At half past twelve on Friday, November 2, 1951, Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain stood on a platform in the White House Rose Garden beside President Harry S. Truman and gave him a present from her father, King George VI. She was 25, heir to the British throne, and at the end of a two-day visit to Washington. The present was a three-part mirror with an oil painting of flowers set above it in a carved gilt frame, along with a rare pair of English candelabra. It was meant to go inside the White House. That fall, though, nobody could live there.
Engineers had found the old house unsafe. Since November 1948 the Trumans had been living across Pennsylvania Avenue at Blair House while the inside of the White House was taken out and rebuilt within its original walls. So when Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, came down from their tour of Canada, Blair House was where they stayed.
The Trumans met them at Washington National Airport at 4:07 on the afternoon of October 31, with Bess and their daughter Margaret beside the President. Truman told the princess that "Margaret tells me that whenever anyone becomes acquainted with you, they immediately fall in love with you." That evening the Trumans gave a small dinner for the royal couple at Blair House. Truman gestured toward his guest and said, "When I was a little boy, I read about a fairy princess, and there she is."
The next morning Elizabeth and Philip drove to Mount Vernon and laid a wreath at George Washington's tomb. That night it was their turn to host, and they gave a dinner for the Trumans at the Canadian Embassy.
Friday, before they left, came the gift in the Rose Garden. The princess explained why her father had sent it. "The renovation of the White House has attracted interest all over the world," she said. The King, she added, "has many happy memories of his own stay in the house." He had been a guest there in June 1939, when he visited President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She hoped the gift would "remain here, as a mark of our friendship, so long as the White House shall stand."
Truman thanked her and said he hoped she would come back with her children once the work was done and "see this gift installed in its place in the Blue Room." Then he added, "I don't know who the temporary occupants of the White House may be at that time. But you can be sure of this: No matter who they are, you and your family will always be welcome."
King George VI died three months later, on February 6, 1952, and his daughter became Queen. On March 27 the Trumans moved back into the rebuilt White House. The King's gift never did go into the Blue Room. A photograph taken that month shows the mirror already hanging on the north wall of the newly painted State Dining Room.
Elizabeth came back as Queen in October 1957, and the Eisenhowers gave a state dinner for her at the White House. Her father's mirror is still in the house. The White House Historical Association says it has long hung above the mantel in the Queens' Bedroom upstairs.
The rebuilt Truman White House is on our 2018 White House Historical Association Truman ornament. The front shows the Truman Balcony, added to the South Portico in 1947 and 1948. The back shows the Blue Room as it was restored during the renovation, the room Truman once picked out for the King's gift. It is 24K gold-plated and comes gift boxed with a history card.