Life of White House nurse featured in Virginia Tech exhibit

BLACKSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - With the fall semester winding down in Blacksburg, a Christmas exhibit at Newman Library seems right on time.

Take a closer look, and you’ll see historic names and faces, on presidential Christmas cards, photographs with personal notes and prints that were given to White House staff members at Christmas.

And all of it is linked to one woman: Genevieve Herrell. “My mother was a farm girl from Illinois, who went to nursing school up in Iowa,” said Greg Herrell, Genevieve Herrell’s son. Herrell is a retired attorney who now lives in Abingdon, but he grew up in Alexandria.

His mother was a nurse in The White House Medical Unit from 1952 through 1976.

First hired to care for Harry Truman’s mother-in-law, she would serve in six administrations, from President Truman through President Ford. “My mother was someone who people felt comfortable with, people cared about her and she cared about them,” Herrell said. “And I think it’s felt by her family and her friends, and also by the first families that served during that time as well.”

Herrell travelled on presidential visits to Geneva, Moscow and Beijing.

The items in the collection also show the personal side of life in the White House, says curator Anthony Wright de Hernandez. “There is evidence of that actual personal connection between the first ladies and Genevieve Herrell or some of the first daughters and Genevieve Herrell, as well as personal Thank-Yous and signatures from Presidents themselves,” he said. “We tend to think of these people in government as bureaucrats and the deep state, where they’re filled with many public servants who are simply trying to serve the public and in this case the first family and their staff,” Greg Herrell said. “And politics had no bearing in it whatsoever. She served Republicans and Democrats equally. She had good relationships with both of them.”

Looking at the Christmas display, Harrell said his own memories are tied up in the items he recently donated to Virginia Tech. And he said he’s grateful that others will be able to learn from his mother’s experience. “It’s very satisfying to me to preserve the legacy of my mother who was just a faithful public servant,” Herrell told WDBJ7.

The Christmas items are now on display at Newman Library through December 20. They’re just a small part of the Genevieve Herrell collection, and the library is planning a larger exhibit once all of the items have been catalogued.