“Jimmy Carter kept awake by Amy and her Sturgeon Bay friends” from the August 28, 1979 Door County Advocate
Russell and Leona Zahn pose with their granddaughters Karen and Vicki Moeller on one of the few occasions the foursome was together on the Delta Queen. Shortly after this picture was taken, Karen and Vicki met Amy Carter and the Zahns were on their own.
President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn pose with Vicki Moeller aboard the Delta Queen. Vicki, who will be a junior at Sturgeon Bay high school this fall, is wearing a friend’s T-shirt.
Jimmy Carter kept awake by Amy and her Sturgeon Bay friends
By KETA STEEBS
So you think President Carter looks a bit haggard these days?
Well, maybe Ludmilla Vlasova was responsible for the last few sleepless nights but Jimmy, thanks to Amy and friends, didn‘t get much rest aboard the Delta Queen either.
He’d call and ask us to be quiet and we’d giggle a little bit and then he’d say, ‘Y’all have to be quiet or go home.’” confesses Karen Moeller, who, with her Sister Vicki, shared Amy‘s stateroom the last three nights of the famed river cruise.
The two girls, aged 11 and 15 respectively, are the daughters of Bob and Judie Moeller, 216 S. 10th av., Sturgeon Bay. Ever since they returned home Saturday they’ve been keeping their own parents awake with a seemingly unending litany of what life with Amy has been like.
“She’s a rambunctious little kid,” says Karen. “We got to know her the very first day of the cruise and spent most of our time with her every day after that. She told us she knows when she likes a somebody and when she doesn’t.”
The Moeller girls ostensibly traveled with their grandparents, Leona and Russell Zahn of Racine and Idlewild but spent such little time in their company, Russ had to ask the girls to fill him in on their activities when they returned home.
He and his wife had caught glimpses of their lively granddaughters, of course, playing hide-go-seek with Amy on the Delta Queen’s circular staircase or having a friendly card game in the lounge but other than that their paths rarely crossed.
When Karen and Vicki weren’t in Amy’s room, Amy was in the Moeller girls’ room. The last three nights aboard ship the three girls, accompanied by Michelle Fourre of Minneapolis, Minn., held slumber parties in Amy’s quarters.
Her room, which unfortunately was “back to back“ with the presidential suite was far from soundproof and that’s why the parents of the nation’s first child had to take turns pleading for peace and quiet.
“Whenever we did settle down, Amy would break out with her weird little laugh and break us up again,” Karen giggles.
When asked what this “weird little laugh” sounds like Karen obligingly opens her mouth and produces a hair raising sound which resembles the bray of a tubercular donkey. She and Vicki double up at the memory.
Both girls confess that Amy didn’t have to resort to the bray too often. She‘s a very bright, very witty little girl, they say, who can get laughs without sound effects. They seem as impressed with her sense of humor as card playing ability.
“That very first day aboard. I asked her if she’d like to play cards and she said, ‘OK, but wait ‘til this afternoon and that’s how we first got together,” Karen says. “Melanie began playing with us a little later.”
She also notes that Amy (the only one who could shuffle) won just about every game this unlikely Riverboat Gambling Foursome played. The games, Vicki recalls, included Clue, Blackjack, Poker and something called Cheat.
Any fears the Moeller kids may have about beating the president’s daughter at cards were thus allayed. Amy was hard to beat, they say ruefully, at just about every game they played. The girls also dined together and the memory of Amy, gooey tomato sauce splattered on the bodice of her dress, arising hurriedly to join her parents in a receiving line brings additional giggles from her former dinner partners. Like most 11-year-olds, the first child of the land isn’t as neat an eater as her parents might wish.
She’s also a tease and Karen says Jeff (a name usually preceded by the adjective poor) earned his secret service agent‘s pay and then some while aboard the Delta Queen. The girls were continually hiding on him, and each other, during their hide-go-seek games. The time Karen and Amy hid in a linen chest and Jeff, pretending to be a maid, locked it brings more laughter. Karen says her threat to shoot him with a rubber band (as reported in a number of newspapers) was only in fun and never carried out.
Because Karen, only one month older than Amy, is so close to her in age, the two seventh graders shared several adventures without Vicki. That’s why when Vicki was asked to pose with President Carter and his wife, Karen wasn’t included.
“I was off playing somewhere with Amy,” she reports. “I think I’m on some other pictures with them that grandpa took.”
The Zahn’s films are still being processed and if there is a good, clear shot of Karen with the presidential family, it will appear in the Advocate at a future date. Getting Vicki‘s picture out of her hands long enough to reproduce it for the Advocate can only be considered a monumental achievement.
“If the house was burning, that‘s the first thing I’d grab.” she says firmly. “Don’t let anything happen to this photograph.”
An autographed copy of the same photo was not released for publication. This obviously is too dear a possession to be relinquished for one moment.
Both girls exchanged phone numbers and are awaiting a call from 1600 Pennsylvania avenue with some trepidation. Amy, not noted for keeping track of her belongings, has probably lost their number by now, they fear.
When asked why Amy seemed to prefer the Moeller girls’ company over that of other young people aboard the Delta Queen, both Vicki and Karen say it’s because they have so much in common.
In addition to a mutual love of fun and games, they enjoy television (Amy‘s favorite show is “Saturday Night Live”) and all three girls love to talk. Amy, they say, is very mannerly and will not interrupt when another person’s speaking.
“She goes like this,” Karen says, throwing out a hand with the palm up in the time honored “after-you” gesture. “She is a very nice girl but she does get bored easily.”
After being interviewed about a dozen times by newspaper, radio and television reporters aboard the Delta Queen, the Moeller girls themselves could very easily have become blase about their celebrity status but obviously did not.
Vicki still can’t get over the fact that the president’s wake-up call was the first voice she heard each morning and that she once used his comb which Amy, who had lost her own, had impulsively borrowed.
“I’d get a little tongue-tied speaking to him,” Vicki confesses. “But anyone who would get up at 2:30 in the morning to shake hands with people who came to see him has to be a very nice person.”
One can almost hear her at some future date, say a decade from now, telling her husband, “Well, dear, as I used to say to the president when he woke me up………”
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
Articles by Keta Steebs
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/keta-steebs