The Fairmont Hotel

Text

"We got on the train. The train took three days and three nights. When we got to Omaha, there was another ensign and his wife on the train, and he said, 'Where are you gonna stay when you get to San Francisco?' And we said, 'We don’t know, we’ll just go the desk in the train station,' and he said, 'No.' He says, 'You need to stay at the Fairmont. You need to send them a telegram. And so we did, and when we got to San Francisco, we stayed at the nicest hotel in town, and I think I showed it to you, wasn’t it six dollars a night?

What was nice was the President of the United States - and that was Harry Truman - he had three floors in the building...I didn’t see him, but I sure saw a lot of other people. And there were people from all countries—they were trying to get the United Nations started, and that was the sole business they had. And President Truman was working with lots and lots of strangers. He was a brand new president because he’d only been—what?—six weeks in? Something like that."

Editor's note: Tooken Cade and her husband stayed in the Fairmont Hotel only one night, before the Navy ordered him to report to Seattle.