At Thanksgiving dinner –
Roosevelt sings a ditty and Churchill dances jig
Old-time favorite tunes played by musicians for distinguished group at parley
By Gault MacGowan, North American Newspaper Alliance
Cairo, Egypt – (Dec. 1, delayed)
In a temporary White House which gleamed in actual white against a tropical setting of scarlet flowers, cypresses and peppercorns, President Roosevelt was host at a “family” dinner on Thanksgiving at which the guests feasted on turkey and trimmings and an American orchestra played.
The President’s singing of a little ditty of his own composition, Prime Minister Churchill’s execution of a dance step while waving his cigar, and a proposal by Harry Hopkins to take the orchestra home to the “Twenty-One Club,” a New York nightclub, to learn the very latest tunes were among the most vivid memories of the musicians.
The President’s personally composed ditty, in the key of E flat, was unfortunately unrecorded in either words or music. The Prime Minister’s impromptu dance steps were to the oft-recorded “Sidewalks of New York.”
President’s son present
The joking threat of Mr. Hopkins to take the orchestra to New York to learn some new music came when the orchestra could not meet a request for “Pistol-Packin’ Mamma,” apologizing, “We don’t know the latest ones; we’ve been overseas too long.”
Prime Minister Churchill, who attended the dinner with his daughter Sarah and her husband Victor Oliver, asked the musicians to play “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny.” The request song of President Roosevelt, whose son, Col. Elliott Roosevelt, and son-in-law Maj. John Boettiger, were present, was “Home on the Range.”
Other requests
“Home on the Range” was played four times for the President and “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” four times for Mr. Churchill. There were also special requests for “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “When the Lights Go On Again.” The President followed with suggestions of “Anchors Aweigh” and “Swanee River.”
All the men in the orchestra were presented to the President and the Prime Minister after the dinner.
Among other celebrated guests at the American Thanksgiving meal were British Foreign secretary Anthony Eden, U.S. Ambassador to Russia W. Averell Harriman and U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James John G. Winant.
Prime Minister Churchill and the President visited the Pyramids together after the dinner, returning soon to continue that conference. Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek visited the Pyramids separately before their departure.
A stop of 15 minutes before the Sphinx was included in the Pyramid trip of the President.
WAC is in charge of Roosevelt phone
Cairo, Egypt – (Dec. 1, delayed)
There were thousands of soldiers guarding with anti-aircraft installations and machine guns, the perimeter within which the momentous Cairo Conference was held.
There were hundreds of delegates and there were dozens of famous soldiers, sailors and airmen in attendance. Yet the proudest and busiest person of all was a 37-year-old WAC corporal from New York.
She is Cpl. Mary Catherine Broadhead, and she was in charge of the personal telephone switchboard of President Roosevelt. This was a big job, as Cpl. Broadhead found out, but the corporal was up to it, for she was formerly in charge of 74 telephone operators at the headquarters of Gen. Eisenhower.