The Associated Press detailed a multigenerational family history in which White House staff work and national-security jobs ran through nearly eight decades of presidential administrations. The story centers on Woodson Ficklin, who spent 44 years on the residence staff, and on his son, Wrory Ficklin, whose career included 40 years at the National Security Council, overlapping with other family members who also held roles at the White House.
The AP described how Woodson Ficklin’s career began with moving to Washington and working a path of odd jobs and night school after he was 15, later graduating high school in 1939. It said his older brother, Charles Ficklin, began work as a White House butler and helped Woodson land a part-time role washing dishes and doing tasks the butlers did not have time to do themselves. The AP reported that military service during World War II briefly interrupted their White House careers, and that both Charles Ficklin and Woodson Ficklin received promotions after they returned.
As the family moved into higher roles, the AP said Charles Ficklin became maître d’, while Woodson Ficklin became head butler and was put in charge of six full-time butlers. The article said Woodson then led planning and execution for White House social events, including luncheons and state dinners, and it cataloged examples such as the White House wedding of Richard Nixon’s daughter Tricia in 1971 and Gerald Ford’s daughter Susan hosting her senior class prom at the White House.
The AP also reported the breadth of Woodson Ficklin’s relationships with presidents and first ladies through their reliance on his work. It said some officials sent thank-you notes after social events, including a letter from first lady Patricia Nixon in October 1969 that the AP described as praising “the great number of complimentary remarks we receive following each White House social event.” The AP said President Jimmy Carter expressed appreciation in a March 1979 letter for the work done by Woodson Ficklin and his team around the signing of an Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
In addition to the day-to-day responsibilities, the AP recounted moments tied to national events. It said Woodson Ficklin met President Harry Truman and first lady Bess Truman on his second day as a butler, when he served them breakfast. And it described the 1963 period following President John F. Kennedy’s death: the AP said that Wrory Ficklin, then 7, watched televised funeral coverage in the family’s Washington apartment and saw that his father, Woodson Ficklin, stood beside Kennedy’s casket as an usher after Jacqueline Kennedy asked that he join.
The AP said Woodson Ficklin retired in May 1983, and it reported what it described as a major show of appreciation for his 44-year career: the Reagans invited him and his wife, Nancy, to a state dinner that year for the emir of Bahrain. It added that Woodson Ficklin was believed to be the first member of the White House residence staff to be a guest at a state dinner, and that he later became the subject of media attention after he told an interviewer that “Those are my boys. I trained them.”
The AP’s account traces the family’s roots before the White House, starting with a grandfather who was born enslaved. It said the first chapter of Wrory Ficklin’s account of the family history opens with James Strother Ficklin, who was born enslaved around 1854 in Rappahannock County, Virginia. The AP reported that Strother served as a water boy for the Confederate army during the Civil War and, after emancipation, took odd jobs for the family that had owned him; it also said the records showed he later returned to Rappahannock after moving to Youngstown, Ohio.
After describing Strother’s later family life, the AP said Strother and his second wife Helen bought 37 acres in Amissville, Virginia, in 1901 and built a house and farm to help feed their family. It said Helen died while giving birth, and that Strother married a third wife, Vallie Lee Davenport, in 1907. The AP reported that they had 10 children, including John Woodson Ficklin, and that Woodson Ficklin’s move to Washington and eventual White House employment became part of a lineage the family carried forward.
On the National Security Council side, the AP said Wrory Ficklin began his national-security work in 1975 and had a 40-year tenure. It reported that he joined after a summer job in high school delivering sealed envelopes between the White House and the special prosecutor on the Watergate investigation. Under Obama, the AP said Wrory Ficklin was promoted to special assistant to the president for national security affairs, retired in 2015, and in that retirement asked national security adviser Susan Rice about being able to attend a state dinner, like his father had done earlier.
The AP said Wrory Ficklin and his wife, Patrice, were invited to the 2015 state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping, and that he wore the tuxedo jacket and cummerbund his father wore in 1983 with minor alterations. The article said Wrory Ficklin described the dinner as the highlight of his career, portraying it as firsthand experience with what he called the “precision of the butlers” and a legacy to his dad.
The Associated Press story, which it said had been corrected to reflect Woodson Ficklin’s first name as John rather than James, framed the family’s nearly eight-decade presence as constant across multiple presidential transitions. It said presidents come and go every four or eight years, but that the Ficklin family—Woodson Ficklin and other relatives as well as Wrory—served 13 presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama.