Additional Information
The Ficklin family name has been associated with White House service for nearly a century. In fact, so many family members once worked there that the Washington Post even quoted a butler who observed, “A Ficklin here, a Ficklin there, I see Ficklins everywhere.” Author John Wrory Ficklin who retired in 2015, after his own forty years of White House service, presents his family history with this heart warming and inspiring new book.
The story begins with the author's grandfather James Strother Ficklin, who was born enslaved in about 1854 and conscripted to serve as a water boy to Confederate army troops quartering in rural Virginia. Following Emancipation, he worked as a houseman, laborer, and in coal mining before purchasing 37 acres of land in Virginia where he farmed, produced molasses, and raised ten children.
John Woodson Ficklin, the seventh of those ten children, and the author's father, moved to Washington, D.C., as a teenager and like many African American men at the time, found work as a butler in the city. His older brothers Sam and Charles began working as butlers at the White House during the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency and he soon joined them. Over the course of forty-three years in service at the White House John Woodson Ficklin was promoted to the esteemed positions of head butler and maître d’ hotel.
The author recounts his realization of the prominence of his father’s job as he watched his dad serve as an usher at the funeral for President John F. Kennedy. Growing up, he worked part-time for his father, as staff at White House State Dinners and social events. During one summer picnic on the South Lawn, while transporting ice to the service tents he was delighted to hear President Jimmy Carter sing “Salt Peanuts” with Dizzy Gillespie. The author continued his service with an extended summer job as a messenger where, among other tasks, he transported documents from the Nixon White House to the Watergate Special Prosecutor’s office. Eventually he went on to become the longest serving member of the National Security staff, faithfully serving seven U.S. presidents.
From the author's unique perspective, An Unusual Path tells the story of three Ficklin men against a backdrop of American history.
About the Author
The Honorable John W. Ficklin’s career spanned eight administrations, culminating in President Barack Obama appointing him to the position of special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs.