As his housekeeper, I cleaned his room everyday. I changed his sheets and all four pillowcases on a daily basis. He had several sets of the custom made linens, most of them plain white. Contrary to what people think, he didn’t have monogrammed sheets or pillowcases. He occasionally through the years had bedspreads with his initials on them. The bed linens were kept in a small closet next to his bed, near the window air conditioning unit. He also had a number of sets of matching towels and washcloths, with red being his favorite. His routine was to place his dirty clothes on a chair in the far corner of his bedroom. I would collect them and take them down to the laundry room in the basement, where they were washed in regular Tide detergent. He often ate in his room sitting in his bed, watching TV or reading. We would deliver his food to him on his favorite white TV tray. He drank ice water from an orange juice style pitcher kept in one of the upstairs refrigerators. When he was through eating, he would leave the tray by the side of his bed where I would collect it and take it down to the kitchen. There is a small hallway leading from his bedroom into the bathroom, with a closet on either side. The one on the left held his pajamas, robes, and slippers. (Elvis did not wear T-shirts, and the most famous entertainer in the world wore plain, white Fruit-of-the-Loom briefs. They were kept in a white chest of drawers in his dressing room, along with his socks). The closet to the right of the small hallway held a small, dorm-style refrigerator. That’s where we kept popsicles, Eskimo pies, cut-up fruit, and such. We also kept a bottle of ice water in it for him at all times. Aunt Delta was the one who usually did the shopping for the house. She could be seen on a regular basis shopping at the Kroger at Whitehaven Plaza, or Walgreen’s just down the street from Graceland. There, she purchased the Colgate toothpaste that Elvis used, as well as Aqua Velva and Brut after-shave lotion. I wasn’t fond of the Brut, and would occasionally try and hide it in the back of one of the bathroom shelves, but Elvis would eventually find it and wear it again.
