Presidents' Day at the White House
Just how does the president celebrate Presidents’ Day? Throughout the more than 200-year history of the White House, presidents themselves ha...
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Alice Roosevelt with a family parrot, ca. 1904.
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Kermit Roosevelt holding his rat terrier Jack, ca. 1902.
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President Roosevelt frolics with Rollo, his St. Bernard, ca. 1906.
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President Theodore Roosevelt and family, 1907.
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Kennedy family at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1963.
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Caroline Kennedy's pet ducks march toward the pond on the South Grounds of the White House.
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John Kennedy, Caroline, and John Jr. with Macaroni outside the Oval Office, 1962.
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Mixed breed Pushinka with her pups on the White House lawn, 1963.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum/NARATwo of the youngest presidents to reside in the White House brought their families and a menagerie of pets along with them. A pony, sheep, dogs, cats, a macaw, guinea pigs, rats, a snake, and many more animal friends lived at the Theodore Roosevelt White House. In 1908 the Washington Evening Star observed, "There is no home in Washington so full of pets of high and low degree as is the White House, and those pets not only occupy the attention of the children, but the President is himself their good friend, and has a personal interest in every one of them."
The family of John F. Kennedy brought pet hamsters Debbie and Billie; a gray cat, Tom Kitten; and a canary, Robin, to the White House. Eventually, ponies Macaroni and Tex; Pushinka; Welsh terrier Charley; German shepherd Clipper; cocker spaniel Shannon; parakeets Maybelle and Bluebell; and Wolf, an Irish wolfhound, would come and go.
Just how does the president celebrate Presidents’ Day? Throughout the more than 200-year history of the White House, presidents themselves ha...
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