As a politician’s daughter, Fanny often attended many fancy dinner parties hosted by her family. These were very important to her father’s career, but she sometimes tired of them. Below she describes the food she would have eaten at the family’s New Year’s feast! “Calling” meant that someone was visiting.

“John and Kate soon had the table set for the reception of guests, and very pretty it looked, in the center a very large and handsome plum cake...John sat up from one year to another to fix the chicken salad which was ornamented with eggs and celery very beautifully, then there were oysters, a turkey, ham, and so forth also coffee & chocolate...At twelve visitors began to arrive...He [father] thinks that from three to four hundred people called here during the day.” Jan 1, 1859