What do you get Mr. Hoover for his birthday

By Thomas F. Schwartz

The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum opened a new exhibit, Hoover 150: A Birthday Celebration, that runs until the end of the year. The exhibit features highlights of birthdays of both Lou and Herbert Hoover throughout their lives. A humorous recollection by Ellanor Lawrence, wife of journalist David Lawrence, describes some birthdays celebrated while Herbert Hoover was Secretary of Commerce and living in a brick home on S Street:

"Mrs. Hoover called me and said she wanted us to come to dinner. She said, 'Not a party-just you and David come down.' So David and I went down and we had dinner. Allan and his wife were there-one of the boys-I think it was Allan-nobody else. She had the table out in the garden and it turned out to be Mr. Hoover's birthday.

So in front of his plate she had a great brass jardiniere filled with matches because she said he was always looking for one. Then she had given him an Ingersoll dollar watch. He said that was the only kind he liked. When they were broken he threw them away. So she gave him one. She gave him one every year, she said. Then she gave him a package from me-a tie-on which she had written 'Because I do not like the kind of ties you wear.' Mr. Hoover said to me quite seriously:

'I'm sorry you don't like my ties.' I was embarrassed and said, 'Well, I think this is more becoming,' never having seen it before. So we laughed and had a very good time, and went on home…

He opened the tie. He didn't put it on, but he said he would wear it. A year after that-about a year after that-Mrs. Hoover called-the same kind of an invitation. I said, 'David, this must be Mr. Hoover's birthday because it's just about this time. I'm not going to be caught with another tie. What can I take him?'

I complained to Jack [LaGorce of the National Geographic Society] that David never read any fiction-that it didn't rest his mind-and Jack said, 'I'll give you a book I bet he'll read.' So he gave me a book and I took it home…

David and I had separate rooms but I could see the light under his door, and I was awakened quite late and I saw this light still going and I went in, and David was reading this book-quite late. That was unusual, but he finished it that night. So looking for something to give Mr. Hoover, I thought, 'That must be a good book.' I didn't know anything about it, so I tied it up and took it down, and when he answered the door himself I said, "I don't want to be caught with another necktie so I brought you a book.'

He thanked me and we went on. We had the same kind of a dinner-nobody there but us.

The next morning Mrs. Hoover called me and in gales of laughter she said, 'You know, a funny thing-I gave that book to the Secretary. He finished that book that night, but that's not the funny part-that's not what I'm laughing about. Did you see what was on the cover?' I said, 'No, I didn't even notice the cover."

She said, 'For Boys of Seventeen.'"

Mrs. Lawrence could not recall the title of author but thought it was about fishing or sailing, both subjects that appealed to her husband and Herbert Hoover. Certainly, a reader like Hoover would likely devour anything placed in front of him.

Like the old adage, "You can't tell a book by its cover."

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