Mrs. Dewey, quiet, poised, won’t be making speeches
She never has and doesn’t intend to, she says – and she’s not campaigning
By Betty Jo Daniels
Mrs. Thomas E. Dewey is not campaigning for “First Lady of the White House.”
Making her first appearance in Pittsburgh today, the wife of the Republican presidential nominee told newspaper reporters for the record: “The Governor’s opinions are mine, but if they differ, I tell him about it only in private.”
She added that she intends to make no speeches. “I never have and never intend to,” she said.
Keeps upper hand
For a woman who has been described as “shy” and “retiring,” Mrs. Dewey is surprisingly poised and has the upper hand at all times in her conversation with a group of reporters.
She speaks slowly, obviously weighing what she says before committing herself.
In keeping with her simple, direct manner she wore a two-piece black dressmaker suit with a powder blue blouse. A feathery blue pompom carried out the color scheme of blue and black on a small forward-tilted hat. She wore Cuban heeled patent leather shoes and a black patent leather handbag. Her gloves were also black.
Careful of comment
When Mrs. Dewey entered her press conference, she shook hands with each newspaperwoman. Her hands are small but she explained that their size did not interfere with her piano playing, which, she added, is not a hobby with her but for a long time was a “way of living.”
Each time she was questioned about current events and opinions, she smiled graciously and replied quietly, “I prefer not to comment on that.”
She did say that she thought voting would be very important this year, especially for women.
Her reluctance to discuss world affairs was offset by her willingness to discuss her home life. She said she would not care to outline any special way of living for anyone, but that for herself she wants to make her home for the Governor “restful.”
She’s not a clubwoman
She belongs to no social or woman’s clubs because she feels that she could not “participate actively,” but she is a member of the board of the Hamilton Nursery School in New York and a member of the Mother’s Club at Albany Academy where her two sons, John and Tom, go to school.
Mrs. Dewey gestured when she described the children’s garden at the farm, and laughed when she said that they presented her a bill for their produce recently marked “hangover.” She pays them market prices for their vegetables and they send her a statement each month. Last month, she didn’t make the payment in full – so they billed her for the balance with the “hangover” sheet.
No Southern accent
Though Mrs. Frances Hutt Dewey was born in Sherman, Texas, and spent most of her girlhood in the South, she has no trace of a Southern accent except for a soft “r” in a few words. Voice training did that for her, she said.
She appeared flustered only once, and then only slightly. That was at the comment of a woman reporter to the effect that it was strange that Mrs. Dewey had so little of the “exhibitionist” in her makeup, since she had been trained for the concert and stage.
Mrs. Dewey replied quickly with a little impatience, that she was not trained for the stage, and that she didn’t see what singing a song had to do with writing a column or making a speech.