For L.A. Retiree, Capital Proves a City of Angels

WASHINGTON —  She had a good seat at Monday’s swearing-in ceremony on the Capitol’s steps. She also got a bird’s-eye view of the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, with binoculars that she didn’t have to share.

But as of Monday night, the incredible Washington adventure of elderly Los Angeles resident Lucille E. Williams--a saga that began when she mistook a cheap souvenir sent to loyal Democrats for an actual invitation to inauguration festivities--was not quite complete.

Williams, 85, still wanted to meet Bill Clinton face to face.

Sure, this retired housekeeper had already been treated to a private tour of the White House, enjoyed a nice long chat with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (whom she repeatedly addressed as governor; he didn’t seem to mind) and attended Sunday night’s inaugural gala.

But for Williams, it was important that she actually meet the president, because she wanted to give him this little plaque she had spent $80 having made up. She figured that, since he had invited her to Washington, she was not going to come empty-handed. This is exactly what the plaque says:

“Thank you William Jefferson Clinton, President. You and Vice President Albert Gore Jr., you are the cement that’s is fixing the ‘holes’ in the ‘bridge’ for the 21st Century. Lucille E. Williams and Family, Los Angeles, California. Thank You.”

Williams’ story, which during the last three days of glitzy hobnobbing captivated much of official Washington, began with the big white envelope that arrived at her little house in central Los Angeles.

It was merely a clever memento from the Democratic Party. But to Williams, it looked like the real thing: a personal invitation from the president himself. She thought he had invited her to his inaugural ball. “Invitation To Ball,” she wrote on the envelope. “Thrill of Life.” Then she booked a plane to Washington.

Three weeks later, she was lost and confused at Washington’s National Airport--no hat, no gloves, no money for cab fare, clutching the invitation that entitled her to nothing more than any other schmo who shows up in the federal city without connections.

It might have been her undoing. Instead it was her miracle.

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“She said God meant her to be here and she just was going to do it,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Monday after serving Williams some tea and helping warm her feet. “She’s been bumping into angels ever since she arrived.”

“In fact, I think it’s second to heaven,” Williams herself announced Monday as a nice young man pushed her wheelchair off an elevator at the National Press Building, where a wingback chair awaited so she could watch the presidential parade from 13 stories up. The gold lame bow in her ponytail matched her flats and scarf, and her rhinestone daisy earrings were nicely set off by rhinestone eyeglass frames. She looked quite sparkly.

“I have seen and worked for most of the most important movie stars, and now that I’ve met the president at the inaugural ball, well . . . “ she said, the proper words eluding the magnitude of the moment.

Actually, she hadn’t met the president--yet--but she had seen him in person, and it wasn’t at the ball. It was at the swearing-in. But, hey, Monday night had barely begun, and she had an invitation to that evening’s Arkansas ball and you-know-who was not about to miss that. (Good thing she packed two ball gowns, both sparkly.)

One shudders to think what might have happened to a senior citizen who looks all of 85 pounds, with a cane, a bad leg and $200 in her purse, wandering unescorted in one of America’s most dangerous cities.

Not that Williams has not led an eventful life--she said that she was Milton Berle’s housekeeper for 15 years and before that worked for Humphrey Bogart, Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher and Rita Hayworth (“She drank”).

And not that she isn’t independent either. She has buried two husbands and one boyfriend. And when it was time to pick up her airline ticket to Washington, she drove to Beverly Hills in the 1974 pea green Cadillac that she bought used for $1,400.

But someone who made the travel arrangements had the bright idea of flying her into National Airport on Saturday and booking her into a hotel near Dulles Airport, 30 miles away. The airline picked up the $40 cab fare, but that only landed her at a Holiday Inn, miles from the inaugural events.

She was holding her little schedule of festivities and wandering the hall outside her $79-a-night room when the hotel’s Sharon A. Whitaker, manager-on-duty and angel-in-disguise, found her.

Recalled Whitaker: “She said to me, ‘Young lady, you are not going to believe this, but the president invited me here.’ I spent four hours trying to find her transportation to Washington and, the longer I spent, the more I realized she could not get around on her own. My car is broken, so I called the White House and the inaugural committee--twice--but that didn’t get me anywhere. So then I called the Washington Post.”

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Next scene: Williams is deciding whether to have breakfast at Boxer’s house or appear live on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” (the senator told her to go for the network exposure). A lobbyist had offered to put her in a limousine for the weekend, and the president of Red Top Cabs had offered his best driver and best cab, unlimited mileage, free of charge.

Williams passed on the limo and took the cab. She sits in the front seat.

“I didn’t panic. I just cooled it and said, ‘What in the world is this that’s happening?’ ” Williams said over her teacup as Monday’s parade passed by. “There is usually a reason for things, and I tried to figure what it was.”

So 48 hours after her bizarre landing in Washington, there was just one more thing left to make Lucille E. Williams’ long life complete. She wanted to get to Congress and make some laws to straighten out this country. She said that is her last wish on Earth.

“I’m going to do that tomorrow,” she said, referring to a meeting she had scheduled with Boxer on Capitol Hill. “Sen. Boxer, she’s the one who passes these laws. I had cookies with her just an hour ago. She gave me a big hug.”