Inside Graceland: Elvis' Maid Remembers by Nancy Rooks

talk to her, to try and find out what was bothering her. Patsy told me later that Lisa had overheard Aunt Delta saying some unflattering things about how Priscilla was talking about opening Graceland to the public. Apparently, Aunt Delta had said that meant Priscilla didn’t care about Aunt Delta and Dodger, and, because of that, had talked harshly about Priscilla.
    We found out later that, after overhearing Aunt Delta say those things, Lisa had confronted her and then gotten into an argument with her and yelled, “You don’t like anybody, you just cuss them out behind their back.”
    As with most family squabbles, things were back to normal within a few days and the incident was soon forgotten.
    One of Lisa’s favorite pastimes was riding around the grounds of Graceland on the small blue golf cart Elvis had made especially for her. He had even had the name “Lisa Marie” painted on the side. She would drive it as fast as it would go, turning corners, sometimes on two wheels, as she maneuvered it around the curving paths and walkways of the mansion. You took your life in your hands, sometimes, just walking around the grounds while she was on her golf cart.
    She spent hours, often with one or two of her friends onboard, exploring the far reaches of her “kingdom.”
    One day, I was doing something outside and saw her, by herself, drive the cart over to the side wall. I was close enough to hear her as she told a fan, who was looking over the side wall, that they were not supposed to be there. Apparently, the fan asked, “Who are you?”, and Lisa, standing up to her full height on the golf cart, yelled, “I OWN this place! It’s all MINE! That’s who I am!” She then quickly drove off as I was scrambling to call security. This was HER house, and, like her daddy, she was going to defend it if she had to.
    A golf cart was responsible for one of Lisa’s nurses being fired, when Lisa was much younger. The nurse, a lady from Germany, had recently been hired by Priscilla to watch Lisa. She had just put Lisa down for a nap and, having gone out back for a break, apparently saw one of Elvis’ golf carts sitting there and had decided to “take it for a spin.” Having apparently never driven a golf cart before, she was not familiar with how to control it. She drove it around the side driveway to the front of the house, down the winding driveway, and right into the front rock wall, just to the left of the guard shack.
    She had to be taken to the hospital for some minor injuries and was promptly fired by Priscilla when she got back to the house. We were all so thankful that she had not had little Lisa with her at the time.
    The nurse hired to replace her did not last long either. She was rather elderly and frequently had to leave early to go home because she would tire easily. That meant Aunt Delta and I would often end up having to babysit Lisa.
    The two of us sat many an evening on that daybed in Lisa’s room, talking about everything under the sun, as we waited for Lisa to fall off to sleep.
    Delta once said to me, “I don’t really know how to watch over a baby. I never had one of my own.” She went on to tell me how she felt much more comfortable with just her little dog, Edmund. She laughed and said, “Maybe I like dogs better than people because they don’t talk back like people do.”
    Like all young people, Lisa would occasionally get bored around the house. When she was younger, she and a friend of hers would play a game with the telephone that they had made up. They would put random numbers together, to make up a phone number, and then dial that number. They would keep doing that until they got a number that answered. Once they got someone on the phone, they would try to engage them in some nonsensical conversation. The routines about Prince Albert in a can, or “Is your house on the bus line?”, the kind of pranks we all grew up with. Of course, it was all done as harmless fun. (I often wondered, as I