Beth The Vacuum, R.I.P.

I got a big kick of Senator Charles Grassley's goodbye to his faithful vacuum cleaner, Beth. The New York Times comments sections had tributes by readers to their own long-time appliances, with a few nasty comments by those with no sense of humor at all.

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Senator bids farewell to Beth, his ‘faithful’ vacuum cleaner
For Chuck Grassley, 92, who has been in Congress for 45 years, one servant has been by his side longer than any other: his mother-in-law’s beige Hoover

The Times 8-9-26

"The death notice for the vacuum cleaner was posted at 3.52pm on Saturday afternoon by the senator Chuck Grassley in a message that seemed, in its abruptness and grammatical oddities, to hint at genuine heartbreak.

"Grassley is the longest serving Republican senator in US history and for most of his 45 years in Congress, in a fickle age of politics, there had been one constant servant: his mother-in-law’s old vacuum cleaner.

"He named it Beth, after a former staffer. Beth, a beige vacuum with a red dust bag, had been with his mother-in-law for 15 years before joining the Grassley household in 1992.

“OLD FAITHFUL,” he called her. “She never lets me down.” It sometimes seemed, to his followers, that he mentioned Beth more than his wife of more than 70 years. Now she had taken her last, wheezing breath.

“U willl see BETH no more,” he wrote. “See black that’s from electrical sparks. It’s not safe to use anymore. GOOD BYE BETH . U hv been a real workhorse. Ur namesake still is hard worker. I will miss u.”

"It was a eulogy that seemed, in its clunking manner, to mirror the characteristics of its subject. It was almost poetry.

"Tim Scott, a Republican senator for South Carolina, was among the first to offer condolences. “Sorry for your loss,” he wrote on X. “They don’t build them like they used to.”

"Josh Turek, an Iowa Democrat and state representative who is running for the Senate against Grassley’s Republican colleague, said: “Sounds like Beth had a heck of a run.”

"There were, naturally, those who sought to see, in the passing of a Hoover, a larger political point. Opponents of Grassley made pointed remarks about term limits and the decline of American manufacturing. One supporter claimed that it was Beth’s dying wish that Grassley and other senators immediately pass legislation, championed by President Trump, requiring voters to show passports or birth certificates to vote.

"Grassley is not the first member of Congress to develop a strong attachment to a piece of machinery. John Boehner, a former Speaker of the House, appears frequently with his lawn mower. 

"The senator John Kennedy has a cross trainer in his garage that he has named Margaret, “after Margaret Thatcher because both kick butt”. His wife, Becky, “won’t let me bring Margaret in the house,” he said, in a video posted this year. So he uses Margaret in his garage and then lifts weights, watched over, metaphorically speaking, by his Iron Lady companion. 

"Grassley’s Hoover, Beth, would generally appear in Grassley’s public pronouncements around Thanksgiving. His wife and daughter were cooking for 30, he announced in 2018. “So my housework contribution begins,” he said. “This is my machine.” He named the machine after Beth Levine, who served for 20 years as his communications adviser, a role that usually involves a lot of “clean-up”, in public relations parlance.

“Yes, I am the Beth namesake!” Levine told The Times in an email on Sunday. “I can vividly remember him calling into the office when I first learnt about the vacuum, probably more than 15 years ago, long before the vacuum was named.”

"Whenever he posted about his vacuum cleaner, she would get messages from friends. “I have loved seeing each one of the posts and will always appreciate that that’s how he remembers my work for him and the people of Iowa,” she said. “Not only has it been fun and an honour to have a US senator name his vacuum after you (yes, I would call it an honour!), it’s been a great way to keep in touch with former colleagues and friends.”

"Grassley would write about the vacuum during other holidays too. “Faithful Beth has about 3 hours of cleaning to get ready for 25/30,” he wrote on Christmas Day in 2022. The following June, the senator Shelley Moore Capito posed with Grassley and a cardboard cut-out photograph of the vacuum cleaner. “Turns out Senator Capito is a big fan of Beth,” he said.   

Senators Grassley and Capito with Beth        

"Followers of Beth received some footage, a few months later, of the vacuum and the senator in action together, sucking the dust from a large blue rug. “She never lets me down & im grateful I can count on OLD FAITHFUL,” he wrote.

"But all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream, at a happy juncture, end in failure, said Enoch Powell. For that is the nature of politics and of human affairs and of vacuum cleaners.

"Yet for all those lamenting the end of an era, there were others who said that Beth was not yet dead, that she only needed a new power cord.

“I manage a hardware & electronics shop in Ankeny,” one of these said, beneath his announcement. “We would be honored to pick up and repair Beth free of charge.”