From Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures, which will be published this month by Doubleday.

Rebecca was an unusual White House inhabitant for two reasons. The first was that she arrived as prospective dinner. The second, and most immediately obvious on meeting her, was that she was a raccoon. In 1926, a citizen of Mississippi sent the raccoon to the First Family in time to be cooked for Thanksgiving. Calvin Coolidge instead kept her as a pet. Later, the First Lady, Grace Coolidge, wrote of Rebecca: We “had a house made for her in one of the large trees, with a wire fence built around it for her protection.” When she was inside, the First Lady wrote, she

had her liberty. She was a mischievous, inquisitive party and we had to keep watch of her when she was in the house. She enjoyed nothing better than being placed in a bathtub with a little water in it and given a cake of soap with which to play. In this fashion she would amuse herself for an hour or more.

She was, as befitted the First Raccoon, exquisitely accessorized: she wore an embroidered collar. Clad in her finery, she roamed the White House, playing hide-and-seek. She participated in the Easter egg roll on the White House lawn, a bow tied to her collar. President Coolidge, the press reported, liked to have her in his study, sometimes draped around his neck, stroking her as he worked late into the night. And so she lived a life of luxury until she did a thing many of her fellow Americans have dreamed of but very few have achieved: she bit the president of the United States. At least, some assumed so: Coolidge was seen in public with a bandaged hand; Rebecca was temporarily sent to a zoo. The Baltimore Sun reported: from white house to zoo is rebecca’s sad story.

She eventually made her return, and efforts were taken to provide her with a companion. At one point, a White House police officer captured a wild male raccoon and offered him as a playmate: the male, named Rueben, ran away, and Rebecca lived on in stately solitude. Grace Coolidge wrote: “Rebecca had lived alone and had her own way so long that I fear she was a little overbearing and dictatorial, perhaps reminding her spouse that he was living on her bounty.”