Recollections of full years

by Helen Herron Taft

I always enjoyed, however, using some of the old historic plates and platters at small luncheons and dinners. There are enough plates left of the Lincoln set to serve a course to a party of thirty. Though I speak of the different designs as expressive of personalities they represent, perhaps, various periods of popular taste rather than individual preference. Samples of all the different services, displayed in cabinets in the long eastern corridor, are among the most interesting exhibits in the White House.

From the day my husband became President I never knew for certain until I entered the dining-room just how many persons there would be at luncheon. He always did credit me with a miraculous ability to produce food for any number of persons at a moment’s notice and when he was Governor of the Philippines and Secretary of War I always had to keep an emergency supply cupboard, but I did not feel that I could carry with me into the White House the happy-go-lucky attitude toward the formalities which I had enjoyed in those days, so meeting his sudden demands became a slightly more serious matter. His haphazard hospitality was of more concern to the servants than to me, however, and I think it is only his own gift for inspiring respectful devotion on the part of his household staff that ever enables me to keep a cook more than a week at a time.

During our first spring in the White House Congress was in extra session for the purpose of revising the tariff and Mr. Taft was in constant conference with the different Senators and Representatives. We had members of Congress at luncheon and dinner daily, and at breakfast quite frequently.

Always, in consultation with my housekeeper and the head cook, I made out the daily menus.

“How many for luncheon, Madame?” was the cook’s invariable question.

“I haven’t any idea,” was my invariable reply.

If no guests had, to my knowledge, been invited I would give instructions to have luncheon prepared for the family only, emergency provision being a thing understood. My day’s plans would then be sent over to Mr. Young, the Executive Social Officer, who had his office in the Executive wing of the building, and I would go on about my accustomed duties and pleasures knowing that no surprise would find us quite surprised.

Along about eleven o’clock the house telephone would ring, or a note would be sent over, and announcement would be made that Mr. So and So would lunch with the President and Mrs. Taft. The table would be laid while the kitchen staff stood calmly by awaiting final orders. In another half hour might come the announcement of a second guest, or group of guests, whereupon the amiable butler would have to make a complete change in table arrangements. Only about a half hour before the stated luncheon hour did the cook ever consider it safe to begin final preparations, but too often for the maintenance of entire smoothness in domestic routine Mr. Taft would come across from the Executive offices anywhere from a half hour to an hour late, bringing with him an extra guest, or even a number of extra guests whose coming had not been announced at all.

This system, or this lack of system, obtained throughout my four years in the White House, but I and my capable and willing staff, all of whom were devoted to the President, eventually adjusted ourselves to it and I began to take great delight in the informal meeting of so many interesting and distinguished men at our open luncheon table.

I tried to insist that the dinner hour should always be properly respected, and it usually was. While we gave many informal, small dinners,—nearly every night as a matter of fact,—there were crowded into my first season from March until I became ill in May most of the big official functions which are a part of White House life always, as well as a number of entertainments which were a part of my own scheme of innovations.