Mary Campbell

At this time, little is known about Mary Campbell prior to her work for the Roosevelt family. Campbell served as personal cook to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, at their family estate Springwood in Hyde Park, New York. According to Housekeeper Henrietta Nesbitt, Campbell was an “Irish girl” who “was awed neither by ration points nor Presidents, and did things her own way.” After Sara’s death in 1941, the president brought Campbell to the White House.¹ 

She lived at the White House and was in charge of the private family kitchen on the Third Floor, where she prepared “specialties for the Chief Executive and small groups of his favored guests.” According to the New York Times, “Miss Campbell cooked all the dinners eaten by the King and Queen of England while they were week-end guests at Hyde Park [in 1939], and still reigns supreme in the culinary department of the Roosevelt family home.”² Campbell likely remained at the White House until President Roosevelt’s unexpected death in April 1945.³ Further information about her life is unknown at this time.