Oyster Bay Long Island

: Mrs. Ellen Fink Milton was the widow of David Meriwether Milton, a direct descendent of Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame. She had been a widow for more than a dozen years when she and Nelson, just 21-years old, arrived at her Oyster Bay, Long Island home for the summer season of 1925. Nelson, born on her Westchester estate two decades earlier, was now her chauffeur.

: One day Nelson was waiting in the garage when he got a call to take two of Mrs. Milton’s friends to the train station in Syosset. Upon his return, Nelson was driving down Cove Neck Road when he saw a lady, all dressed in white, walking as fast as she could. It had started to rain and she clearly had been caught out unprepared for the gathering storm. Nelson pulled up alongside her, leaned out of the new Pierce Arrow automobile and said, “Madam, may I take you home? It has started to rain.” The woman in white got into the back seat and Nelson drove off.

: “Please tell me what entrance I should go to,” he asked since Cove Road was dotted with gated entrances to financier’s mansions, gentleman’s farms and summer retreats of Manhattan’s elite. They drove in silence for a while and as they approached Sagamore Hill Road she said, “This is it.” Nelson drove up to the house on the hill, to the front door under the covered portico. The butler came scurrying out scolding, “Mrs. Roosevelt, please tell us when you go out so we can send the car for you.”

: Mrs. Edith Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt’s widow, did not answer. Instead, she turned to Nelson and said, “Young man who do you work for?” Nelson told her. “Thank you very much,” she said. She stepped out of the car and up the steps to the large wooden front door of Sagamore Hill, the summer home of the former president’s family.

: Nelson returned home and was putting the car away in the garage, when Mrs. Milton rang him on the phone to come to the front door immediately. Nelson ran to the main house, thinking he had done something wrong. Instead, Mrs. Milton just smiled and said, “I am so glad that you picked up Mrs. Roosevelt.” Apparently, the two women were friends. Nelson’s kind gesture to a stranger gave him his proudest moment as a chauffeur. Decades later he would tell people, “I drove a First Lady.”