[2] Robert Jr.'s paternal grandparents were President William Howard Taft and First Lady Helen Louise "Nellie" Herron while his maternal grandparents were Lloyd Wheaton Bowers (Solicitor General of the United States from 1909 to 1910)[3]: 127  and Louisa Bennett Wilson.

[1] During World War II, Taft served as an officer in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1946.

In 1964, rather than running for re-election to the House, he ran for the U.S. Senate, but he lost to Stephen M. Young.

In 1966, Taft returned to the House of Representatives, unseating Democratic incumbent (and future Governor of Ohio) John J. Gilligan.

They were the parents of:[8] After Blanca's death, Robert Jr. remarried to Katherine Longworth Whittaker, widow of his distant cousin David Gibson Taft.