Nancy Reagan and Rachel's Brownies - A Sweet Story

In 1985, my wife and I were invited to meet President Reagan and to have lunch with him. I have shared the full story about that day on my blog, and you can read it here.

But there is a sweet little post script to the story that came to mind after I learned of Nancy Reagan’s death last Sunday. We didn’t meet Mrs. Reagan at the event where President Reagan spoke at the luncheon, but clearly Nancy was on the President’s mind.

As you can read in the short news story, the President went off script the day after he met us and started talking about a young brownie baker he met in Pennsylvania who he lauded as a symbol of young entrepreneurs. He then proceeded to describe NANCY’S BROWNIES, not Rachel’s Brownies. It is ironic that the mistake happened in Raleigh where we moved five years later as noted on the byline in the article.

Oops.

Nancy Reagan and Rachel’s Brownies – A Sweet Story

What so interesting in hindsight is that because of that little mistake saying Nancy’s Brownies instead of Rachel’s Brownies the story stayed in the news. We got coverage on CNN, CBS News, The NY Times and he story in over 1,000 local, state and national newspapers. Several reporters called later that day to interview us about the mistake and the story lived on for almost three more news cycles. The local press came out to our bakery the next day.

The story of meeting President Reagan is a memorable life event for us since our initial instincts were that as life-long Democrats, we would just say no to meeting the Republican president. I’m so glad we said yes.

We never met Nancy although her press secretary did have her press secretary Elaine Crispin send us a nice note with a formal picture of them together that was signed.(I am not sure where that picture is today). It was a kind gesture. She was remarkably protective of her husband. I can only imagine what she thought of the shenanigans going on the Republican party today.

Rest in peace, Nancy. Time to be with your beloved Ronnie.