The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-03-06
excepting on 100000 a Year.


keep house on, 1t is interesting to know
how she does 1t. There are about 30 WON
en- In New York who have this royal al
lowanoe, and who would be puzzled good
deal to know how to manage II tho sum
was reduced by 100000.
Mrs. Theodore A. Havemeyer spends
more upon her housekeeping than any
other woman in New York, and Mrs. An
son Phelps Stokes, who lives on the oppo-
site corner of Thirty ninth street and
Madison avenue, probably comes next.
There are go servants on Mrs. Have
meyers pay roll. Twenty are in active
service in the town house, and the rest are
scattered between the houses at Newport
Tuxedo and the farm at Stamford, Conn
The white capped French chef draws a
salary of So, 600 a year, and one taste of
the Nesselrode pudding he makes would
make you declare he was worth the money.
| He has two assistants and four kitchen
| maids. These he selects and Is response
| BILE for. There are BESIDES a steward, a
| butler four footmen, housekeeper and
| four housemaids, two laundresses, two la
| dies maids, coachman and six stable
men. The housekeeper engages all of the
servants for the house, except the chef and
the ladies' maids, and these are chosen by
Mrs. Havemeyer herself
All of the responsibility Of the house.
keeping falls upon the steward and the
housekeeper. He supplies the pantries and
| cold storage rooms with everything that
the markets of the world contain, and the
housckeeper secs that each of the servants
does her work in the most perfect manner.
Tho work Is not hard but the hours are.
For the maids day begins at o'clock in
the morning for windows, marble floors,
books, paintings and everything in the
| magnificent house Is carefully gone over
| every day, and all must be finished and
every servant except the butler and the
footmen invisible before the earliest riser
| in the family saunters in for his O'Clock
breakfast When the family is assembled
| down stairs, which is usually not much
| before l O'Clock luncheon the up stairs
! work is finished, and so much work is to
be done, and to be done so thoroughly,
that each hour of the day brings its duties,
| and there are not many rest moments be-
| fore the maids have their O'Clock supper.
The first of each month Mrs. Havemeyer
hands the housekeeper a check for $500;
500 for herself, 500 for the steward, SIS
for the butler and the rest to be divided
among the other ten servants. The chef
has $125 in addition to his salary to pay
his help, the two ladies' maids share 500
between them, and Mr.. Havemeyer settles
with the cUachman and the grooms to the
| tune of about $500 per month This Is for
| only one of four houses but the others are
not so expensive.
Each morning, as Mrs. Havemeyer fin
ishes her dainty breakfast of rolls and
chocolate, her maid brings to her the
menu made out for the next three meals
by the chef. She checks off what it would
please her to have, and the genii of tho
kitchen do the rest. The amount the
steward spends in a month is enormous,
| the butchers bill often amounting to $3.50
per week, or the tidy sum of $1,000 per
month. This of course includes game of
every kind and the choicest cuts of the
most expensive meats in the market. The
amount spent for fruit almost equals the
meat bill, for the choicest grapes are some
times $50 per pound, and other dollhouse
fruit costs in the same proportion. Count
ing the wines, So, 600 would about pay for
the Havemeyer table for one month.
Mrs. W. Seward Webb Mrs. William
Douglass Sloane, Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard
and Mrs. II. Mckay Twombley, who were
the four Vanderbilt girls before their mar
riages, live close to each other on Fifth
avenue. They all keep house in about the
same fashion as does their mother, Mrs.
William H. Vanderbilt.
They each have the regulation house.
keeper, steward, footmen, etc. but Mrs
W. Seward Webb and Mrs Twombley
have in addition a trained nurse head
nurse and two nursery maids to care for
their little children in the study rooms,
playrooms, nurseries and dining roc'ns,
which are all isolated from the show 4
of the house and reserved exclusivcl or
,Nf,.l Iftt1 L.. i
these scons Of the Vanderbilts spends
So, per month for food and drink II
months in the year
Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt is very re-
firing, conservative woman, and while
her home, which covers half block and
is the largest in New York, requires the
care of many servants, there is no undue
| extravaganza, and the amount spent for
housekeeping would not exceed that ex-
| pended by her ssters-in law for their
much smaller houses. 1t is strange
thing, but many of the servants who have
worked for Mrs. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Sloane
and Mrs. Seward Webb for several years
have never seen their mistresses closet
than a peep at them through the uppet
windows as the ladies entered their car
riages. The housekeeper is virtual mis-
tress. She hires them, pays them their
wages and presents them with the Christ
mas gifts, which are carefully selected and
always worth the having. Mrs. Bradley
Martin, Mrs. Townsend Burden, Mrs
George }. Gould, Mrs Fred Vanderbilt.
Mrs. William Rockefeller, Mrs Ogden
Mills and Mrs. August Belmont are some
more of the lofty danes who have S10O
600 year to spend and who never fail to
spend it.-New York Cor. St. Louis Globe
Democrat.