Sanford L. Fox

Sanford Luther Fox, often called “Sandy,” was born on December 2, 1919, in Weston, West Virginia.¹ Though he was raised on a farm, he developed a skill for calligraphy at a young age. While in high school he took correspondence classes and got a job handlettering signs for a local grocery store. After graduation, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked in a series of short-term jobs including as a soda fountain operator, a messenger for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and in the advertising department of the Peoples Drug Store company where he used his calligraphy training.² 

During World War II, Fox worked for the Air Transport Command, ferrying important passengers via airplane to overseas events including celebrities like Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart flying to USO shows. In 1943, Fox worked on the plane that transported President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Tehran, Iran, for a conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.³ During the conference, the U.S. government hosted a dinner for the world leaders, but before the dinner began, someone misplaced the placecards. “Thanks to my correspondence school studies,” Fox later claimed, “I was able to volunteer to hand-letter the placecards in time to avoid a serious breach of etiquette.”⁴ After this trip, Fox joined the U.S. Navy and served until 1947. 

He first began working at the White House in January 1945, when Fox was brought in from the Navy to assist with invitations for President Roosevelt’s fourth Inauguration.⁵ From 1945 until 1947, Fox worked at the White House as an assistant to the naval aide to the president, Harry S. Truman.⁶ In 1947, Fox joined the newly-formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), though he was occasionally assigned to the White House to work as a calligraphers.⁷ In 1959, while he helped preparations for a State Dinner hosted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Fox was asked to join the White House staff full-time in the Social Entertainment Office, which he accepted. In January 1961, when Adrian B. Tolley, the head of the Social Entertainment Office retired, Fox was promoted to his position.⁸ 

Fox was head calligrapher at the White House from 1961 until his retirement in 1975. His job blended calligraphy with graphic design and event planning. He and a handful of other calligraphers designed and created the invitations, placecards, menus, programs, and all printed materials for the various State Dinners, luncheons, and other events hosted at the White House. Typically, most of these materials were printed with only the recipient’s name and date of the event left blank to be written by hand. When it came to invitations to State Dinners, Fox recalled that “it takes from three to five minutes to write in the names of each person invited, two minutes to write in the date, and an additional two minutes to address the envelope,” which, when multiplied for several hundred guests, was an extensive time commitment.⁹ Fox also routinely helped the social secretary create the seating arrangements, and would usually remain on site until the events began in case there were last minute cancellations that required new placecards or moved seats.¹⁰ When not preparing for events at the White House, Fox and his team created hand-engraved presidential proclamations such as the honorary citizenship gifted to Winston Churchill by President John F. Kennedy, or performed odd-jobs for the president and first family such as creating birthday or anniversary cards.¹¹ 

When Fox retired in January 1975, President Gerald R. Ford and First Lady Betty Ford threw him a party in the White House Theater and gifted him a meritorious service certificate along with a mantle clock.¹² Looking back on his White House career, Fox told a journalist that he enjoyed his work: “It’s been very rewarding and the thing I’ve loved about it so much is the coming in contact with the First Family and knowing the tremendous job that they have to do - that you want to do all you can to make their life . . . relaxing if that’s at all possible, living in the White House.”¹³

Fox died on December 29, 1996, and was buried in National Memorial Cemetery in Quantico, Virginia.¹⁴ He left his family a “trove of documents, keepsakes and other memorabilia” that he collected over his long career at the White House, including a thank you card written by Jacqueline Kennedy and a Russian ruble signed by Stalin.¹⁵