Mr. and Mrs. Scott A. Willits
]
In any event, the adoption cards announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Scott
A. Willits had adopted Elizabeth Ann Willits were dated March 15,
1921, were mailed out by the Willitses at that time, and Elizabeth Ann
(Harding) Christian became legally Elizabeth Ann Willits.
My brother-in-law had been during the war a private in the navy, and
after the armistice he very much desired to be released so that he
might get back to his musical vocation. He is a violinist, and the
duties of a sailor had necessarily done much damage to hands which were
entirely unused to manual labor. Through my appeal to Mr. Harding,
who was then of course a United States Senator, Scott was given an
honorable discharge which enabled him to return to his music. I
remember his telling us how the other boys at the Fort sat up and took
notice when it was learned that a United States Senator had intervened
in his behalf.
Therefore, when Elizabeth Ann became legally a Willits, it was agreed
that the story surrounding her adoption should be that her real father
had been a friend of Scott in the navy and that her real mother was
dead. On the whole it sounded plausible and seemed to “get over”
admirably. I found _myself_ unwilling however to state that the mother
was dead, and found that in the instances I was approached for an
explanation, it sufficed to say merely that the father was a friend of
Scott, which was true in the main.
_60_
Before Scott had returned from his Chicago Opera tour, Elizabeth and
I had begun to plan for a new apartment. They lived on the South Side
in Chicago, which is not generally conceded to be as fashionable or
desirable as the North Side, and Elizabeth and I agreed we would prefer
to be on the North Side. I was to live with them, of course, and my
room and board were included in the amount of money paid to them
monthly. This money, Mr. Harding agreed heartily with me, should always
be paid to them through me, and it always was, most of the time being
all cash, except for a couple of months when I sent them my personal
checks from New York. Outside of my board and room, as Mr. Harding
stated to Elizabeth during the Marion, Ohio, interview, “I mean, of
course, to take care of Nan in the matter of clothes, etc.” and he did,
too, liberally. With the first payment to the Willitses which he had
advanced, handing it to me in Cleveland upon my visit with him in the
Hotel Statler, Elizabeth and I chose some additional furniture for the
new apartment, and in a short time selected the apartment itself, which
was at 901 Lafayette Parkway. It had a sun porch and a back porch, and
even a real back yard, which we could share along with the other five
families who lived in the apartment house. We thought the yard ideal
for Elizabeth Ann to play in.
Mrs. Belle Woodlock shed real tears when we took Elizabeth Ann away
in the taxi, never again to return to her. Only once afterward did
I see Mrs. Woodlock, and it had then been so long since I had heard
myself called “Mrs. Christian” that she had to hail me several times,
on the elevated platform downtown, before I realized she was calling
to me. The baby had been with her, you see, over a year, and one grows
attached to a baby in that length of time even though the parents hover
near.
My sister Elizabeth continued for several weeks to play in the theatre
where she led the orchestra, but Scott’s work permitted him to be home
on certain evenings. Scott’s father, a hardy farmer, was visiting
the Willitses about a week after the baby had arrived to make that
her home, and both he and Scott were home one evening when the baby
exhibited unusual lung force and much temperament. The reason therefor
was doubtless because she had begun to cut her first difficult teeth.
I shall never forget how that night she cried herself to sleep in my
arms, her cheek, tear-wet, against my cheek, her tiny arms wrapped
about my neck. This, of course, excited wonder from Mr. Willits, Sr.,
who, not knowing of course that I was the mother, marvelled at my “way
with babies”!
In the spring of that year, 1921, possibly in April when most people
move, we went over to the North Side. Dr. and Mrs. John Wesener, the
latter a first cousin of Mr. Harding, also lived on Lafayette Parkway,
down the street in an apartment house right on Lake Michigan. I have
forgotten how we discovered this; perhaps Daisy Harding told us in a
letter after Elizabeth or I wrote to her giving her our new address.
Lafayette Parkway is but a block or so long and runs from West to East
between Sheridan Road and Lake Michigan. It was at the Weseners’ that
Daisy Harding visited when she came to Chicago, and it was when she
made such a trip--in the summer of 1921, I think--that she first saw
her brother Warren’s child, her niece, though, of course, not known to
her then as such.
_61_
I was at this time unable to walk a block without feeling the most
inexpressible sensations of fatigue. I would waken in the morning,
always being able to sleep all right--a sort of heavy, dead sleep--and
could not stand on my feet unless I immediately had something to
eat. At last I decided if I could but get into a hospital, anywhere,
where I would not be allowed to get out of bed for weeks, and where
I would be waited upon hand and foot, I might regain some of my lost
strength. There was a minor operation which I had contemplated having
for some time, and I thought I would go ahead and have it and thus
get into a hospital. I consulted doctors about it and was headed
definitely in that direction. I wrote to Mr. Harding. He sent me $450
for my expenses. He sent this of course in a plain envelope, as usual,
enclosing it several times in smaller envelopes.
Elizabeth, however, who had tried all along to persuade me not to go
to a hospital, finally did influence me to see her friend and family
doctor, Dr. Frederic L. Barbour, a physician whom Scott had known for
several years and who had skilfully treated Scott early in January of
1920, when the latter was seriously ill. Dr. Barbour had two offices;
one on the South Side and one in the Marshall Field Building downtown.
It was to the latter office that Elizabeth took me one noon. I shall
never forget how I looked those days. My eyes were weak as a direct
result of my general run-down condition and I wore tortoise-shell
glasses most of the time. I was extremely thin, and I had no smile
except certain times when I had been lying down for awhile and felt
comparatively rested.
Dr. Barbour was young and cheerful. I think it did me good to look at
him. He examined me thoroughly, took an X-Ray of my chest, and in the
end told me I was in a very excellent condition to pass on under any
anesthetic, refusing to treat me at all if I even so much as considered
an operation of any kind. I became Dr. Barbour’s patient at once,
giving up all thought of an operation, and remained under his care
for many months. And he became one of my best friends. He was obliged
among other things to treat me for a very weak condition resulting from
lack of recuperation after my baby’s birth, and he himself guessed
intuitively the whole of my story with very little information from me,
even to the identity of Elizabeth Ann’s illustrious father.
My sister Janet was living with us at that time, and my brother
“Doc” was also in Chicago and at our apartment frequently. It was
difficult for us to hear each other correct Elizabeth Ann, who was
now approaching the age when she had to be told right from wrong. It
annoyed Scott, my brother-in-law, fully as much as it annoyed me, I am
sure, to suffer her to be reprimanded first by one of us and then by
the other, though I felt I was naturally the one to give orders in her
behalf and the one whom she should obey above all others. This created
a state of continual dissension and superinduced an added nervous
condition in me which I was trying desperately with Dr. Barbour’s
treatment to overcome. Therefore, I determined the only thing for me
to do was again to yield my baby to the care of others and return to
New York for the oncoming winter, allowing the Willits home to regain
normal composure. I am sure this must have brought a great sense of
relief to Scott and I know it made things far easier of accomplishment
for my sister Elizabeth, in regard to both the baby and Scott.
_62_
In June of that spring, 1921, I made my first trip to Washington. I had
wanted so much to attend the inauguration on March 4th, but it did not
seem wise for me then to undertake a trip which would doubtless prove
physically detrimental to me; and there was much to do anyway, because
my precious girl was with us; and, mother-like, I felt no one could
handle her as well as I. So this June trip was the first I had made
to Washington since the President’s formal installation in the highest
office of the land.
Up to this time I had for the most part sent my messages to the
President through Tim Slade. The first letter I sent to Washington
after Mr. Harding’s inauguration I sent independent of Tim, simply
addressing it to my sweetheart at the White House, taking care,
however, to enclose it a couple of times in inside envelopes, on one
or both of which I had written, “This is a confidential and private
letter and is to be handed immediately to the President.” I followed
it with another, similarly addressed, in which I inquired if the first
one had been received. My distress was very genuine when I had Mr.
Harding’s reply that he had received but one letter, the second one I
had sent. The first one had contained several snapshots of Elizabeth
Ann and some of Elizabeth Ann and me. On the backs of these snapshots
I had written explanatory messages, calling his attention to her eyes,
or her expression, or something about her which resembled her father so
strongly.
So, after this experience Mr. Harding advised me to send the letters
in Tim’s care until he could think of another and better way. Which I
did, of course, Tim delivering them in person to the President. And I
had arranged through Tim, he fixing it with the President, for my first
visit to Washington.
As soon as I reached Washington I connected with Tim on the phone. It
seems to me he told me my appointment with Mr. Harding had already been
arranged. In any event, Tim called for me at my hotel and escorted me
to the White House.
Needless to say, I “took in” everything I could on that first visit. We
entered the executive offices through the main office entrance, which
is the entrance on the right of the White House portico, and passed
through the hall leading to the Cabinet Room. Here we waited for Mr.
Harding.
While we waited, I observed the Cabinet Room with less awe, I guess,
than natural curiosity. There was a long table around which stood the
substantial chairs of the twelve men who met there every Tuesday
morning and every Friday morning, each chair having the name of the
particular Cabinet member engraved upon a little metal plaque which
was fastened on the back. A fireplace, a clock on the mantelpiece, and
a few pictures completed the furnishings. Mr. Harding’s chair at the
head of the table interested me most, and I stroked the back of it and
sipped stale water from a partially filled glass which stood on the
table in front of the President’s chair. So this was where sat the
leaders of the greatest nation in the world! I recalled articles I had
read about this awesome office. One had recently appeared in _The New
York Times_ and was entitled, “At the Keyhole of the Cabinet Room.” But
I was not at the keyhole. I was on the really-and-truly _inside_!
We had been waiting only a very few minutes when Mr. Harding opened the
door, a door immediately behind and opposite his Cabinet Room chair. He
greeted me cordially and instructed Tim to remain in the Cabinet Room.
Then I preceded him into a very small adjoining room, a room with one
window. He explained to me that this was the ante-room, and crossed
over to another door which led into his own private office.
Once in there, he turned and took me in his arms and told me what
I could see in his face--that he was delighted to see me. Not more
delighted, however, than I was to see him.
There were windows along one side of the room which looked out upon
the green of the White House grounds, and outside, stalking up and
down, face rigidly to the front, moved the President’s armed guard.
But in spite of this apparent obliviousness on the part of the guard,
we were both skeptical and Mr. Harding said to me that people seemed
to have eyes in the sides of their heads down there and so we must be
very circumspect. Whereupon he introduced me to the one place where,
he said, he thought we _might_ share kisses in safety. This was a
small closet in the ante-room, evidently a place for hats and coats,
but entirely empty most of the times we used it, for we repaired there
many times in the course of my visits to the White House, and in the
darkness of a space not more than five feet square the President of the
United States and his adoring sweetheart made love.