She married William in 1886, and lived with him as he served as a justice on the Ohio Superior Court and was made Solicitor General of the United States in 1890.

She was involved in Taft's political career and the social fabric of D.C.[3] The idea of publishing her memoirs was first proposed by The Delineator, a women's magazine.

The two made the story a first-person narrative and took the project to the publishing company Dodd, Mead & Co., proposing the title to be Recollections of Full Years.

[4] A review in The Oakland Tribune described the book as "a most interesting and intimate account of her exceptionally prominent life, politically and socially".

"[8] Lewis Gould, a biographer of Helen Taft, wrote that "the book has a sense of missed opportunity to be more candid about what she went through between 1909 and 1913, but in parts her narrative is interesting and informative".