Born Mary Jane Fleming in New York City, she worked as a secretary for different executives of the 1939 New York World's Fair and as a secretary at a steel company and a distillery. In 1952, she became office manager for the Citizens for Eisenhower headquarters and began serving as Mamie Eisenhower's personal secretary in the 1952 presidential campaign.^[1]

When Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election, McCaffree went with the Eisenhowers to the White House and remained there for the duration of both of his terms (1953–1961). She was not only his social secretary, but she remained the now-First Lady's private and press secretary, helping her to answer nearly 1,000 letters a month and dozens of daily requests for public appearances.^[1]

First Ladies in the past have had social secretaries and clerks, but the positions were never recognized as part of the institutionalized presidency, until McCaffree was listed in the Congressional Directory's top White House personnel as "Acting Secretary to the President's Wife."^[1][2][3]

Ten years after Eisenhower's presidency, McCaffree was a protocol specialist in the Office of the Chief of Protocol, part of the State Department, from 1971 to 1975. This led to her co-writing a book, titled Protocol: The Complete Handbook of Diplomatic, Official and Social Usage (ISBN 978-1-935451-16-7), in 1977.^[1][2]

While working at the White House, she married Floyd McCaffree, a history and political science professor, who died in 1963. Her second husband, Harry Monroe Jr., an auto dealer, died in 2004.

Mary Jane died at age 106 in Juno Beach, Florida, on July 23, 2018.^[1][2]

• Obituary