Identifier: recollectionsoff00taft (find matches)
Title: Recollections of full years
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Taft, Helen Herron, 1861-1943
Subjects: White House (Washington, D.C.) Philippines -- Description and travel Washington (D.C.) -- Social life and customs
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead & Company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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n whateverroom may be designated and there, grouped in order of rank,await the entrance of the President and his wife. At thisfirst formal dinner of ours the guests assembled in the BlueRoom, the Vice-President and Mrs. Sherman being first, ofcourse, and nearest the door leading into the corridor, whilebeyond them were the Cabinet officers, then the Senatorsand Representatives in order of seniority. Upon our appearance the band began to play The StarSpangled Banner—which, let me say parenthetically, isalmost as difficult a tune to walk by as Mendelssohns Wed-ding March—and played just enough of it to bring us tothe door of the Blue Room. After we had shaken handswith everybody the senior aide approached Mr. Taft withMrs. Sherman on his arm and announced that dinner wasserved, whereupon Mr. Taft offered his arm to Mrs. Sher-man and started for the dining-room. For my first dinner I chose pink Killarney roses for tabledecorations and it would be difficult to express the pleasure 356
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s RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS I felt in having just as many of them as I needed by merelyissuing instructions to have them delivered. The WhiteHouse greenhouses and nurseries were a source of constantjoy to me. I had lived so long where plants are luxuriantand plentiful that a house without them seemed to me to beempty of a very special charm and the head horticulturistremarked at once that during my regime his gems of palmsand ferns and pots of brilliant foliage were to be given theirdue importance among White House perquisites. I filled thewindows of the great East Room with them, banked the fire-places with them and used them on every possible occasion. The state Dining Room is one of the many splendid re-sults of the McKim restoration and, next to the EastRoom, is the handsomest room in the White House. It isnot so tremendously large, its utmost capacity being less thanone hundred, but it is magnificently proportioned and beau-tifully finished in walnut panelling with a fireplace

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