Recollections of full years

by Helen Herron Taft

My daughter Helen was born in 1891, so for the last year in Washington I had two small babies to care for. In order that he might get a little much needed exercise Mr. Taft bought a horse and, fortunately, for us, he secured a most adaptable creature. He was supposed to be a riding horse, but he didn’t mind making himself generally useful. The Attorney General lent us a carriage which he was not then using—a surrey, I think it was called—and we hitched him to that; and the whole Taft family drove out of a Sunday afternoon to the Old Soldiers’ Home, which was the fashionable drive in those days, or up the aqueduct road to Cabin John’s bridge. My sister Maria who visited us used always to speak of our steed as “G’up,” a name suggested by Bobby’s interpretation of his father’s invocations to the good-natured and leisurely beast. Poor old “G’up”! I suppose with his “horse sense” he finally realised that he was leading such a double life as no respectable horse should lead; he gave up and died before we left Washington.

The Justices of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General, the men with whom Mr. Taft came most in contract, were, with their wives, very kind and attentive to us, including us in many of their delightful parties. Chief Justice Fuller was then the head of the court and I have the pleasantest memories of his and Mrs. Fuller’s hospitality. Justice Grey had married a Miss Matthews, a daughter of Mr. Justice Matthews. I had known Mrs. Grey in Cincinnati before her marriage.

During the course of my first weeks in Washington Mr. Taft had taken special pains to impress on me many times the necessity for my calling on Mrs. Grey without any delay. Much importance attached to the formality of first calls and I was the newest of newcomers who had to call on the wives of all my husband’s official superiors before they noticed me. Still, it was a full month before I had time to go to Mrs. Grey’s and I was considerably worried about it. But when, finally, I did go and had been most kindly received, I explained at once that the settling of myself and my small baby in a new house had, until then, kept me too busy for any calls. Mrs. Grey hastened to assure me that she understood my position perfectly and had not thought of blaming me.

“Indeed, my dear,” she said, “I knew that you had a small baby in the house and that you must be kept constantly occupied. As a matter of fact I should have waived ceremony and come myself to welcome you to Washington except for one thing which I could not very well overlook, and that is—that Mr. Taft has not yet called on Mr. Justice Grey.”

I think I have rarely seen anything more satisfactorily amusing than the expression on my husband’s face when I told him this.

But, in spite of the friendliness of the Justices and others, we really went out very little. On one occasion when my sister Maria had been visiting us for several weeks we went for a Sunday night supper to the house of a lady whom Maria had known very well in Cincinnati. She was living that winter in Washington and seemed to be rather well pleased with her social success. She talked loftily throughout supper, and during a good part of the evening, about the dinner parties she had attended and the grand people she had met. Then just as we were about to start home she turned to my sister and said:

“And have you been much entertained, my dear Maria?”

“Oh, I’ve been enjoying myself tremendously,” was the answer.

“Well, with whom have you dined, dear?” persisted our hostess.

“Why, we’ve dined with the Andersons, with the German Ambassador, with the Chief Justice, and with the Maurys, and with the French Ambassador,—and with, oh, a number of other people.”