Richard “Dick” Thomas Tracey was born in Pennsylvania on July 7, 1899.1 He worked as a baggage man at Washington, D.C.’s Union Station before being hired at the White House Garage in 1926.² He initially worked as a footman there; a garage footman typically carried baggage, retrieved cars for use by the chauffeur, and took on other tasks as needed.³Tracey was later promoted to chauffeur. In 1945, he helped get his son-in-law, John P. Muffler, a position as an electrician at the White House, and in 1978, his grandson Rick joined the staff as a calligrapher.⁴ In January 1964, newspapers reported that First Lady Lady Bird Johnson “sent flowers to the man with the most seniority, Richard Tracy, a White House chauffeur since 1926 who is hospitalized.”⁵ He died later that year on November 28, 1964, and was buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Maryland.⁶

Richard Thomas Tracey in the U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, Registration State: District of Columbia; Registration County: Washington, Ancestry.com; “Richard T. Tracey,” FindaGrave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143007947/richard-t-tracey.
Richard T Tracey in the 1920 United States Federal Census, Year: 1920; Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: T625_209; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 244, Ancestry.com; “Lady Bird’s White House Plans,” San Francisco Examiner (California), January 17, 1964, pg. 26; “Parent Enjoying Reflected Glory,” Birmingham News (Alabama), June 12, 1927, pg. 2.
Memo, April 4, 1929, Presidential Papers, Subject File, The White House-Garage Correspondence, 1929, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; Job Descriptions for Industrial Service and Maintenance Jobs (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office: U.S. Employment Service, 1939), 213.
Elyse Werling, “The Man Who Kept the Presidency On Time,” White House History Quarterly 61 (2021), 7-9.
“LBJ Party Cuts into Homework,” The Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio), January 7, 1964, pg. 2.
“Tracey, Richard Thomas,” The Washington Post, November 29, 1964, pg. B10.

Birthplace

Pennsylvania, USA

Gate of Heaven Cemetery

Related Workers: John P. Muffler Sr.
Trades, 1945 – 1995; Richard T. Muffler
Calligraphers, 1978 – 2011