:rofl:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/11/24/081124ta_talk_collinssnip//
Mothers-in-law, historically, have also had ways of making the White House their own. Elvira Doud, the redoubtable mother of Mamie Eisenhower—she “wintered” at the White House—was in the habit of telephoning her daughter from bed (“This is a long-distance call from Mother!”), while Harry Truman’s live-in mother-in-law, Madge Wallace, referred to him as a “dirt farmer” and harped on his table manners. An equally influential, but more congenial, grand-motherly boarder was Jimmy Carter’s mother, Miz Lillian. A “Saturday Night Live” sketch from the time had her breezing into the Presidential bedroom: “Yoo-hoo! Am I interrupting anything interesting?” Doug Wead, the author of “All the Presidents’ Children,” pointed out that the extended families of First Ladies have long had the run of the place—Louisa Catherine Adams, he said, brought in a niece who seduced all three Adams sons, and “some nephews who kept bedding the maids.”
Tipper Gore’s mother, Margaret Aitcheson—Ahnya to her grandkids— was a spicy presence in the pool house of the Naval Observatory, where she lived, with her cat, while Al Gore was Vice-President. (There has been talk about the Bidens moving in Joe’s ninety-one-year-old mother.)
“Ahnya and I would commiserate about how surreal it was to live in this compound,” Kristin Gore recalled. “One day, there was a deer from Rock Creek Parkway in the yard, and when it tried to jump back over it got impaled on the fence. I remember Ahnya looking at me and saying, ‘Well, that’s just perfect. I hope I get out of here alive.’ ”more...
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