Bluette Pannell
- Positions
- Maid
- Nurse
- Years in President's House
- circa 1941 – 1953
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- Black or African American
- Biography
Bluette Pannell was born in South Carolina in the 1880s.1 For many years, her husband, William Pannell, worked as a custodian, janitor, and doorkeeper at the White House, while Bluette stayed home.2 After William Pannell’s death in 1941, Bluette began working at the White House as a live-in maid to make ends meet. According to White House Maid Lillian Rogers Parks, Bluette lived on the Third Floor and cared for Diana Hopkins, daughter of presidential aide Harry Hopkins.3 Parks wrote that Bluette was Eleanor Roosevelt’s favorite maid, and also a favorite of Mrs. Roosevelt’s friend Lorena Hickok– so much so that Hickok named her car “Bluette.”4 In 1945, the Roosevelts gave Inauguration tickets to Bluette; a newspaper report on the event called her “the trusted friend of the family.”5
After Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death, Bluette Pannell continued to work for the Truman family. She cared for First Lady Bess Truman’s mother, Madge Wallace, at Blair House during the Truman Renovation (1948-1952) and was there during the 1950 attempt on President Harry S. Truman’s life.6 It seems that Bluette left White House service at the end of the Truman administration, as she is not referenced there beyond 1953. Pannell died on March 21, 1960, and was buried at Saint Joseph’s Parish Cemetery in Morganza, Maryland.7
- There are many inconsistencies regarding Bluette Pannell’s birth year on official documents such as census data. See Bluitt Pannell in the 1920 United States Federal Census, Year: 1920; Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: T625_209; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 243, Ancestry.com; Bluette Bunnell in the 1940 United States Federal Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: St Mary’s, Maryland; Roll: m-t0627-01559; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 19-11, Ancestry.com.
- Bluitt Pannell in the 1920 United States Federal Census, Year: 1920; Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: T625_209; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 243, Ancestry.com; “White House Custodian is William M. Pannell,” The Afro-American (Baltimore, Maryland), September 2, 1933, pg. 17; “William Pannell, 30 Years in U.S. Service,” Times Herald (Washington, D.C.), June 10, 1925, pg. 5.
- Lillian Rogers Parks, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1981), pg. 34-35; "Roster of White House Employees, Revised, April 1, 1944," Folder: Investigative Case Files, 1934-1945, Records of the United States Secret Service, 1933-1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.
- Lillian Rogers Parks, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1981), pg. 34-35.
- “Maid Sees Inauguration,” Wichita Falls Times (Texas), January 25, 1945, pg. 8.
- Lillian Rogers Parks, My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House (New York: Fleet Publishing Co., 1961), 89-90; Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 82 Congress Second Session Vol. 98 Part 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1952), 1274.
- “Pannell, Bluette,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), March 23, 1960, pg. 26.
- Birthplace
- South Carolina, USA
- Saint Joseph’s Parish Cemetery
- Related Workers
- William M. PannellHousekeeping and Laundry, Ushers, Stewards, and Doorkeepers, 1909 – circa 1936
- Lillian Rogers ParksHousekeeping and Laundry, 1929 – 1960
- Julia Mitchell SharpHousekeeping and Laundry, circa 1943 – 1952