Drawing Fire

I mentioned the front of the book about Sebring, Ohio, but I also mentioned the final pages of the book as well.

Rosemary Woods.

Name ring a bell?  

Probably not, yet you might remember her after a quick explanation.

Fiercely loyal to Nixon, Woods claimed responsibility in a 1974 grand jury testimony for inadvertently erasing up to five minutes of the 18 ¹⁄₂ minute gap in a June 20, 1972, audio tape. Her demonstration of how this might have occurred — which depended upon her stretching to simultaneously press controls several feet apart (what the press dubbed the "Rose Mary Stretch"^[5]) — was met with skepticism from those who believed the erasures, from whatever source, to be deliberate. The contents of the gap remain a mystery.<sup>[6]

This reference may not trigger a memory either, unless one was alive in 1974 and remembers one word associated with Richard Nixon--Watergate.

Rosemary Woods was born and raised in Sebring, Ohio.  She graduated from Sebring McKinley High School and worked at the pottery.  After her fiance was killed in World War II, she left Sebring to travel to the nation's capitol and eventually became the secretary to Richard Nixon.  She and First Lady Patricia Nixon were close, and Rosemary often stayed at the White House in the family quarters as a family friend. 

The last page of the book was dedicated to one of the more famous residents of Sebring, Rosemary Woods.




 

Once again there was a notation from Dad, which is also visible in the picture - "Norm's neighbor growing up."

I remember when Nixon was President and happened to appear on television, occasionally Dad would notice Rosemary in the background.  He would say, "Hey!  There's my neighbor, Rose!" and be proud that someone HE knew actually knew and worked for the President of the United States.  Later during Watergate and the subsequent Grand Jury testimony, Dad never once doubted that Rosemary was telling the truth.  He didn't think the Rosemary he had known and grown up with would resort to illegal or unethical behaviors.

Just a tidbit of information.  I never knew what happened to her until I read in a bit of biographical information that she had returned to her home and passed away while a resident of McCrea Manor in Alliance.

Rosemany Woods.  A bit of history. And now you know it too!</sup>