Working atop the General Store at Plymouth Notch, summer of 1924. L to R: Secretary C. Bascom Slemp, President Coolidge, and stenographer Edwin Geisser.

Calvin Coolidge was a master of administration and time management. He knew how to process the most daunting workload, leaving each day’s desk clear and ready for what tomorrow would bring. Each day brought something new. It gave practical expression to his old maxim: “Do the day’s work.” A large portion of Presidential responsibility is handling the paper that runs through the office. He stands as one of the best executive administrators the Presidency has yet to see. Moreover, he knew the “secret” of that success. He once visited the house of poet Emily Dickinson in Amherst and had the opportunity to view some of her manuscripts. As his focus turned from page to page, he calmly gave his appraisal: “She writes with her hands. I dictate.” He certainly did, relying principally upon his personal stenographer, Mr. Edwin Geisser, for the press conference transcription, voluminous correspondence, daily memos, and frequent addresses making their way from the President’s mind to millions present and future.

His pencil marks preside across thousands of documents but, ever efficient, they rarely appear with the content itself in his handwriting yet they are unmistakably his own. The handwritten exceptions have become some of his most famous statements (like his “I Do Not Choose to Run for President in Nineteen Twenty Eight” or his Christmas message of 1927).

When Mr. Geisser had been tasked elsewhere, the work could not wait for him, that would be inefficient. One of the President’s backup stenographers was Mrs. Bernico Ponton, who usually assisted Mr. Geisser but also helped J. Stuart Crawford, one of Coolidge’s in-house researchers. Interviewed by the Springfield Republican in 1927, Mrs. Ponton’s distinction came not only from her skills for rapid transcription but also as the only woman to whom Cal dictated letters. Interestingly, Mrs. Coolidge never dictated letters but wrote them in longhand. If typing was to be done by “Polly” Randolph or Laura Harlan, it would be the First Lady who would write the letter herself. She enjoyed typing on her own typewriter so much, even that stage of the process would often witness her tapping away the reply herself.

Calculating the various pensions of veterans appropriated by the “Bonus Bill,” taken at the Veterans’ Bureau, November 1924. Photo credit: Shorpy.

Mrs. Ponton, an experienced office manager in her own right, setting out on her career straight from high school in Maine, began working in Boston then at the Veterans’ Bureau in Washington to be shifted to the White House at the outset of the Christmas holiday in 1924. She found Mr. Coolidge to be the best dictator she had known. He never walked around, paced the floor or tore out his hair as he dictated. He never agonized over a single word. Instead, he sat beside the large mahogany desk in an armchair, working out quietly and exactly what he wanted to say. Once he began, he stated the entire sentence, rarely changing any of the wording and never struggling to find a better way to say what he had said. He had already thought it out.

If he had one fault, Mrs. Ponton said, from her professional point of view, it was this: He had such an extensive vocabulary that it would force her to search out a dictionary for the obscure and unique words that seemed to effortlessly be at the top of his brain, ready to capture the precise meaning he wanted to convey. His letters, characteristically, were usually terse and concise, a source of many a humorous anecdote in their own right. For routine mail, as White House postman Ira Smith could attest, it received only the briefest glance and a rapid-fire note in pencil at the top of the letter, issuing what instructions he wanted for its reply, to be carried out by secretaries.

Mrs. Ponton was always on time, unlocking her desk at 9 each weekday morning, and ready to work. She witnessed some of the era’s most exciting moments, including the Lindbergh visit and the chaotic aftermath of Coolidge’s refusal to run again. She and her husband enjoyed the closeness to the White House in an apartment a few blocks away and, in an office of 18 people, the Coolidges meant more to them than mere employers. They would become family.

One of Coolidge’s regular habits when kept at his desk for long stretches of time was removing his shoes and placing his feet in the most comfortable place he could think of…inside the waste paper basket. It appears the photographer caught the placement of the bin even in the President’s absence. Photo credit: HistoricImages.

At the New Willard Hotel, early August 1923. Photo credit: Alarmy.

Mr. Bob Kanehl for Manchester, Connecticut’s Journal Inquirer, has recently featured one of the most illustrious Cheneys of the Manchester region of that state who played a very public part in American history. His family is known for many generous legacies in that area but one of its most unsung is national service. Perhaps this Cheney’s quiet and regrettably forgotten role will receive a measure of long-delayed recognition. He is Army Colonel and West Point graduate Sherwood Cheney, who served as a military aide for President Calvin Coolidge.

Colonel Cheney’s life is quite a remarkable one and we render our salute not only to the faithful Colonel but also to the commendable efforts underway to remember him and the many selfless men and women who faced the War that was thought would end them all. It was, after all, the one that not only took most of a generation, leaving cavernous marks not merely on the land but across countless human lives, leaving all who experienced it forever imprinted by its unprecedented material and psychological devastation. It was as much a spiritual conflict as a material one (as all wars are), and yet it came to America, still so much younger than the Old World, at a time when she seemed ready to shoulder the burden. It came with an intangible price but she also met that price squarely and unflinchingly, when it could have been far easier to pass the hard decisions to posterity.

Colonel Cheney’s generation demonstrated that sacrifice and obedience are not things to cynically scorn or treat with lip service allowed only in the mythical safe spaces of sublime feeling or personal convenience. They did not confuse the love due one’s neighbor with an unending permission to abuse or be abused as suited the ignorance, envy or cruelty of others. Neither was this summons to sacrifice a communal passing-of-the-buck to assume the entire weight of the burden only each one (and each nation) must bear alone, if freedom meant anything at all. The notion of equality did not contain some right to demand of others what you were unwilling to give yourself. Respect and honor were not hostile to happiness as if they were vestigial cargo from an unenlightened age. They were integral to fulfillment, something far more substantial than personal happiness. No, respect was not a privilege to be taken but an honor to be given.

Colonel Cheney and his contemporaries did not dismiss the faintest patriotic fervor as born of a sentiment that could only be possible under coercion, delusion or hypocrisy. Patriotism was something to share but it was authentic and often spontaneous, not cloistered in fear of social or cultural recrimination. They were expressions of which all could partake whether around the town square or beneath the Capitol dome itself. And most importantly, that generation did not fail to understand the difference between standards and ideals. They knew there were common qualities, a shared nature of humanity, that mankind (in the universal sense in which it had been understood for millennia) fell well below ideals constantly. Doing so no more discredited the dignity of those aspirations than it required the surrender of higher standards or the persistence to get up and start again. Such was the task and the joy of life. It was not someone else’s conscience to bear or life to answer for, it was your own. The practical application of sacrifice with obedience and the giving of respect with honor remain the only enduring things that bring us back out of all the counterfeit escapes and cheap imitations to genuine reality.

Here is to Colonel Cheney and that greater generation!

11 Jun 1927, President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge are shown with Colonel Charles Lindbergh and mother at the Patterson House on DuPont Circle in Washington, D. C.,by © Bettmann/CORBIS

The Coolidges at Tarpon Springs, holding gifted sponges, January 10, 1930. Photo credit: Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society.

The Coolidges had been eager to travel since leaving public life in 1929. It seemed Florida furnished reasons to visit for nearly everyone. Babe Ruth and the Yankees were there for annual spring training at St. Petersburg. Ford returned to honor Edison on his 83rd birthday, commemorated at Rollins College in Winter Park. Al Smith and his family were enjoying Palm Beach. Even President Hoover and Justice Stone were fishing in the Keys.

Invited numerous times to see sunny Florida, this was their first opportunity to visit as private citizens but it came with obligation: the request to deliver a speech. Coolidge spoke on “The Economics of Life Insurance” at Vinoy Park Hotel in St. Petersburg, avoiding politics in the process.[1] He would remind his audience, both present and listening by radio:

“Our country was founded on the…theory which holds that the people are sovereign. While we know that it is vain to look for perfection in human affairs, we are convinced that the best possible government and the best possible economic system are those which the people provide for themselves. We believe that human progress will be greatest where an enlightened people make the law for their own protection and control the business for their own support. We have staked out institutions on the ability and character of the individual. We have recognized that he is endowed with ever power and he must therefore assume every responsibility. That is the essence of popular sovereignty. The people are privileged to follow their own conscience, reach their own decisions, make their own mistakes, and reap their own rewards.”

Even their daughter-in-law’s parents, Governor and Mrs. Trumbull of Connecticut, arrived to enjoy winter there around the same time.[2] Seeking to return to the people from which Presidents are drawn, the Coolidges declined countless invitations to make public appearances or otherwise exert influence on a host of issues. They were supposed to be regular Americans now. Yet, duty kept calling. Their stay in Florida, lasting just over a month (January 8 – February 12, 1930), gave them a chance to recover some of what it was like to be themselves again.

The Coolidges began their visit walking along the St. Petersburg waterfront and motoring to the beaches at Pass-a-Grille in Clement Kennedy’s car. Kennedy was then managing director at Vinoy but known to the Coolidges from hotels around Swampscott, Massachusetts. The Vermont Tourist Society, also staying at the Vinoy, presented flowers, with a gift the Coolidges accepted graciously, sending their thanks via a letter.[3] Billie De Beck, creator of “Barney Google,” and his apprentice, Joe Musial, found the former President in Vinoy’s lobby the next morning. Musial, a future contributor to “Blondie” and “Flash Gordon,” sketched Cal’s likeness.[4] The following day, the Coolidges were welcomed to Tarpon Springs the following day by the Greek community there, sailing into the Gulf aboard the C. Coolidge, renamed in his honor ahead of their arrival, to enjoy an authentic Greek lunch while divers competed for the best two sponges to award the couple.[5] Full of questions for their hosts, the Coolidges posed with their spongy prizes before returning to St. Petersburg.

Brought to Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora by manager and long-time friend, Archie Hurlburt, they spent many happy hours in the main lobby visiting with neighbors they had known from Plymouth and Northampton.[6] The Coolidges attended worship every Sunday for five weeks at Mount Dora’s Congregational Church, walking down the street together as they always had, even while in the White House.

The former President had recently helped settle the estate of Conrad Hubert, inventor of the electric flashlight. Among the approved beneficiaries was Rollins College. The Coolidges were brought to Winter Park by still more friends, the Bachellers, to accept formal thanks from the school.[7] The biggest crowds during their stay, however, came with the dedication of the Lakeside Inn’s Terrace Building two days later. Over ten thousand people from Florida and Georgia, including numerous elected officials, watched as the Coolidges led a procession inaugurating the new structure.[8] As Mrs. Coolidge picked oranges from the hotel’s yard, knitted, played piano in the lobby, attended socials, and shopped in Daytona and Orlando, Mr. Coolidge toured William Howey’s citrus operations, accepted a Lake County fishing license, attended Winter Haven’s Orange Festival, and viewed the blue waters of Silver Springs.[9] Since Mrs. Coolidge had often been asked to plant trees (helping the President plant twin palms for Bok Tower in nearby Lake Wales just the previous February)[10] and Mr. Coolidge had already been tapped for the Terrace dedication, she – not he – was requested to plant a cypress for the new Community Center, which she gladly did.[11]

Together they would help James Kilgallen (father of another legendary journalist, Dorothy Kilgallen) complete his assignment for the International News Service, all without granting a formal interview.[12] Ever adept at handling the press, the Coolidges knew how to diffuse unwanted media attention. When accosted by an enthusiastic female reporter in Daytona with, “You look a great deal like Mrs. Coolidge,” the former First Lady retorted with a smile: “Yes, I’ve been taken for Mrs. Coolidge a number of times,” leaving the reporter to retreat sheepishly before realizing her missed opportunity.[13] In quieter moments, Mrs. Coolidge wrote some of her best-known poems, including “The Quest” while Mr. Coolidge, using Lakeside stationary, wrote out their gratitude for the many kindnesses shown them during their trip.[14] He even went to the local barber shop for a trim, shoe shine, and conversation, another testament to his regard for people as people not classes or colors.[15] At the end of January, the Coolidges drove to the Godfrey home in Orlando, close relatives of Mrs. Coolidge, to enjoy a quiet dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey and their son.[16] The Coolidges motored back that evening. One can only imagine the two, alone with nature at last, navigating the unfamiliar roads back to Mount Dora as the sun set over the central hills. Reluctantly leaving Florida February 12th, they accidentally forgot Cal’s nightshirt at Lakeside.[17] Florida proved to be the most restorative phase of their adventures in post-Presidential travel. As the ninetieth anniversary of their visit approaches in 2020, perhaps we can enjoy anew the time Florida helped the kind, unpretentious Coolidges rediscover what it was like to be themselves again.

Lobby of Vinoy Hotel, St. Petersburg

Photo credit: Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society

Lakeside Inn: Main hotel; Terrace Building, where the Coolidges stayed can be seen in the background to the right.

[1] “Coolidge Will Attend Insurance Meeting in Florida,” Arkansas Gazette, January 8, 1930, 4; Board, Prudy Taylor (2008). The Renaissance Vinoy: St. Petersburg’s Crown Jewel. Virginia Beach: Donning, 40-41.

[2] “Florida Crowded With Celebrities For Winter Season,” The Tampa Tribune, February 10, 1930, 2; “Summer Greets Visitors to Beautiful Southland,” Boston Herald, January 5, 1930, 30; “Hotels and Trips Between,” Boston Herald, January 19, 1930, 35.

[3] “Supper Enjoyed by Vermonters,” Tampa Bay Times, January 28, 1930, 7.

[4] “Young Artist Sees Coolidge,” St. Petersburg Times, January 10, 1930, 7.

[5] “Coolidges Sees Tarpon Springs Spongers Work,” The Tampa Tribune, January 11, 1930, 19.

[6] “Mt. Dora Pays Welcome to Coolidges Upon Arrival,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 12, 1930, 1; “Coolidge Attends Mount Dora Church; Will Attend Rollins,” The Tampa Tribune, January 13, 1930, 5; contrast with some of the myths recollected about Coolidge’s visit in later publications like David R. Edgerton’s 1993 Memories of Mount Dora From Then Until Now. Mt. Dora: Link, 92-93.

[7] “Calvin Coolidge Visits Rollins Last Monday,” The Rollins Sandspur, January 17, 1930, 1-2; “Coolidge Greeted by 2,000 on Rollins Visit,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 14, 1930, 1.

[8] “Mt. Dora Filled With Visitors As Coolidge Opens New Hotel,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 16, 1930, 1, 5.

[9] Pendleton, Judy (1998). The Lakeside Inn. Canada: Judy Pendleton, 46-49; “Mrs. Calvin Coolidge and Mrs. Trumbull are Visitors In Orlando,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 28, 1930, 7; “Coolidge Beams Pleasure Over Visit in Howey,” The Howey Tribune, February 1930, 1; “Coolidge Enters Fishing Tourney,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 29, 1930, 2; “Coolidge Sees Citrus Exhibits at Festival,” The Tampa Tribune, January 24, 1930, 4; Riley, Darrell G. (2003, October 25). “1930-1934.” Retrieved from  https://www.ocala.com/news/20030101/1930—1934.

[10] “Bok Sanctuary Is Dedicated By President,” The Tampa Tribune, February 2, 1929, 7.

[11] “Mrs. Coolidge at Mt. Dora Plants Big Cypress Tree,” The Tampa Tribune, January 25, 1930, 6; “Mrs. Coolidge Plants Tree,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 25, 1930, 1.

[12] “Hoover and Coolidge Vacationing in Florida,” Detroit Times, February 10, 1930, 3.

[13] “The Coolidges Down South,” Rockford Republic, February 12, 1930, 6.

[14] “Coolidge Likes Sentinel,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 16, 1930, 1.

[15] “Mt. Dorans Like the Coolidges,” Indiana Evening Gazette, February 11, 1930, 2.

[16] “Coolidges are Dinner Guests of Orlandoans,” The Orlando Sentinel, January 31, 1930, 1, 8; “Former President and Mrs. Coolidge Are Guests of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Godfrey,” Orlando Evening Star, January 31, 1930, 8.

[17] “Good Night! Cal’s Nightshirt Lost,” New York Daily News, February 15, 1930, 3.