Peter Messara
Cite this Page
"Peter Messara," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/859.
- Position
- Grounds Laborer
- Years in President's House
- circa 1929
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Male
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Presidency
- Herbert Hoover
- Biography
- In 1929, a man named Peter Messara was included on Lou Hoover’s annual staff Christmas list among horticulture employees supervised by Head Gardener Charles Henlock. (1) Messara worked for the Office of Public Buildings and Parks for sixteen years, the department that provided many of the gardeners for the White House Grounds and other government buildings in Washington, D.C. so his tenure at the White House may have extended beyond 1929. A 1939 newspaper article about his death provides some additional information, including that Messara was born in Italy, he had a wife and children still living there, and Messara was his “Americanized,” rather than his legal name. (2) He died on May 31, 1939. (3)
- (1) Employees on Duty at the Executive Office, 1929, Lou Henry Hoover Papers, Subject Files, White House Christmas 1929, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.
(2) Boyd’s District of Columbia Directory (R. L. Polk and Co., 1930), 1078; “Police Probe Case of Food Poisoning,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), May 31, 1939, pg. 10.
(3) “Police Probe Case of Food Poisoning,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), May 31, 1939, pg. 10; “Food Poison Death Under Inquiry Here,” Washington Post, June 1, 1939, pg. 16. - Birthplace
- Italy