The White House Easter Egg Roll is an annual tradition dating back to 1878 when President Rutherford B. Hayes opened the grounds of the White House on Easter Monday for parents and children. 

The 1976 Easter Egg Roll was held on Monday, April 19, 1976. President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford invited children of White House and Executive Office Building employees, and close to 9,000 people attended.

Fittingly for the Bicentennial year, the 1976 Easter Egg Roll had patriotic themes with music provided by Armed Services bands and a youth fife and drum corps, the Patriots of Northern Virginia. 

Mrs. Ford’s autograph was included on a handout given to each child attending the Easter Egg Roll. The poem, entitled “A Rime for Easter Time,” reads:

Look out on the lawn and what do you see?

Lots of flowers and grass and many a tree;

But if you look and try very hard,

You see history in this famous yard.

Let’s turn the clock ’round

To 1800 in Washington town.

That was the year John Adams and wife

Became the first family in White House life.

In all its one hundred and seventy-six years,

This House has shared the laughter and tears,

Not just of the families who came here to stay,

But of the whole Nation at work and at play.

Abe Lincoln lived here in the midst of a war,

And soldiers camped on the lawn by the door.

Astronauts and inventors, poets and kings,

Parades and picnics, weddings and things–

All these are part of the White House story,

And America’s two hundred years of glory.

Here where your Easter egg rolls

Is also where our history unfolds.

For America’s birthday this very year,

Let’s join together in a special cheer:

“To America–the land of the free,

To what she was and what she will be.”

At the top of the page, illustrated rabbits in American Revolution-era uniforms decorate an Easter egg with the year “1776.” 

In addition to the egg-rolling contest, there were clowns, magicians, a juggler, and a trampoline gymnastic team, the MarVaTeens. There was also a performance by Bob Brown’s Marionettes (Brown and his puppets also performed on the children’s show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood) and appearances by Winnie the Pooh and, of course, the Easter Bunny. 

Author: Lauren White