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Wife, mother, grandmother, schoolmarm, lecturer, editor, charitarian, social service worker, shopkeeper, clubwoman, colyumist, traveler—the nation had been given continuous demonstrations of Mrs. Roosevelt in all these capacities by this week when the time came for her to function formally as First Lady, at the opening of Washington's social season. U. S. women of all ranks and ages were waiting to see how she would perform as hostess of the White House. That Washington's fifth Depression winter would lack Taftian social glitter was to be expected. But busy Mrs. Roosevelt announced two innovations calculated to strip the season's social functions to the bare bone of practicality.
Calendar. The exhausting all-day public reception at New Year's will be discontinued, said she. Undoubted reason: to spare the President the ordeal. The number of guests at the five other receptions will be curtailed. Guests whose names are removed from those lists will be received after the five state dinners. First of these affairs occurs this week, when the President and his lady dine the Cabinet. After that the White House calendar is arranged thus:
Dec. 7—Diplomatic reception. Dec. 14—Supreme Court dinner. Jan. 4—Judicial reception. Jan. 11—Diplomatic Corps dinner. Jan. 18—Congressional reception. Jan: 25—Vice President's dinner. Feb. 1—Departmental reception. Feb. 6—Dinner for Speaker of the House. Feb. 8—Army & Navy reception.
Hooverizer. In 1917, when the Herbert Hoovers and the Roosevelts were good friends in Washington, Mr. Hoover's Food Administration made Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt's household (two adults, five children, ten servants) its model for large families. Mrs. Roosevelt, who turned over to her daughter when she married the account books she kept as a bride, has always been a shrewd Hooverizer. She believes in such sustaining but economical standbys as baked beans, meat loaf, prune pudding and oatmeal. Last spring she entertained Mrs. Vincent Astor and some other ladies with a White House luncheon of which the main course was a soup made of spinach, dandelion greens and bacon grease—a dish reputedly in great favor with Andrew Jackson. She asked her guests afterwards if they did not think such a meal sufficient for midday. Some of the ladies politely hinted that they did not. Beaming as brightly as ever, Mrs. Roosevelt replied that she was just experimenting and wanted to find out. Recent dinner guests at the executive mansion have reported frankfurters as the entrée. "I should be most unhappy," says Eleanor Roosevelt, ''if I could not buy new books, but having beefsteak for dinner would mean nothing to me whatsoever!"