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…