George C. Fields

George Clinton Fields was born on July 21, 1911, in Lyles Station, Indiana.¹ George’s brother, Alonzo Fields, began working at the White House as a butler in 1931; Alonzo helped his brother George get his own position as a butler. Around 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt elevated him to the role of valet, working alongside other valets Irvin McDuffie and Arthur Prettyman.² The role of a valet was extremely demanding– it included getting the president ready each day, traveling with him at all times, and moving him about when he could not move himself due to his polio diagnosis; as such, it required Fields to live onsite for around-the-clock access. As Chief Usher J.B. West recalled, “Two of the most important men in President Roosevelt’s life…were his valets, Arthur Prettyman and George Fields. The two men worked a twenty-four-hour shift…”³ 

In February 1942, Fields left White House service to enlist in the U.S. Navy during World War II; he was inspired to do so after visiting a naval training station with the president several months earlier.⁴ Maid Lillian Rogers Parks wrote about the moment in her memoir: “When the war broke out, the White House butlers and housemen were as patriotic as anyone else. I remember so vividly when butler Armstead Barnett and valet George Fields went marching off, and how thrilled we were when each came marching back in one piece.”⁵ He went on to serve as Seaman First Class aboard the USS Patuxent.⁶ After the war, he lived in Chicago, Illinois and worked for the Internal Revenue Service. George Fields died on November 21, 1991, and was buried at Oakridge-Glen Oak Cemetery in Cook County, Illinois.⁷