Dianne Stuart Humes, onetime personal correspondence assistant to President Richard Nixon, has died at 91

Dianne Stuart Humes, 91, of Philadelphia, onetime personal correspondence assistant to President Richard Nixon, former Foreign Service officer in Italy, and retired trust fund lawyer, died Saturday, Dec. 23, of heart failure at her daughter’s home in East Hampton, N.Y.

Admired by Nixon for her elegant, sensitive writing style and attention to details, Mrs. Humes was a White House staff writer for presidential correspondence and commendations from 1970 to 1973. Her role was to respond to as many of the countless personal letters Nixon received as she could, and she told the Daily News in 1973 that she wrote “little warm messages, bread-and-butter notes, condolences.”

She also worked earlier for Nixon, from 1957 to 1961, when he was vice president, writing protocol remarks for him and handling press relations for his wife, Pat, during the 1960 presidential campaign. Nixon grew so fond of her prose and steadfast personality over the years that he would often interject “great wife” when asked about her husband, James C. Humes.

Mrs. Humes was always keenly interested in current events and world affairs. She qualified as a Foreign Service officer after college and served from 1956 to 1957 at the U.S. consulate in Naples, Italy.

She and her husband, a popular presidential speech writer and former State Department official, hosted international guests at their homes in Germantown and Chestnut Hill when they weren’t in Washington, Central Pennsylvania, London, or elsewhere abroad. They traveled the world often during their 63-year marriage and met with royalty, former prime ministers, ambassadors, and dozens of other dignitaries.

She returned to Philadelphia when she left the White House in 1973 and settled on West Chestnut Hill Avenue in Chestnut Hill. She told the Daily News. “I think it’s time to take a leave and be more with our children.”

But she did not stop contributing. She earned a law degree from Widener University’s Delaware Law School in 1978 and worked as a lawyer in the trust department at Philadelphia National Bank and CoreStates Financial Corp. until her retirement in 1999.

Mrs. Humes and her husband were featured often in The Inquirer and Daily News in stories about their public service and historic homes in Philadelphia and Washington. She enjoyed Philadelphia’s culture and history, and helped arrange Nixon’s visit to the city in 1970.

The family lived on West Walnut Lane in Germantown in the 1960s in what was called “the summer White House” because President Grover Cleveland stayed there during visits to Philadelphia. “She loved the Philadelphia area,” said her daughter Mary Humes Quillen.

Dianne Stuart was born March 11, 1932, in Maynard, Mass. An accomplished pianist and stellar student as a young woman, she graduated from Concord Academy in 1950.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1954 and worked at first on the production staff of Boston radio trailblazer Marjorie Mills. She met James Humes in a dining hall in Washington during her Foreign Service orientation, and they married in 1957 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and had daughters Mary and Bailey. Her husband died in 2020.

Mrs. Humes lived in Williamsport, Pa., in the early 1960s while her husband represented Lycoming County in the Pennsylvania legislature. They moved to Philadelphia in 1966, to Colorado while he worked there in 1999, and to Cathedral Village retirement community in Roxborough in 2017.

Among her many notable encounters, Mrs. Humes met Madame Chiang Kai-shek at a Wellesley class reunion in 1952. She helped arrange a 1970 gala at the White House to honor Chadds Ford artist Andrew Wyeth, and her 50th wedding anniversary celebration in 2007 went off at London’s House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster.

She was a diver in college after spending memorable summers as a girl at White Pond in Massachusetts, and she never stopped playing piano for family and friends. She especially enjoyed spending holidays and vacations with her grandchildren in Pennsylvania, New York, Colorado, London, and elsewhere.

She was also active with the Philadelphia Cricket Club, Acorn Club, and Junior League, once turning down an invitation to a White House luncheon to attend a Junior League charitable event in 1970. “She was very self-effacing,” Quillen said. “Modest and gentle. She enjoyed being around people, and she always put herself last.”

In addition to her daughters, Mrs. Humes is survived by four grandchildren and other relatives.

Private services were held Dec. 27.

Donations in her name may be made to the Junior League of Philadelphia, 27 W. Lancaster Ave.. Ardmore, Pa. 19003.