WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION
News of the evacuation order spread to the Residence staff primarily by word of mouth. Following Gary Walters’s instructions, Claire Faulkner (opposite, in gray) is remembered for spreading the order to leave as she sprinted through occupied offices without stopping. Unaware of the evacuation, florist Nancy Clarke (seen above making wreaths for the subsequent memorial service) focused on retrieving her purse and keys as an officer shouted “Just Go!”
alone. Faulkner said, “Nancy, evacuate. Just run. Get out of here. Tell everyone to get out of here that you see.” As Clarke returned to the Flower Shop, a Secret Service officer in the hallway said, “Go! Go! Just get out the door. Get out the door.” Clarke recalled, “Well, I didn’t know what we were doing. I did not understand that we were evacuating, and so I thought we were going to our cars. So I wanted to get my purse, so I said, ‘Well, can I at least go get my purse?’ thinking, I need my car keys. He said, ‘Oh, no, no. Just go.’ I said, ‘I need my purse.’ He said, ‘All right, go get it.’ So I ran in the shop, got my purse, and ran out.” When Houseman Ben Kelly went to the men’s locker room to grab his belongings, the security doors started to shut and he quickly ran upstairs to the Ground Floor, where he found Secret Service officers armed with guns. “One of the UD guys was holding a shotgun. He said, ‘Run. Get the hell out of here. What are you still doing here?’ So we started running toward the gate.” In the Curator’s Office on the Ground Floor,
no one was aware of the severity of the situation. Administrative and Research Assistant Barbara McMillan was there with Associate Curator Bill Allman and Curator Betty Monkman when Faulkner ran in to tell them to evacuate and head south. McMillan said, “She was not panicked, but she didn’t slow down. She didn’t come in and tell us and leave; she said it at a run, went in one door and out the other door.” Assistant Curator Lydia Tederick recalled Gary Walters turning to her as she stood in the Usher’s Office watching the television. “He said, ‘Curators, go home.’ And I stood there for a minute. And he said, ‘Go home.’” Tederick described everyone getting ready to leave: “And we all kind of very slowly meandered out of the office.” Monkman initially wanted to go to the basement, which she thought was the safest location, but was told by a Secret Service officer to leave, so she followed everyone out the building. McMillan recalled walking to the Farragut North Metro station with Allman and seeing an unmarked military response plane
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