. The two met at work, as her office was next to the kitchen where Heinz worked as a pastry chef. Her husband described the wedding as a “state secret” that they did not reveal until November, almost three months after the nuptials. The Nixons supported the marriage, however, and gave the couple a wedding gift. It was Shirley’s second marriage, with her first ending in divorce before she began work for the White House. She had two kids with her first husband and three grandchildren. Shirley and her new husband Heinz moved to Silver Spring, Maryland.⁵

Shirley remained at her job until 1979 and served during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter presidencies. One of her most memorable moments occurred when Queen Elizabeth II visited President Ford at the White House in 1976. Dinner was to be held under tents in the Rose Garden to take advantage of the nice June weather. “Before the guests arrived,” said Shirley, “dark clouds gathered and high winds started to blow the tents. We had to round up the kitchen help and anyone else who could hold the tents down. It was rather hairy.”⁶ 

Shortly after her husband retired, Shirley left the White House in 1979 and took work at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C. She soon retired and moved to Longboat Key, Florida, with her husband. In Florida, she occasionally spoke at public events about her experience in the White House.⁷ Shirley Bender passed away on December 25, 2001 and was buried in Rockland Cemetery, New York.⁸