Backstairs at the White House is a mini-series (remember them?) which first aired on NBC back in 1978. I vaguely remember it from back then, but it must have made quite an impression because I remember most of it pretty well. I've also read the book a few times, so that helps. Anyway, the mini-series follows the book pretty closely.
The story is about a mother and daughter who both served on the servant staff in the White House from the Taft administration until the end of the Eisenhower administration. Maggie Rodgers, the mother, began her work in 1909 and worked thirty years, even being brought back for a brief time by request of the first lady. Her daughter, Lilian Rodgers Parks, overlapped her mother a little bit and put in about 3 decades herself. Lilian's service is all the more incredible because she had to get along on a crutch because of polio. She and FDR actually developed a little bit of a bond because of that. Lilian is the one who wrote the book with many, many notes her mother had taken.
We will be returning it soon, so go and get it. It is a long mini-series, so plan on several nights to watch it. If you like American history at all, you will not regret a moment of it.
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