Mansion cook saw history in kitchen

Liza Ashley

Liza Ashley cooked for seven Arkansas governors -- from Francis Cherry to Bill Clinton.

"Nobody really becomes governor before taking the test of my old-fashioned chicken pie," she said in a 2004 speech about her cookbook, "Thirty Years at the Mansion."

Ashley died Friday in Los Angeles. She was 103.

Eliza Jane Burnett Dodson Ashley was the official cook at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion from 1955 to 1985.

Before that, while working there as a maid during Cherry's administration, she would step in when the regular cook, the Rev. Henry Scribner, had a day off.

"She was just a remarkable lady, a person you would like to know," said Carolyn Huber, who helped Ashley with the cookbook.

Ashley was born on the Oldham Plantation in Pettus (Lonoke County) on Oct. 11, 1917. She was the daughter of William Burnett and Eliza Johnson Burnett, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

She was working on the plantation when she married Calvin Dodson in 1933. Louis Calvin Dodson, the couple's only child together, was born in Little Rock in 1951, according to the encyclopedia. Their marriage ended in divorce, and her second marriage was in 1960 to Fred Ashley, who preceded her in death.

Ashley learned to cook at a young age from her grandmother, who was the Oldham cook. When she died, Ashley took over.

She left plantation life in 1942 and had several jobs before finding employment at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion in 1954.

"In 1957, when the integration crisis started, it was really hard on me and the other staff," Ashley said in the 2004 speech. "I cooked long hours under much stress."

Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller (1967-71) brought his own personal chef to the mansion, but Ashley filled in on his days off.

Huber said Ashley knew a lot of secrets, but she didn't reveal anything beyond the culinary cravings of Arkansas governors.

Bill Clinton had a fondness for her chicken enchiladas and fruit cobblers -- before he went on a diet.

"I blame Liza Ashley for my lifelong addiction to chocolate chip cookies," said Mark Pryor, the former U.S. senator and son of Gov. David Pryor, who held that office from 1975 to 1979.

"She was an amazing person," said Mark Pryor. "She did a great job there for decades. Governors and their families came and went but she was always there and was stable. Very professional. Ran a great kitchen. You just couldn't ask for a better person to be there."

Pryor said he would go to the mansion occasionally when Bill Clinton was governor.

"Every time I went to the mansion, I would say, 'Hi, governor,' and I would make a bee-line to the kitchen to see Liza," said Pryor.

Sometimes, if he was lucky, she would tell them there was a plastic bag of chocolate chip cookies in the basement freezer for him.

"She was a lovely part of my childhood," said Brooke Bumpers, who lived in the governor's mansion from the age of 8 to 11. "Like a lot of kids, you spend a lot of time whirling through the kitchen to see what there was to eat."

Ashley would make chocolate cupcakes with pink or purple icing.

"I would take those with my school lunches," said Brooke Bumpers.

Brooke's father, Dale Bumpers, was governor from 1971 to 1975.

"Nobody went in the front door unless it was some formal party," she said. "Everybody who came into the house came in through the kitchen. It always smelled good. It was nice and warm."

Brooke Bumpers said she remembered Ashley's stuffed pork chops, which she would request on special occasions like her birthday.

And chocolate chip cookies in gigantic glass jars.

Her brother Brent Bumpers was so taken with the cookies that he later went into the cookie business, making Liza's Chocolate Chip Cookies (later changing the name to Brent & Sam's).

He asked Ashley for her secret recipe and was shocked when she told him that she just used the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag.

But still, there was some special ingredient in those cookies, something beyond butter, brown sugar and the other ingredients listed on the bag.

"We had that bond at the cookie business," said Brent Bumpers. "She took a lot of pride in being an inspiration for that."

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