Dolly Johnson

Dolly Johnson was born into slavery in Georgetown, Kentucky, ca.1852, to parents William Johnson and Emily Miller.¹ She worked as a cook in Lexington, Kentucky, including in the home of former Union soldier, scholar, and lawyer Colonel John Mason Brown. Sources from this period give two possible explanations for Dolly’s hire at the White House. Kentucky sources posited that First Lady Caroline Scott Harrison wrote to Lexington resident Mrs. H. M. Skillman, asking her to select a local cook. Skillman was distantly related to the first lady through the Scott family. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. outlets suggested that Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt dined at Colonel Brown’s home during a trip to Kentucky and loved Dolly’s food, thus leading to a recommendation for the White House position.² 
 

In either case, she joined the White House staff in December 1889, replacing French chef Madame Madeline Pelouard. The Harrisons paid Dolly $75 per month for her bluegrass cuisine. She worked alongside another Black cook, Mary Robinson, in the White House Kitchen.³ For approximately seven months, Dolly served as White House cook. However, she returned to Lexington in the summer of 1890 “on account of the protract illness of her daughter,” Emma Bailey.⁴ She later returned in 1893, cooking for the Clevelands for a few months before permanently returning to Lexington. There, she opened several businesses, including the White House Café, and married Edward Dandridge in 1894. She died in 1918. She is buried in African Cemetery No. 2 in Lexington; her grave reads “Dandridge.”⁵