Mary Lee DiSpirito recalls an eventful day nearly seven decades ago. For one thing, she was graduating with a degree from Peabody College in Nashville, Tenn., now Vanderbilt University’s College of Education and Human Development. She was also excited to meet one of the speakers at the ceremony, Sen. Al Gore Sr. 

DiSpirito had known some members of the Gore family, and her aunt had worked for the Democratic senator. “I introduced myself,” DiSpirito says, “and he said, ‘You come see me on Monday. I want you to work in my Carthage office.’ And so, on Monday I went to Carthage, and I started working on Tuesday.”

Much has been documented about the lives of members of Congress from the 20th century, but less is remembered about the role of staff. (The exception is the important work of the House and Senate historians, whose offices have collected oral histories on the topic.) In the 1950s it was common for a senator’s personal staff to number fewer than 10 — and, of course, there were no electronics or computers. 

“Down at the office in Carthage, I did not have an electric typewriter. In Washington, I had an IBM Executive typewriter. They were real heavy-duty,” she says. 

Mike Johnson (not to be confused with the current speaker of the House) started working for Rep. Bob Michel in 1977, first as his press secretary. By 1984, the office’s chief of staff position had been vacant for more than a year. “We don’t need a chief of staff,” the Illinois Republican told him, according to Johnson. But after a while the staff rebelled, went to Michel asking for a new chief and recommended Johnson for the job. 

Michel agreed and was supposed to tell Johnson the news on a trip they both took to Europe related to nuclear arms talks with the Soviet Union — but he didn’t get around to it. “So we got back to Washington, and several of these staff people came in and congratulated me. And I said, ‘Well, what for?’ And they just kind of looked at me with their mouths open and said, ‘Well, becoming chief of staff. And I said, ‘Really?’”

Both former staffers recount a Congress of a different era. DiSpirito split her time between Washington and Tennessee, although Gore didn’t have a full-time staff or office in the state. “As time went on, every time there was a recess, I was sent down to Carthage to open the office again,” she says. She describes her job as a jack-of-all-trades and executive assistant to Gore. “In Washington I was tour guide for constituents, and we’d ride the streetcar down C Street and Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House,” she says.

Along the way, DiSpirito got to know Gore’s middle-school-age son (and future vice president) Al Gore Jr. “A delightful young man, very smart,” she says. When in Washington, the Gore family lived at the Fairfax Hotel on Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, and as a student at St. Albans school in Washington, young Al played on the basketball team. According to DiSpirito, “Sen. John McClellan was their neighbor and would always complain, ‘Would you please take that basketball away from Al Jr.? I can’t stand the bouncing any longer.’”

Johnson also remembers an era when bipartisan friendships were more common. He notes Michel was good friends with Democrat and future House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. “They had bought an old station wagon together and drove back and forth to Illinois,” he says. “They had a mattress in the back, and when they would drive back at night, one would sleep in the back.”

Both DiSpirito and Johnson have stayed involved in public service. Johnson wrote a recent book with Jerome Climer, “Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People.” DiSpirito was honored by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2024 with a governor’s community service award for her volunteer work at the Annandale Christian Community for Action.

When asked what has changed and what’s stayed the same, DiSpirito says, “You’ve got good ones and bad ones. And it’s still the same. But I think we may have had more good ones back there.” Johnson said, “It was a time when things were much better. Citizens felt better about themselves, about their country and about their politics.”

DiSpirito also recalls a time with fewer staff and when senators placed their own phone calls. She describes taking a call from then-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. “He said to me, ‘Gee, you have a strange accent.’ And I replied, ‘Senator, I might say that about you too.’ And we both just died laughing.”

Bradford Fitch is a former Capitol Hill staffer, former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and author of “Citizen’s Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials.”