Antoinette Hatfield's talents and sense of style and her support of the arts in Oregon take earned her a place in American political history. With her organizational and culinary skills, she transformed nutrient and fashion into political currency and social upper-case letter, both in Oregon and in Washington, D.C., helping to plant and extend the reputation and political effectiveness of her married man, Oregon Senator Marker Hatfield.

Antoinette Marie Kuzmanich was born in Portland on January 17, 1929, the only child of Vincent and Josephine Theresa (Leovich) Kuzmanich. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 1950 and earned a Master of Arts degree from Stanford University. In 1957, she was named Counselor for Women at Portland State College (now Portland State University); in Apr 1958, she became the college's first female dean.

On July viii, 1958, at the Hinson Memorial Baptist Church building in Portland, Kuzmanich married Oregon Secretary of State Mark Odom Hatfield, a few months earlier he was elected governor. She had been raised in the Catholic tradition, and she converted to Hatfield's Baptist faith at her marriage. They had four children. The couple's first home was at the Royal Court Apartments in Salem, and in 1960 they moved to 883 High Street SE. They remodeled the 1901 house to expand the commencement-floor public space, which Ladies' Home Journal vividly reported in 1960. Antoinette Hatfield also gained press attention for her fashionable clothes and gracious demeanor.

During Mark Hatfield's start years as governor, Antoinette Hatfield hosted weekly teas that drew upwardly to eight hundred women at a time to their abode during legislative sessions. Describing the teas in a simple and uncomplicated way, she said that "the teas merely happened; women came in the front door and left at the back." While the teas appeared to be effortless, they were advisedly planned and staffed past friends, family unit, and supporters.

The author of five cookbooks, Antoinette Hatfield gained visibility and media attending from style, food, and society writers, and her name was often paired with luminaries such as Julia Child and James Beard. Marian Burros (Washington Postal service), Ann Reisman (Harper's Boutique), and Jeryme English (Statesman Journal) were her publicity machine, pushing out news in newspapers beyond the country of Hatfield'due south recipes, her manner sense, and her husband's position. The first of her five cookbooks, ReMarkable Recipes from the Recipe File of Mrs. Mark O. Hatfield (1966), featured Eastern European dishes and recipes for finger food, desserts, and dial.

In 1967, the Hatfield family moved to Washington, D.C., when Marking was elected as Oregon'due south U.S. Senator. Antoinette's second cookbook reflected the couple'south prominence in the capital, with recipes contributed by celebrities, politicians, and journalists. The recipes and cookbook brought the Hatfields national printing coverage, visibility that provided a softer side of Senator Hatfield's politicking and drew attending to Oregon as a desirable and hospitable place.

Long-time political allies John Dellenback, a Republican congressman from Oregon, and his wife Mary Jane organized modest individual suppers at the Hatfields' dwelling house to bring those with conflicting views to agreement and compromise. James Bristles Honour winner Jeanne Lesem attributed the phrase "dinner table diplomacy" to Antoinette in 1971: "She regards home entertaining as a very of import force in the capital 'considering you can discuss some things more than easily over a bowl of soup than from two sides of a desk.'"

During the 1970s and 1980s, real manor values soared in Washington, D.C., and Hatfield and other congressional wives had a social network that brought buyers and sellers together. As a licensed real estate broker, her earnings paid for her children'due south schooling. In a 1979 article in the Miami News, she was quoted every bit maxim, "'Nobody gives any wife credit for being able to do anything in this town without her hubby.…I would hope that my power is what does it.'"

The Hatfields returned to Portland in 1996 when Mark retired from the U.S. Senate. Antoinette opened the Antoinette Hatfield Gallery in downtown Portland, showcasing artists such as Jan Koot, Dean Larson, John Van Dreal, Shirley Gittelsohn, and others. The gallery closed its doors in 1999.

Hatfield always credited her husband'southward accomplishments rather than her own. In a eulogy to his father, who died on August 7, 2011, Mark O. Hatfield Jr. said that his mother "has fabricated sacrifices most of us volition never know, under more hard circumstances than anyone should have to. E'er the matriarch, she is the woman backside the human being, in forepart of the world."

Antoinette Hatfield continues to live in Portland. She is an advocate for the Oregon Historical Society and Oregon'due south cultural customs, serving on the boards of the Portland Art Museum, the Portland Ballet, and the Hashemite kingdom of jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. In 2007, the New Theater Building in Portland'v Centers for the Arts was renamed Antoinette Hatfield Hall. She received the Jesse F. Richardson Foundation'south Ageless Laurels in 2019.