From left to right: James Wall, Richard Wall, Mary Eleanor Wall and President Carter at the Wall family home at 451 Kenilworth in Elmhurst in 1978.
Right here in Elmhurst, one local family had the pleasure of getting to know Jimmy Carter—who was running for president in 1976 and 1980—and formed a bond that led to not only having Carter as a house guest, but afforded the couple a chance to spend the night at the White House.
Elmhurst residents James and Mary Eleanor Wall were active in the Democratic Party, according to their obituaries—both of which highlight their service to the Democratic Party.
In particular, James was the chair of the Jimmy Carter presidential primary and general election campaigns in Illinois, both in 1976 and 1980; and was also a delegate for Carter at the 1976 and 1980 Democratic National Nominating Conventions.
He also served a term on the Democratic National Committee from 1976-80.
In her obituary, Mary Eleanor was quoted as recalling, “While Carter was president, he spent the night at our home on May 25, 1978, after speaking at a Democratic Cook County/City of Chicago dinner.”
Mary Eleanor, too, was active in Democratic politics.
After Carter was elected president in 1976, then-Vice President Walter Mondale called her personally to inform her that President Carter had appointed her to serve on a commission to select a new head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
She would later recall how, in the fall of 1979, the Walls “spent the night with the Carters at the White House and went to the opera with them to see ‘Salome.’”
In 1980, the president appointed Mary Eleanor to be one of three public members of a 26-member federal advisory commission on intergovernmental relations.
The Walls’ son David, in an email to the Elmhurst Independent, recalled his mother traveling with President Carter, and also meeting with Vice President Mondale.
David said that while Carter stayed at the family’s home in 1978, he had been away at paramedic school in Atlanta. However, David noted, in 1984 he did get to meet Carter in person, saying that the president remembered a phone conversation they had had in 1978 while he was away.
“He remembered that conversation when I happened upon him at a campaign event (probably for Mondale).”
“He saw that I had been promoted and asked about how it was as a firefighter and paramedic. He was truly an amazing man.”
James passed away on March 22, 2021, at the age of 92, and Mary Eleanor passed away on Feb. 21, 2022, also at the age of 92.
