Evening star., 1935-03-24
White House Events Off;
Birthday Party Delayed
In Illness Of Col. Howe
Mrs. Roosevelt Suggests March 80 for Mi
Careme Ball of Newspaper
Women's Club. !.


time and break bread and sip tea
with the scribes
Mrs. Edmund B. Montgomery is
back from Cuba where her husband,
long with the State Department, is
now American consul general in
Havana and for two weeks, or about
that time, she will entertain and be
entertained by her many Washington
friends. AS Natalie Barnes of Phila-
delphia, Mrs. Montgomery made her
debut in Washington and later mar
ried Virginia gentleman, Mark Reid
Yates. Her home on Massachusetts,
avenue is one of the several very in
teresting ones in the vicinity of the
Japanese Embassy. Mrs. Montgomery
likes Havana and seems to have suf-
fered not at all from the rather
riotous excitement said to obtain in
that capital in recent months.
Spring teas and Spring fever, once
synonymous in Washington, are no
longer in the same class but instead
the former are lively places where
knowledge on political and other
weighty subjects is dispensed with ef-
fervescent good humor. and not merely
tea slipping and tea dripping and
cake nibbling affairs. Just now
the Womens Democratic Club and
the League of Republican Women
of Washington are running a
lively race for place, the Demo-
cratic women conflning themselves
more to their elegant club house.
while Republican women are doubling
on them by entertaining both at the
Republican Club on Rhode Island
avenue and at private teas.
1t was Mrs. Henry Prather Fletcher
who gave one of the sprightliest, most
interesting afternoon parties of the
Spring and as her husband is chair
man of the National Republican Com
mittee, OF course, guests from that
party predominated with, however, a
pungent flavor of Democrats. 1t could
not have been otherwise, for chief
guests were the presidents and officers
of the Women's National Press Club
and the Newspaper Women's Club.
Personally, Mrs. Fletcher is gen.
eral favorite, an invitation from her
being a distinction. She was familiar
with many of the newspaper writer's,
having met them at a tea in their
honor when Mrs. Coolidge presided
in the White House and she and Mr..
Fletcher we're guests there just before
going to his post as Ambassador to
Italy. The lady, in her elegant black
afternoon gown, made lasting i'm
preston on newspaper writers, and
one would have thought but year |
elapsed since that tea, so kind had |
nature dealt with the hostess of Mon
day who again appeared in an elegant |
afternoon costume of black.
The dainties of the tea table whetted |
the wits of the guests, old Republi- |
cans and new Republicans, and re-
partee flew from lip to lip. Mrs. |
Charles M. Lea, staunch and intelli-
gent Republican, who had herself |
been hostess at a similar tea a week |
earlier, approached the tea table for |
some of the delicious little biscuits,
split and buttered Kentucky fashion,
with bit of bacon and quava jelly |
between, when Democrat with mug |
wump tendency remarked that they |
were good enough to turn Democrat |
into a Republican. Take the whole |
plate" laughed Mrs. Lea, your vote
is worth it."
Mrs. Laura Volstead Lomen, whose |
biologist husband is in charge of the |
once vanishing reindeer of Alaska, was |
there and chortling merrily over the |
fact that the great herd of reindeer |
being driven from the snowy plains of |
Alaska to the snowy hills of Canada
had Just been delivered after a pic |
turesque and almost fantastic trek |
lasting over two years. Mrs. Lomen,
daughter of the father of the Volstead |
act, did not even notice the punch |
bowls in the tea room, though the |
beverage was sufficiently bracing. |