72nd Street where I had been living when my sister came with the baby
to New York to see her husband off for Europe. The matter of finances
had to be faced. I had scarcely any money left, and Scott and Elizabeth
almost as little. But there was enough to last until we secured
positions. My sister Janet, six years my junior, was going to secure
a secretarial position also. The four of them--Scott, Elizabeth, Janet
and Elizabeth Ann--had an apartment downstairs and I secured my old
room on the top floor.
It was Elizabeth’s early suggestion that I go immediately to Daisy
Harding and reveal the truth to her. I had received no word from
anyone about funds having been provided by Mr. Harding and I could not
understand this. He had always been so generous, and it was upon the
very last visit to him in the White House that he had declared again
his full intention to care for both Elizabeth Ann and me all the rest
of our lives. So I concluded that whoever had been entrusted with
money for the baby and me would probably wait until a suitable time
had elapsed before making this bequest known to me. My sister and her
husband were skeptical, but then I could condone their attitude because
I knew that no one had ever known Mr. Harding as I had known him, and
no one could ever convince me that he would neglect his sweetheart and
his child. Had he not, long before we had dreamed of Elizabeth Ann’s
coming, been tempted upon two or more occasions to reveal to one or
more of his friends his relations with me, when he had been seized
with acute indigestion and had thought he was going to pass on? _Then_
there was no reason, as I had told him at the time he repeated these
things to me, for him to settle any money upon me. He had not harmed
me, but blessed me with his love, and I could see no reason why he
should even think of arranging for my comfort. But after Elizabeth
Ann was born I was far more dependent. My situation was increasingly
complicated. And now for me to think that Warren Harding had not made
ample provision for his child, and her mother as well, would be for me
to impute cowardice and injustice to one whom I knew always bravely met
life-issues. No, this was a feeling I could not in my most desperate
need ever share, for I knew well the man I loved and I knew his love
for me.
Captain Neilsen came around to see us after we had become comparatively
settled. Helen Anderson also came and brought on one occasion some
lovely preserves. But for the most part I neither looked up my old
friends nor cared to have them look me up. The captain was different.
He was kindly, he was understanding, and he was not fastidious in any
sense of the word. Therefore he came several times to call upon me
there in my sister’s New York apartment before he sailed for Germany
in October. I explained to him that a sudden financial embarrassment
had arisen with me as well as with my sister’s family, and that I would
be unable to then pay him the $450 I owed him. He waved away even the
idea of repayment, though I emphasized the fact that I was sure very
soon I would have the funds for him. I told these facts to my sister
and her husband and they thought he was a wonderfully fine man. “You’ll
go a long way before you ever find a man as kind-hearted as Captain
Neilsen,” they told me. And I agreed that he was indeed all that.
In spite of our almost destitute circumstances we were, at least,
together, and Elizabeth Ann slept with me nearly every night. But
it broke my heart to look at the little darling and realize what
everything meant.
At that time secretarial positions were scarce, and it was very
difficult for Janet and me to get located, especially when I declined
to work for less than $35 a week. Janet finally accepted a position for
a lesser salary, but it took me several weeks to find a place.
_109_
About the first of December, Scott and Elizabeth decided they ought to
return to Chicago, where Scott was better known and could get immediate
work. For various reasons it seemed best for me to move away from that
rooming-house after my family left, so I took a room at the Endicott
Hotel, Columbus Avenue and 81st Street. My room there was on the first
sleeping floor and had no daylight, just windows into a court which was
less than ten feet wide, but the bed was comfortable, and, anyway, I
could not afford to pay more than $12 from the salary of $35 which the
position I had finally secured paid me.
I put on my bravest front when I bade my baby girl goodbye again, and
faced the contemplation of hardships hitherto unknown to me. I felt
so pitifully alone, and swallowed hard the great lump that rose in my
throat as I tried to smile and blow farewell kisses to her who was my
very life.
On the occasion of one of my visits to the White House I had, with the
nervous apprehension born of mental unsettlement, spoken to Mr. Harding
about the future.
“Why, just think, honey, I am twenty-four years old now!”, indicating
that the years were piling up alarmingly and I could as yet see no
possible way for me to have our baby with me.
“Well, dearie,” he had answered me with the gentleness that always
aroused my most worshipful love, “if you are twenty-four years old you
should be grown up, you know!”
And then he had told me how when _he_ was about that age _he_ went
through a nervous breakdown, but here he was now, in the White House,
and President of the United States! He was sure _I_ would weather
through. And this gentle banter brought a smile back to my face.
Therefore now, as then, I must remember how much I had at stake in my
precious baby’s future and bear up for her sake.
One of my biggest difficulties was to live on $35 a week. It was very
hard to suffer denials but I set about with grim determination to
adapt myself. I continued to shun my friends to a very great extent.
Captain Neilsen returned from another sea trip and came to the hotel
to see me. My meagre salary oftentimes would not allow me to have even
as much food as I could have eaten, especially toward the end of the
week before pay day, and, pridefully concealing my poverty, I accepted
Captain Neilsen’s invitations to dine with inward thankfulness for his
persistent attentiveness.
There was another friend who called upon me frequently, whom I had
known since 1917, but he was a man with whom I felt I must keep up
appearances far more than with the captain, so I did not encourage him
to call. I needed many things and I felt less conscious of the lack of
these things when I was with the captain. Though the captain always
seemed to have a great deal of money with him, and though he spoke
carelessly of moneys he controlled, running into many thousands of
dollars, still he dressed with a carelessness that often distressed me
and brought my frank criticism.
_110_
In October or November I read with loving interest of the fund which
was being gathered together throughout the country to go toward the
erection of a memorial to the 29th President of the United States.
My secretarial position was not a very exacting one, and I had ample
leisure in which to do any outside work I might care to undertake, so
it occurred to me that there might be typing in connection with the
clerical work the memorial project would entail, and that I might help
in this way to raise the fund, inasmuch as I could not myself give any
actual money towards it.
Mrs. Warren G. Harding herself seemed, from the newspaper reports, to
be actively engaged in the matter, and so I decided to write direct to
her and make known my desire. First, however, I wrote to Judge Elbert
H. Gary, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the United States Steel
Corporation, to whom Mr. Harding had taken me in 1917 when I was given
a secretarial position in the Corporation, and who now was prominent
in the activities connected with the Harding Memorial Fund. I recalled
to his mind that Mr. Harding had once introduced me to him and that he
in turn had kindly made it possible for me to obtain a position in his
organization, and I told him that it was my desire to be of service
to those who had undertaken the initial steps in creating the Harding
Memorial Fund. I waited for several days and received no reply to that
letter.
Then I directed a note to Mrs. Harding. About a week or so afterwards
I received a note from her secretary, Miss Harlan, expressing, for Mrs.
Harding, appreciation for my proffered assistance, but regretting that
there was really no way in which I could be of service. After several
lesser attempts I had to give it up.
I wrote to Miss Daisy Harding and told her what I had hoped to do,
and I have her letter in which she said if I had not heard from Mrs.
Harding personally it was merely because she was so terribly busy. She
told me how generously her brother’s home town had given toward the
Fund, and expressed the opinion that he was indeed a greatly beloved
President.
It hurt me more than I can tell not to have been able to help in this
movement. I did so love to work for Mr. Harding or in an atmosphere
that breathed of him. But it seemed to me as the days went by and I
received no word of his having left any message for me, that I was more
and more alone, that I was shut out and away from the very things that
would have given me such comfort. For it did hurt me cruelly to receive
no word that I had been in his thoughts before he went away. If only he
had left a note! He might not have been able to entrust material aid
to anybody in the last days, to be given over to me for our child, but
I was under the impression that Major Brooks, his valet, had been with
him during his last illness, and I was sure he would have given him a
note to mail to me if it had been humanly possible for him to do so.
My longing for Elizabeth Ann and my yearning for the joy and comfort I
experienced from being with her and loving her was sometimes more than
I could bear, and I often went home after work to my gloomy bedroom in
the Endicott in a state of depression which brought vividly to my mind
some lines in a poem by John Keats:
“... and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a musèd rhyme....”
_111_
The first part of December Captain Neilsen sought my advice in a matter
of investment which would involve several thousands of dollars and
which would take him to Texas for the culmination of the transaction.
Christopher Hannivig, a wealthy Norwegian, and he, were to purchase
jointly from the U. S. Government some ships, which were to be utilized
for shipping oil. After consideration of the details it seemed to me it
was a wise investment and I so advised my friend. He then asked me a
question which I had grown used to hearing periodically and which I had
always answered negatively--would I marry him? Would I accompany him to
Texas as his wife and make of the trip a honeymoon?
I told him no, and I further said very bluntly that when I did marry,
there were certain reasons why I must require from my prospective
husband in advance of my marriage a check for $25,000 or $30,000. To my
surprise, Captain Neilsen smiled and answered easily, “Oh, is that all?
Well, shall I bring you my certified check for that amount tomorrow?”
And than I felt ashamed because I could not then explain to him that I
wanted it for a fund for my baby, inasmuch as her own father’s bequest
had not yet come to light and I feared to marry unless that marriage
provided amply for my child. So I shook my head.
The captain left shortly after that, returning around Christmas time.
In the meantime I sought my friend, Helen Anderson. She agreed with
me that it seemed to be the sensible thing to consider marrying the
captain and in that way be able to take my baby. The fact that he
dressed carelessly should certainly not deter me from doing the thing
that would give me my baby. He was, Miss Anderson and I agreed, a
“diamond in the rough,” and I would simply have to become his personal
polisher. He seemed genuinely in love with me, and would sit all
evening just talking to me, never attempting to get “fresh” as many
another man might have done after a friendship of such long standing.
I was thoroughly appreciative of these traits. I told Helen Anderson
that in return for his generosity in making it possible for me to take
my child, I would prove to him my gratitude in endeavoring to make him
at least reasonably happy. And I was very sure I could make him over in
appearance.
Upon the captain’s return from the South, I determined to tell him
about Elizabeth Ann. I thought I would try him out, and see what the
effect of my story would be, for, if he refused to allow me to take
Elizabeth Ann, I would not, of course, marry him. But I could not
marry him anyway unless I had been frank and honest about things. I
had deliberately postponed the telling until we should be together New
Year’s Eve, because I wanted to carry this new step in my life over
into another year, not wishing to identify the year 1923, in which I
had lost my beloved, with a marriage to another man. It was a foolish
little fancy I will admit, but quite characteristic of me. Therefore I
had postponed my confessionary revelations until the dawn of a new year.
When Captain Neilsen arrived, I found myself in a suitably revealing
frame of mind. I told him the whole truth. I confessed how miserable I
was without Elizabeth Ann, and gave him the entire picture just as it
stood. He was kindness itself, and repeated his oft-expressed desire
that I marry him. “Well, can I really _have Elizabeth Ann_?” I asked
him. “Of course you can!” he acquiesced heartily. He then told me he
wished me to understand his financial status, explaining that he was
actually worth something over $125,000, and even itemizing on paper his
holding for me to see. He said, however, it was not all available in
ready cash. I said that didn’t matter _if only I could have my baby_.
The captain knew of my natural extravagances in little ways, and he
had, as I have said, visited at my sister’s apartment in Chicago and
knew that, although I was not used to great luxury, I was at least used
to modest comforts. And I was very sure I could depend upon him to
provide more than generously for both my child and myself.
During the next day, not having the usual phone call from the captain,
I decided impulsively that he was avoiding me, having concluded that
if I actually married him I might do so from unfair motives. But I
could not reconcile these conclusions with his oft-repeated proposals
of marriage on any grounds that would please me. “Marry me,” he would
say, “and I’ll make you happy!” I felt that he meant that he would be
so generous in his material manifestations of love that I could bring
myself to care for him through sheer gratitude.
But my fears were groundless. He phoned the following day and that
night took me to the theatre. He asked me again and again to marry him
and let him provide for me and for Elizabeth Ann, but I found that I
could not even then, after my own careful decision to do just that,
tell him that I would marry him. “Well, if you refuse to marry me, I
will make a will tomorrow anyway, and leave all I have to Elizabeth Ann
when I die. I can at least do that for you,” he said, as we sped along
back to my hotel in the taxi under the elevated tracks on Columbus
Avenue. This to me was the acme of generosity and touched me very
deeply, though I didn’t let him know it. I told him, half-jestingly,
that I would certainly go on a search the following day for an
engagement ring of my liking! To this he also heartily agreed.
But the following day, after I had actually selected the ring I thought
would look well with the ring my beloved Warren had given me and which
I meant to keep _always_ on my engagement finger, the captain met me
and said he had been unable to convert into cash some stocks which he
owned and requested that I wait a while before deciding upon a ring. I
felt sorry, though slightly provoked that he should act this way--first
to convey the impression that money meant nothing to him, and then to
refuse to buy an engagement ring for the woman he seemed to want so
badly for his wife. But I decided he must be “trying me out,” and I
determined I would prove to him that I didn’t have to have the _ring_
in order to marry him. _Elizabeth Ann_ was my sole motive and purpose.
_112_
I thought about it all very seriously that night and when Friday,
January the 4th, came, and Captain Neilsen called me on the telephone
in the evening, I informed him that I had decided to marry him the
following day, Saturday, January 5th.
With my actual acceptance of his offer of marriage, it seemed to me he
was taken somewhat aback, though he said he would meet me, as I asked
him to do, at the Municipal Building, the following noon. He was late,
but explained that he had been inspecting a ship and could not come
when he had planned.
We secured our marriage license. When the man asked what the captain’s
business was I spoke up and said, as he had told me many times, “He
is a ship broker.” The captain looked slightly embarrassed as he said
to the clerk, “Better say ‘ship’s master’.” I didn’t know that this
different title meant another kind of business and it didn’t worry me
specially.
With the license in hand we went over to the Savarin in the basement
of the Woolworth Building for our luncheon. As we were crossing the
street, I remember that the captain had said that his money was not
all available. So I asked him, “You _could_ raise $50,000 if you had
to, couldn’t you?” thinking I would avail myself of $30,000 to put in
trust immediately for Elizabeth Ann, and the captain, Elizabeth Ann
and I would keep the other $20,000 to live upon and have a home for
ourselves, until he went back to work after our proposed honeymoon.
“Oh, of course, if I had to, I could raise $50,000. I should say so!”
The captain was very certain about it.
This was all the assurance I needed. Anyone who could raise $50,000
would have enough and plenty to keep me and my baby. And I would be
economical, and would try my best to love him to show him how grateful
I was that he had made it possible for me to have my baby with me.
That evening at nine o’clock we were married in the parsonage of a
Swedish Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue. Helen Anderson and the
minister’s wife were our witnesses. We went to the Alamac Hotel for
three days. We had driven Miss Anderson home and were alone for the
first time since we had become man and wife.
It seemed almost sacrilegious to me to yield to my husband the body
which had belonged so completely to Warren Harding, and I appreciated
his leaving me for half an hour. It gave me an opportunity to mentally
pull myself together. I told myself that I would soon have Elizabeth
Ann and it would all be so worth while. But my husband looked to me so
much like a million other men.... I just could not feel that I had done
the fair thing by either of us.... I did not love him that way.
Monday morning following our marriage on Saturday evening I returned to
work. I had not given my employer any notice and I knew I would have to
remain at the office until he found someone to take my place. Moreover,
Captain Neilsen had told me during the previous day that he would
immediately send to Norway and get some money which his legal guardian
was holding for him; and he would also start negotiations for the sale
of certain property which he, as the eldest child in his family, should
have urged the sale of long ago, after the death of his parents. It
would amount to $90,000 in all, and $30,000 would come to him as his
share.
From the Alamac we moved up to Bretton Hall, and I kept my secretarial
position for a couple of weeks. I had not been married more than a
week when I discovered, through questioning the captain closely, that
he did not actually have sufficient funds in the bank to enable us to
live even another month. But he assured me that his next trip to Europe
would net him a commission of $20,000 on a ship he expected to sell. It
seems to me he must have procured a loan, and with some of this money
and $40 of my own salary I bought myself a diamond circlet wedding
ring, for which I paid $165 and which I wore on my engagement finger
next to the ring given me by Mr. Harding.
I grew fonder of the captain during the two weeks before he sailed
for Europe. He was so enthusiastic about taking Elizabeth Ann, and
said that just as soon as he returned from Europe we would begin the
arrangements.
During his absence abroad, after I had given up my position, a friend
of mine from Chicago came on to New York. When I learned she was
coming, and realized how little money I had, I borrowed $150 from Helen
Anderson, assuring her the captain would return it to her just as soon
as he came back from Europe. With part of this I bought new shoes,
a new dress, and entertained once for my Chicago friend at a small
theatre party. I really felt quite dignified as Mrs. Neilsen.
As soon as the captain stepped into our room at Bretton Hall I asked
him what success had attended his trip. He had not sold the boat. Nor
had his money come from Norway. He looked very much distressed about it
and I felt genuinely sorry for him. He kept telling me to be patient,
something would “break soon.” But the weeks passed, and he said he
would have to make another trip to Europe, and still nothing had
“broken”--except my hopes.
_113_
I planned to go to Athens, Ohio, to visit my mother in early March
while Captain Neilsen was in Europe. I had promised my mother that
she could come East to be with me that oncoming summer, thinking of
course that I was to have an apartment and that I would be fully
established in my new home with Elizabeth Ann. I despatched a letter
to my sister Elizabeth, asking her to let Elizabeth Ann come to Athens
for several weeks, and this she did, my mother going to Chicago for
another purpose, but bringing Elizabeth Ann back with her to Athens on
her return. I was heartsick to think I could not return to New York
with my baby and feel free to become settled permanently. But I knew
enough by then of the captain’s financial situation to know this was
impossible. I felt I had been trapped all around, though I could not
that early accuse the captain of having misrepresented himself to me,
and indeed I did not believe he would do such a thing. He had loved
me so much, and he had actually thought that he would be able to get
the money, I was sure. Still, I could not help remembering that he had
told me distinctly that he had sufficient funds to keep us comfortably,
and _that_ had been an untruth, for I was not even at liberty to lease
an apartment because we could not pay the rent in advance. The whole
situation was inexplicable. The captain’s generosity of former days,
when he had sent me $200 to Europe and had had $200 awaiting my demand
in New York, and had deprecated my repayment of these advances, all
pointed to comparative affluence.
The more I thought about it the more distressed I became, and I could
not even then admit to my family the truth of the matter. Instead, I
found myself lauding the captain on all sides. I felt the situation
would surely right itself, if, as he had asked me, I would give him
just a little while to “get on his feet.” Like a pendulum I swung from
one decision about him to another, and in the night when I reflected
that after all I might not be able to have my baby with me, it almost
crazed me. No one knew the state of mentality I was in, for I could not
admit that I had failed in marriage, and I had not divulged our plans
of taking the baby away from my sister and her husband.
Here in Athens, Ohio, at my mother’s home, I again had my baby with me
and we slept together and played together, and I thought I could not
stand it to give her back. I wanted her so badly that I didn’t care
whether or not I ever returned to New York if I could not take her with
me and have her to _keep always_. I wanted to die rather than to go on
as I might have to go on--without my child. Nevertheless, after the
most severe misunderstanding I had ever had with my sister Elizabeth,
who came on to Athens to get Elizabeth Ann after about a month, I
regained control over myself and accompanied her and the baby back to
Chicago, where I visited for a week or two longer before proceeding
back to New York and to my husband.
I had received instructions from him to go to live with a woman whose
husband was the captain of a U. S. liner, on which Captain Neilsen
had accepted the position of second officer. I lived with her for a
couple of weeks and when the captain returned from a voyage, we went
temporarily to a hotel again.
The first of May we moved into a furnished apartment on West 114th
Street. I realized, however, that we could not live there and pay the
rent of $100 a month, unless I, too, went to work. So at Columbia
University I obtained a position in the Appointments Office. I worked
there a part of the time, and also took small pieces of dictation from
the various professors, sometimes going to their offices and getting
the work and doing it at home upon a typewriter which I had rented for
the purpose. I never in my life worked so hard as I did that summer of
1924.
The captain wrote Elizabeth and Scott under date of May 16, 1924, and
told them that we now wished to take Elizabeth Ann. I had determined
that if the captain did not make good his promise to me to provide
a home for her and me without my having to go back to work as I was
then doing, that I would not under any circumstances permit her to be
taken permanently by us, for I would eventually have to leave a man who
had so erroneously represented himself to me. But I clung to the hope
of fulfillment on his part and tried hard to banish these unpleasant
thoughts, so together we devised a letter which the captain signed.
In his letter to Elizabeth and Scott the captain said that we would
come that fall to get Elizabeth Ann, after she had returned with them
from the farm where they went every summer, and where they expressed
a wish to take Elizabeth Ann with them on a farewell visit to Scott’s
people.
_114_
About the middle of September I went to Chicago and got the baby. We
had committed ourselves to the extent of expressing in our letter our
desire to take the baby ourselves, and this was the understanding that
Elizabeth and Scott had when I went to Chicago to get her. Scott
looked unfavorably on the whole thing, feeling that I should not
have given her into their keeping only to take her away. I had never
breathed a word to them of Mr. Harding’s promise to me to take her
himself as soon as circumstances made it possible, but I knew that in
that event _I_ would have had her through him, and was only endeavoring
to get her in another way since her father’s way was impossible.
I could not work, now that I had Elizabeth Ann, until I had put her
in kindergarten somewhere, and I had no money with which to do that.
The captain kept saying, or writing when he was away, that something
was bound to “break,” but the first of October came and nothing had
“broken.” Our apartment lease ran out October 1st and it was necessary
for Elizabeth Ann and me to move. As an officer on the liner, the
captain spent quite a bit of his time there, even having to sleep
on board certain nights. I found it difficult to find an apartment
suitable for three and comparatively cheap, but decided upon a large
room which would suffice until I could find more suitable quarters.
It was in 109th Street, and, although the sun streamed in at the back
court window all afternoon, the place was frightfully dirty and full of
vermin. My little girl was bitten at night and I soon knew we could not
stay there.
The captain had said he would be in the city two weeks steady before
making another sea trip. It had only gradually dawned upon me that
these trips he was taking were in themselves the only source of income
that the captain had, and up to this time not one of the things he had
told me about converting property into money had come true. And I, who
had been frank with him to the point of possibly hurting his feelings
in admitting I was marrying him so that I might have a home for my
child, could not understand these misrepresentations.
I cast about for a suitable apartment and at last found I could get
two rooms and bath, very clean and nicely furnished, on 116th Street
West, for $110 a month. We were paying $22 a week for the one room we
were living in then. The captain went with Elizabeth Ann and me to
look at the apartment, approved the price, and signed the lease. But he
was able to pay but $50 down. I promised to pay the other $60 when we
moved in, and the captain said that he would have that and more besides
before I would need it.
Elizabeth Ann helped me in her adorable little way to “pack,” and at
three o’clock on the appointed day we awaited the drayman. The captain
had not returned as yet, but I felt sure he would be up on 116th Street
with some money when we reached there. I had barely enough to pay the
drayman.
The phone rang. It was the captain. He was leaving within an hour
unexpectedly for Newport News to be gone two weeks with the U. S. liner
for repairs. “But, goodness,” I said in utter despair, “what am I to do
in the meantime for the rent? and food?” He told me to go right down to
his lawyer, who had $100 which he would give to me.
Leaving things as they were, with the possibility of the drayman coming
any minute, Elizabeth Ann and I boarded a subway train, and within the
next thirty-five minutes were at the lawyer’s office in 43rd Street.
But he didn’t seem to know to what money I referred. He asked me to
phone “Angus,” as he called my husband, so that he might talk with him.
I brought my little daughter in and introduced her to the lawyer. He
scarcely acknowledged the introduction and I was hurt and embarrassed
to tears. To think that the daughter of Warren G. Harding should be
so slighted! I didn’t care how he or anybody else treated _me_, but I
was furious if they were not entirely lovely to my darling. The lawyer
himself had children, and I thought at least he might have shaken hands
with her. What kind of a man was this lawyer my husband employed? He
asked us to leave the room while he talked with the captain. There
was no money from that source. This I found out after the lawyer’s
lengthy telephone talk with the captain. I took Elizabeth Ann and went
downstairs and telephoned Captain Neilsen from a booth. I reached him
just before the liner had disconnected the telephonic service prior
to sailing. He said his friend, the ship’s commander, wanted to
speak to me. He came to the phone. He said he had called his wife and
that she would come down that night to see me with the rent money,
$110. That left $50 from the $110 for Elizabeth Ann and me to live on
until further remittances from the captain might come. So, after all,
Elizabeth Ann and I slept in our new apartment that night.
I have since gone over that whole situation thoroughly and
fair-mindedly, and I am sure that no one could have done more to help
a husband get on his alleged normal financial feet than did I to help
Captain Neilsen. That is, I helped until February 1st. Helen Anderson,
ever glad to assist when she could, advanced the necessary initial
kindergarten fee of $108 and I placed Elizabeth Ann in school, paying
$30 a month extra to have her remain there all day so that I might keep
an all-day position. I had a girl from Columbia come in the mornings
and take her to school and go after her at night, and in that way the
baby and I reached home about the same time. In the evenings I would
clean her up and clean myself up and we would go out for our dinner. I
was so tired at night sometimes I thought I could not get up the next
morning, and very likely I could not have done so had I not retired
every night with Elizabeth Ann at seven or eight o’clock.
I was then working at The Town Hall Club on 43rd Street. I began to
work there in October, 1924, and remained there for a year and a half
until April, 1926, as assistant to the Executive Secretary, who had had
charge of the Appointments Office at Columbia when I worked there the
previous summer.
_115_
When the latter part of January of 1925 came, I knew I just could not
go through the spring as I had done the greater part of the winter,
and I wrote Elizabeth, who was at that time with her husband in charge
of certain music work at the Ohio University at Athens, Ohio, to come
and get Elizabeth Ann if she could. It hurt me to do this, for I had
taken my child with the full intention of being able to provide a home
for her permanently. But I could not longer stand the physical strain
of keeping up the apartment, though that strain was not equal to the
mental strain of never knowing whether or not the captain could meet
the rent and other obligations. The last month we lived there, January,
I was obliged to go to a friend for $75 to help me out with the rent,
and I did so, taking Elizabeth Ann with me and meeting the friend
in the lobby of the Pennsylvania Hotel. I have not been able to pay
that back any more than I have yet been able to repay the Italian the
$90 borrowed in 1923. And January of 1925 found me owing other debts
also--school tuition for my baby, Helen Anderson’s loans amounting in
the aggregate to over $300, and others.
_116_
I began very early to acquaint Elizabeth Ann with the likeness of her
father, and she could pick him out in the Sunday supplements when she
was as young as two. She knew, of course, my autographed photograph of
Mr. Harding which always stood in a silver frame on my bedroom table,
as well as pictures of other members of the Harding family, all of
which hung on my wall, and my sister Elizabeth’s photograph of Mr.
Harding which he had autographed for her early in 1921.
In many ways Elizabeth Ann reflects my own moods, but love for Mr.
Harding seems to have developed of itself in her heart with an almost
uncannily independent force. When we first moved into the apartment on
Lafayette Parkway in Chicago, Elizabeth Ann was about two and one-half
years old. I had a small book written by Joe Mitchell Chapple, entitled
“Harding, the Man,” on the cover of which was a small picture of Mr.
Harding, an excellent likeness, set against a background of American
flags. The frontispiece was a larger, though not as good, picture of
Mr. Harding, and throughout the book were various other pictures--one
of Mrs. Harding, one of the old Harding homestead, one of _The Marion
Daily Star_ Building, one of the Harding home on Mt. Vernon Avenue in
Marion, and also one of their Wyoming Avenue home in Washington.
I liked the manner in which Mr. Chapple had written about the
President-elect (for the book came out during the campaign of 1920)
and I had written Mr. Harding that if Mr. Chapple needed a secretary
I would consider it a pleasure to work for him. Anyone who was so
manifestly strong for my sweetheart appealed to me as the “slickest”
kind of a boss imaginable. Mr. Harding was evidently amused at my
reason for wanting to work for Mr. Chapple for I remember he said it
would “do no harm to write to him and ask.” However, I never did.
Elizabeth Ann took a curiously decided fancy to this Chapple book. She
seemed actually much to prefer it above her own picture books, and, on
the floor, her chubby little legs spread apart the book in front of
her, she would sit for long stretches leafing through the pages and
“reading” aloud to me the story improvised in her baby language. She
had a habit of telling her stories in the form of questions, answered
by herself in a slightly different tone, sometimes ringing in a third
party and adapting her voice to this person also. Often, too, her
stories would take the form of letters, and I can hear her now in her
babyish oratory “reading” aloud to me about her own father. Slightly
embarrassed because she knew she was really not following the text, she
would look up at me, and with impish delight and with the smile of her
father, which made me gasp, she would continue, “My _dear_ Mr. Harding,
how are you? I love you, dear Mr. Harding. Mamma Nan loves you too,
ver’ ver’ much....” Then she would turn to me and raise her great deep
blue eyes and set her lips in the soft line which so imaged the serious
sweetness of her father’s expression, and say, “Nan, dear, isn’t he a
_darling_ man!” And with that I would crush her to me and smother her
with kisses. Nor would I forget to tell her father on my next trip to
the White House her latest sayings about him, and he would look at me
exactly as she had looked and would say, “She’s rather like her mother
in some respects, isn’t she, dearie?” And then he would lapse into
audible musings over his extraordinary feeling for little girls, which
had come over him since his own daughter’s birth, and with the most
pitifully tense, unsmiling sweetness he would say, “How do you think
she would _like_ me for her father?” or, “Just think, Nan, how grand it
is to be a father!” and I would pat his hand and swallow to keep back
my tears for I knew he was but remarking his very heart’s desires.
Often in her two-and-a-half-to-three-year-old days I would call
Elizabeth Ann into my room, which was at the far end of the apartment,
front, and she would come trudging down the hall, her “Harding book”
under one arm, and her other favorite, an abridged edition of Webster’s
Dictionary sometimes dragged along by a few of its leaves, which was
the easiest way for her small hand to grasp such a grown-up volume.
And once, when we snapped her picture in the back yard beside her doll
carriage, her Harding book lay in the carriage, open to Mr. Harding’s
picture, and the whole “took” very distinctly.
_117_
Here in New York in 1924, when I brought her on from Chicago to be
with me, she was five years old. She had the same love for Mr. Harding
then as when she was more babyish, but spoke of it now in an amazingly
grown-up fashion. For instance, she listened when those present thought
she was not listening, and naturally heard Mr. Harding discussed pro
and con. But whatever she heard did not influence her deep-rooted love
for the man who was her father. She so often said to me during that
winter of 1924-25, raising the question herself, “We won’t let anybody
talk about our dear Mr. Harding, will we, Nan dear?” And I would gaze
at her and reiterate softly, “No, indeed, precious Bijiba, we won’t let
anybody talk about our dear Mr. Harding,” knowing she meant “against”
him, when she said “about.” “Bijiba” was her own baby interpretation
of “Elizabeth Ann” and has clung to her as a fond nickname ever since.
Then again, she would request that I take down from the mantel the
picture of Mr. Harding so that she could kiss it, and she would shake
her head and exclaim, “Isn’t he just the _sweetest_ man!” And once
she repeated what she had of course heard, “Mr. Harding is dead ...
what does ‘dead’ mean, Nan dear?” And with tears I would tell her that
our dear Mr. Harding has just gone away, into another land. And once,
curiously twisting her query as though she knew whereof she spoke, she
asked, “And won’t he ever see _me_?” And she seemed for all the world
to be unconsciously expressing her father’s disappointment more than
her own. And I thought sadly, as I searched for a suitable reply, no,
he will never see his own daughter, not on this earth. It was all so
cruel, so cruel!
I simply _had_ to ask Elizabeth and Scott to take Elizabeth Ann back
by the time the latter part of January had come around. Even as early
as the previous October, when the baby had been with me scarcely more
than a month, I had a bitter taste of what real need was. I had exactly
seven cents in my purse when I took Elizabeth Ann with me one day to
the Provident Loan Society to pawn my wedding ring. I had the captain’s
watch also which he had given me permission to pawn, and the combined
pawnings brought $75. This enabled me to buy my darling little girl
a new coat and hat and a couple of school dresses, shoes, etc., in
preparation for her kindergarten. Everything seemed to cost so much;
but I thought that must be because I was not used to a limited income.
I wondered how people who had no more than we had really got along; I
know I fervently wished that I had learned the ability that makes a
dollar stretch five times its worth.
_118_
Shortly after I had pawned my wedding ring and had bought Elizabeth Ann
some new clothes, I had a letter from Miss Daisy Harding, saying she
was to be in New York soon to do some shopping. I surmised that she
would soon be married to Ralph Lewis and in truth learned afterward
from her that the trip East was for the purpose of purchasing linens,
and certain garments to complete her trousseau.
Even the knowledge that my child’s aunt was, according to her own
written statement to me months before, liberally cared for as a result
of her brother Warren’s will, did not cause me for one moment then
to consider as advisable or proper an appeal to her for financial
assistance. Moreover, I had launched myself upon matrimonial waters,
and, though I knew the craft which carried my child and me appeared to
be headed toward the rocks, there was still hope.
While in the city, Miss Harding stopped with a girlhood friend whose
father had been a prominent judge in Ohio. They lived at Broadway and
71st Street in an apartment building, and it was there that I took
Elizabeth Ann one afternoon to call upon Miss Harding. Helen Anderson,
who had always wanted to meet Miss Harding, about whom she had heard me
speak so often, went with us.
I was glad it was cold enough to warrant my wearing my winter coat,
which was trimmed with the squirrel from the coat Mr. Harding had given
me the money to buy back in 1920. Thus I looked as presentable as my
child. Pride would not yet allow me to admit to certain people that
in less than a year I had found that, in my instance, marriage was a
failure. I could not in the same breath confess I had married for a
home for my child, and without such explanation I would be stamped
mercenary, and rightly so.
I do not know whether the explanation I offered Miss Harding in
extenuation of Elizabeth Ann’s separation from her foster parents
sufficed to satisfy her natural speculation about the situation. I
do remember, however, that we repaired for a little private chat,
toward the end of our visit, to the play-room of the little daughter,
where she and Elizabeth Ann had been playing together, and I remember
distinctly that I made a broad statement to the effect that if I ever
for a good reason found I could not live with my husband, I would not
hesitate a moment to seek my freedom. And Daisy Harding, standing there
before me, not yet a bride, echoed my statement.
When we returned to the other room, I called Elizabeth Ann and told
her that we must go, but she and the little girl were having such a
gay time that she was loath to leave, much less put on the little kid
gloves which meant the final touch for leave-taking. And the joy of the
whole visit for me was summed up in seeing her “aunt Daisy”--as unknown
to her as such as she herself was unknown to Miss Harding as Warren
Harding’s child--coax her little hands into the gloves and talk to her
in a low voice which in the quality of its sweetness was much like her
brother’s. And I could tell, though Elizabeth Ann’s back was turned to
me, that she was looking straight into Miss Harding’s eyes with the
same sweet seriousness which was in her father’s eyes when he talked to
me about our child.
_119_
I wanted to be perfectly fair to my husband, the captain, but I
wanted more than anything else in the world to be fair to my precious
Elizabeth Ann. Therefore, I struggled through the winter until the
latter part of January, going in debt in many directions and often
using available cash to buy things for Elizabeth Ann, when pressing
bills awaited payment. For instance, I could not bear not to get my
darling a tricycle when she expressed an ardent wish for one, nor could
I stand it to see her go without a bounteous Christmas. My sister
Elizabeth sent her many lovely things and I thought, with mingled
pride and relief, that she had fared, after all, far better than most
children. I felt a great wave of pity and sympathy for the captain
when he came home at New Year’s from another trip abroad, and brought
the baby a box of toys; ungracious as I was growing toward him, such
thoughtfulness toward my baby never failed to arouse my sympathy and a
renewed attempt to bear up a little longer.
[Illustration: Facsimile analytical report on Elizabeth Ann at the age
of five, while attending the kindergarten of the Training School of the
University of Ohio, Athens, Ohio]
[Illustration]
However, I despatched a letter to Elizabeth the latter part of January
and she came East almost immediately. I persuaded my landlady to allow
me to break my lease. I advised my family that I was leaving the
captain. Mother came in from Long Island where she was teaching, and
she, Elizabeth and I, talked things over. Elizabeth said her husband
did not approve of sending Elizabeth Ann back and forth from Chicago to
New York whenever I found it within my power to take her for a little
while, nor could I really blame him for this attitude. However, that
had been my first attempt to take her permanently, and I fervently
hoped that the next time would be more successful. It broke my heart
to see her go, but once more I bade her goodbye from the Pennsylvania
platform and watched the train pull out, taking her away from me.
After all, Captain Neilsen was not, in spite of his seeming
misrepresentations, such a “bad fellow,” for he had simply loved me
so much that he had thrown a veil over realities and had refused to
accept true facts, preferring to pour all of his hopes into the scale
of optimism, fancying perhaps he could in some miraculous manner clap
his hands, and fortune, hitherto so elusive, would appear. So I didn’t
really want to hurt him, but I wanted to rid myself of him now and
start anew, never again to jump into matrimony with closed eyes. I had
learned a very dear lesson. I was sure he had learned one also. And I
had no wish to incur his enmity.
I moved into a hotel in West 55th Street the first part of February. I
was working at The Town Hall Club, as you will remember, and the Club
is on West 43rd Street, so my hotel was conveniently within walking
distance of my place of business. My work at the Club was quite
absorbing, especially because the executive secretary, whose assistant
I was, was occasionally ill, which threw her work upon my shoulders
in addition to my own routine work. I had been far from well myself
all winter, and it was only by observing early-to-bed hours that I
was able to carry on. I liked the atmosphere of the Club and came in
contact with interesting people, and, for the period which I planned
to go through in my immediate endeavor to seek a divorce, it was
conventionally a good place for me to be employed.
_120_
I had, as I have stated, always felt that there had been some provision
made by Mr. Harding for me to care for our daughter, and, after my
failure in marriage, it seemed to me I ought, for Elizabeth Ann’s sake,
to ascertain whether or not such a bequest existed. But even so it did
not occur to me to go then to the Hardings, feeling that, since Mr.
Harding had not chosen to confide his long-continued relations with me
to any member of his family during his health-time, it was not likely
he had done so just before his death. The most logical person, in my
opinion, and the man who most likely could tell me to whom to go if he
himself did not know about such a bequest, was Tim Slade. He it was who
had met me so many times and had escorted me to the White House, and
had come to Eagle Bay and Chicago with funds from Mr. Harding. I knew
Tim Slade had long since made a change from the governmental secret
service to the brokerage business, but I did not know of any further
changes he had made. So, not knowing where to address him now, I merely
sent my letter to him at Washington, and apparently this address was
sufficient.
My first note simply greeted him after the stretch of more than two
years since I had last seen him, and I wrote that if he ever came to
New York I would be glad to see him. To this letter, which I had
signed of course with my married name, I had an early reply. Tim wrote
that he would give me a ring on the phone the next time he was in the
city; that he was glad to hear from me; and that I should address him
in the future at his residence, giving the number and street. Very
shortly thereafter he came over to New York, called me on the telephone
at The Town Hall Club, and invited me to have dinner with him at the
Waldorf, where, he told me later on, he always stopped. I do not
remember that I accepted his invitation for dinner that time, but I do
remember very well the talk I had with him there which was the first
talk I had ever had with anybody about any money Mr. Harding might have
left for our daughter and me.
We sat in the lounge which one enters beyond the lobby from 33rd
Street, on a couch in the north-east corner. It seemed strange indeed
to be sitting with Tim Slade discussing my sweetheart in the past
tense. Heretofore Tim had been merely the messenger to take me to Mr.
Harding. Tim really knew very little about me. I proceeded to tell
him that I had been married since I had seen him, which accounted for
my new name which he told me he had not understood. It was easy to
talk to Tim Slade for he knew everybody connected with the Harding
Administration, and our conversation gradually bordered upon the very
topic I had been apprehensively waiting for an opportunity to broach.
Tim was not so aggressively curious as to give me reason to feel his
curiosity was other than that any man might display toward a girl
who had apparently had certain claims upon the time and attention of
the President of the United States. So I thought I should proceed to
elucidate certain mystifying past actions on the part of both Mr.
Harding and myself which must have excited speculation on Tim’s part.
I tried to lead up to such explanation by first re-establishing in
his mind certain facts which he very readily recalled--his first trip
to Eagle Bay in the Adirondacks in 1920 with the packet of money from
President-elect Harding, his many subsequent trips to Chicago, and the
times he had escorted me to the White House. Also, I reminded him of
the many letters I had sent in his care to Mr. Harding previous to the
latter’s arrangement whereby I sent them all in care of his colored
valet, Major Arthur Brooks.
Even then I shied at a direct revelation. I merely parried with the
issue in such a manner as to hint at it strongly. I said since Mr.
Harding’s death there was but one thing in all the world that I wanted.
I found the tears coming into my voice as I talked, and oh, how
distasteful it was to me to think of speaking of such a sordid thing as
money in confessing why I could not have this one thing I wanted.
“What _is_ it you want more than anything else in this world?” Tim
asked me kindly, avoiding my eyes because he felt my sensitiveness.
And somehow I found great relief in confessing to him that _I wanted
the daughter of Warren Harding who was also my daughter_. And when Tim
turned to look at me there were tears in his own eyes as he said, “_I
thought so!_”
After that I talked much and at random, explaining this and that, and
Tim seemed genuinely interested in hearing the whole story. I told
him how I had married Captain Neilsen with the idea of being able to
take Elizabeth Ann, and how that marriage had been a failure from
the standpoint of fulfilling this promise. And when I observed that
it just did not seem possible that Mr. Harding could have entrusted
money to someone for me who would deliberately fail to hand it on to
me after his death, Tim ejaculated in great surprise, “Didn’t he leave
you anything at all?” I said I would never, never believe that he had
failed to do so, but I _was_ convinced that the manner in which he had
done so had been such as to make it a very simple thing for the person
entrusted with the money to withhold it from me.
Tim’s assertion was spontaneous and emphatic, “Well, he didn’t leave
anything with _me_, that’s a cinch!” I told him I had thought such a
thing was possible, but that inasmuch as he did not hold the fund I
wondered if he would have any suggestions as to who might have been
chosen by Mr. Harding as confidential messenger to me after his death.
He volunteered to make guarded inquiry in Washington in my behalf.
I was interested to hear Tim say that he had always felt I had a very
deep claim on Warren Harding, “the boss,” as he called him. He said he
had half concluded that I must be his daughter by some alliance of long
ago. One of the first things he said, and one which led me to believe
that he was honestly sincere, was his statement that if he had known
the facts he and Mrs. Slade would themselves have taken Elizabeth Ann
immediately. I explained to him that I never would have consented to
such a thing anyway, that discussion had occurred in other directions
along this same line, but that the adoption which had actually
eventuated was the whole source of my present unhappiness. _I wanted my
child myself._
_121_
It will avail nothing to go into detail concerning the many points
upon which we touched in our later conversations. I related during the
many interviews I had subsequently with Tim Slade much of the story as
it stands in this book. Tim had, of course, a slant upon many angles
of Mr. Harding’s life as President which were amazingly revealing
to me, and which grieved me beyond words to hear. I knew pitifully
little about politics in general, and next to nothing about the inside
workings of the “machine” which is apparently an indispensable part of
both of our great political parties. Tim said he had gone to “the boss”
and had warned him that even his closest friends were double-crossing
him at every turn. He said Mr. Harding had replied, “Why, Tim, you’re
crazy!” And Tim had answered, “All right, maybe I am,” and had found
Mr. Harding adamant where his trust in his friends was concerned.
Tim was frank to say that he had no use for anybody coming out of the
State of Ohio except President Harding. “But I certainly did feel
sorry for the boss,” he said. He said many of those connected with the
Harding Administration had been no less than cut-throats and that “the
Chief” had really had mighty few friends.
Tim related to me his own experiences in Marion, Ohio, where he was for
several months the President-elect’s bodyguard. I was sorry to hear
him say frankly that he had never met such a “bunch” in all his life,
and I assured him that I was certain the streak of social madness of
which he spoke had developed in Marion only since the birth of the
excitement surrounding Mr. Harding’s nomination for the presidency. I
knew all or nearly all of the people of whom he spoke and I had known
them from childhood, and the wildness to which they might have inclined
as the result of a misdirected patriotic stimulus was condoned by me
who knew the genuineness of my home town people. I could not believe
as Tim believed, that “The whole bunch out there is rotten.” No town
which could produce Warren Harding could be fundamentally wrong in any
respect. It was only a temporary social dementia from which they would
recover with the passing of time.
Tim said Mr. Harding had instructed him that in case of “anything
happening” to him, Tim should get from his private secretary, George
Christian, the President’s little black notebook in which the latter
had kept private memoranda. Tim said Mr. Harding had told him he was to
tear out immediately the sheets containing my several addresses and my
name. I moved around, you will remember, quite frequently, and likely
if Mr. Harding kept these addresses they had filled several sheets of
such a notebook. However, it did seem to me, as I told Tim, that Mr.
Harding would have felt it important enough to see that each time I
moved he himself blotted out or destroyed my previous address, and it
also seemed entirely unlikely that he would have my real name written
in this notebook. Any fictitious name would have sufficed, and he and I
had many secret initials which meant something to us and which he might
have used for such purpose. Nevertheless, Tim said, those were his
orders. It seems to me Tim said that when he had gone to Mr. Christian
for the notebook the latter told him it had already been destroyed.
When I left Tim Slade after our first interview I felt sure he would
be able to trace the fund I felt had been left by Mr. Harding for
Elizabeth Ann and me, and Tim had spoken of his intention to speak also
to Major Brooks, the President’s valet, who was with the President, Tim
said, shaving him, only a short time before he passed away.
I felt very sure I could depend upon Tim, and was confident that his
own expressed opinion of the terrible injustice to Elizabeth Ann would
incite him to immediate action in my behalf. When he apologized for
his financial position, telling me he had only recently acquired a new
country home in Maryland and was shy of money, I hastened to assure him
that I didn’t expect any help from him. I was merely intensely anxious
to hunt down the fund which I felt sure had been left for Warren
Harding for our child and me.
_122_
The Town Hall Club, through its executive offices, issued invitations
for two Club dinners, the first they had ever given since the opening
of their new club rooms, and the designing of these invitations as well
as the supervision of their issuance was left to my execution, under
the direction and approval of the Program Committee. This Committee
consisted of Miss Rachel Crothers, who was also a Vice-President of
the Club at that time, and Mrs. Francis Rogers. I was proud to find
that I was capable of assuming many executive responsibilities, and the
success of the First Club Dinner on April 27th, 1925, was a source of
great satisfaction to me personally. There were seven hundred and fifty
people in attendance.
I had, as you will remember, always wanted to “write,” and in my
position at The Town Hall Club I was constantly meeting men and women
who had actually accomplished things in the literary world. I was
chafing under physical strain and nightly fatigue which were far from
conducive to creative writing. But I struggled over what I thought
might some day be a play, writing it around my own experiences with
my beloved Mr. Harding, disguising it, of course, and making our
daughter the central figure. In connection with my work under the
approval of the Program Committee of The Town Hall Club, I was obliged
one evening to go up to Miss Rachel Crothers’ apartment to submit to
her the proofs of the First Club Dinner invitations. I adored Miss
Crothers, and I longed to say to her, “Oh, I would give the world
to put what I know into a play!” As it was I merely said, “I admire
your work tremendously, Miss Crothers. It is the work I want some day
to be doing.” “Have you ever written anything?” she asked me. “No,
nothing much,” shaking my head. “Well, what you need to do is to have
a _child_, and some _experience_. _Then_ you can write!” I wondered
whether even Rachel Crothers could match out of the fecundity of
her imagination a drama equal to mine. And she had written so many
successful plays!
_123_
When the next Club dinner was held, on May 19th, 1925, a prominent New
York attorney introduced himself to me as one of our Club members. In
the days that followed we became friends, and, after telling him that
I was merely separated from Captain Neilsen and not yet divorced from
him, he was kind enough to wish to help me in this respect.
I have been told that each phase of my experience seemed a needful one,
and certainly the manner in which my experience has worked itself out
appears to have been providentially directed. I had not a cent with
which to obtain a divorce. Moreover, the only legal grounds I had for
such obtaining were the grounds of misrepresentation, and divorces in
New York are obtainable only upon statutory grounds, and I would not
impose upon the captain even the suggestion of collusion. Therefore I
had decided that only by going to Reno would I be able to untangle the
matrimonial knot which I had precipitated for my child’s sake.
Tim Slade had offered to go to a friend in Washington, who, he said,
was a prominent lawyer, and who would advise me how I might best obtain
a divorce and the most quickly. Tim said he thought likely it would
have to be upon grounds of desertion, and for this purpose I could
establish a residence in Virginia across the Potomac, commuting daily
to Washington, where, Tim said, he would see to it that I obtained a
position as secretary. Furthermore, he said that this lawyer was a
particularly good friend of his and that he was sure he would handle my
divorce as a favor to him, Tim, and charge no fee whatever.
It seemed to me that fate had helpfully intervened when I met the New
York lawyer who became my friend, and, after he had sympathetically
extracted from me my real reason for wanting a divorce, and the
one contributing factor which had led to compulsory abandonment of
cherished plans in behalf of my daughter, he stated that in his opinion
I had sufficient grounds for a complete _annulment_ of my marriage,
with restitution of my maiden name. This pleased me immensely. He
immediately drew up what was in effect a mutual agreement between
Captain Neilsen and me bearing no legal significance beyond our own
promise to each other to respect each other’s rights, as though a state
of marriage did not exist, until such time as I could obtain absolute
legal severance. We both signed this agreement, which also specified an
amount of money which the captain was to pay to me monthly, and which
he did in good faith pay until my annulment the following February
had been legally consummated. But this amount of money was not even
sufficient to cover the rent I had been paying, and so of course would
not have kept me had I not supplemented it with my own salary.
_124_
Tim Slade came over to New York about once a month, and the second or
third time I met him at the Waldorf he advised me that he had spoken
to Major Brooks as well as to George Christian, of course talking to
them hypothetically. He said Major Brooks remembered very well indeed
having received letter from “E. Baye” enclosing letters for President
Harding, but he knew of no money having been left for anyone at all
outside of those who were mentioned in Mr. Harding’s will. And nothing
had been left with _him_. Nor had Tim’s talk with George Christian, the
President’s secretary, revealed knowledge of such a bequest.
Tim seemed very sure that he could go further in his investigations.
He spoke of various people who had benefitted by the Harding
Administration, and who would, he said, undoubtedly be glad to interest
themselves in my situation. He said he was very sure, from what he
knew about the Harding family outside of the President, that it would
be difficult to persuade them to part with any of their money, and his
characterizations of particular members of Mr. Harding’s family were
distinctly severe. But I felt sure they would come immediately to my
rescue with as much eagerness to do the right thing as Elizabeth Ann’s
father had always shown. I said to Tim Slade that I would prefer not to
go to Harding family until we had exhausted other channels of effort,
especially until he had definitely determined in his own mind that the
money which I believed had been left for us by Mr. Harding could not be
traced.
When I next saw Tim Slade he had not accomplished anything so far as I
could see except to have further confided the facts of the situation to
certain individuals of his own choosing. I did not try to advise him,
feeling he ought to know the right method of procedure if his desire to
help me was truly genuine.
He said there were so few men who were really Mr. Harding’s friends
that the situation was a difficult one. When I met him every month at
the Waldorf the time was not spent entirely with discussions about my
own affair. On the other hand, Tim would tell me long stories about
individuals in Washington. I was learning surprising things about such
people as George Christian, Brigadier-General Sawyer (Mrs. Harding’s
personal physician), Mr. Brush, who bought _The Marion Daily Star_,
Harry Daugherty, his son Draper, and many, many others, some of whose
names were familiar with me, and others of whom I had not heard and
therefore have forgotten. The one man above all others who escaped
critical mention was Charles G. Dawes, who, Tim said, was “his best
friend,” and who, he was sure, would “go a long way” in helping to
solve my problem about Elizabeth Ann and my rightful expectations for
her.
I asked Tim if he had ever heard about the lost letter I had sent to
Mr. Harding the first month of his term as President, and I explained
how I had addressed it and how I had enclosed many snapshots of
Elizabeth Ann, and some of myself with our daughter. This letter was
not received. Tim said that he himself had assisted George Christian
until the latter had got onto things, but that some one else had opened
all of the President’s mail at that time. He said he did not think this
particular letter had reached there for he was confident it would have
been given to the President.
I told Tim about having met a friendly New York attorney and about his
volunteering to assist me, for a nominal fee, to free myself from the
captain, and Tim thought that would be wise.
The latter part of May I talked to my New York lawyer friend again
about my matter and I put my case to him hypothetically, in the light
of the natural responsibility a family ought to assume toward the
maintenance of their brother’s only child despite the fact that that
child could claim no _legal_ relationship to the family. I did not
say of course who the father of my child was, but his answer to my
question was both direct and emphatic. He was of the opinion that there
did exist a moral responsibility toward such a child and that _the
right thing to do for the child_ was to approach the family direct.
“You have apparently tried to ‘cut corners’ by making a marriage for
Elizabeth Ann’s sake. You found it has proven a failure. Now the thing
to do is to do the _right_ thing, which is to go to her father’s
people.”
I did not see Tim Slade again before I left at the beginning of June
on a vacation of a month to be spent in the West with my people. But
I remember distinctly that I made up my mind that if Tim Slade could,
as he said, influence certain persons to help Warren Harding’s child,
then the members of the Harding family would surely see it in the same
way, and, in justice to them, they should be approached immediately. My
lawyer’s assertion of the justice of such procedure strengthened me in
the step I was deliberating upon, and I felt there was really but one
thing _for_ me to do--make my plea in my own way to Daisy Harding on
behalf of her brother’s child.
_125_
My mother, who had been teaching on Long Island, and my brother John,
fifteen years of age, went West with me the first of June, 1925.
Elizabeth and Scott were teaching music at the Ohio University, and so
we proceeded straight to Athens, Ohio.
How my darling little girl had grown even in the four months since I
had been obliged to return her to my sister and her husband! How much
she looked like her father, and how happy I was to be with her again!
How long and straight her legs! How lovely her eyes! And she had lost
a tooth. Oh, I told her, I was so happy to see her! “Well, Nan dear,
I’m happy to see you, too!” she answered, her head to one side like her
father, her lips drawn into the semi-serious smile of a grown-up, as
she took one of my hands in both of hers. How dear she was! And what a
peach my sister Elizabeth was to take such good care of her! Nor was I
unappreciative of the fact that Scott had not been unwilling to take
her back even after I had taken her away with the full and expressed
intention of keeping her permanently. Scott and I never agreed where
Elizabeth Ann was concerned, but I conceded much appreciation to him
for having been won over to accepting her back uncomplainingly in that
instance.
Elizabeth said they were planning to motor back to Chicago and from
there to the Willits farm for the summer, and would I not like to motor
with them? This I decided to do, and in that way remain a little longer
with my precious baby girl before proceeding back to New York. So about
the middle of June we left Athens, by motor, for Chicago.
I continued to think about the task to which I had set myself: telling
my friend and my sweetheart’s sister, Daisy Harding, about Elizabeth
Ann. Our route to Chicago took us through Marion, Ohio, and Elizabeth
Ann and I shared the same bed at the Harding Hotel where we spent the
night. An oil painting of Mr. Harding hangs in the lounging room of the
hotel, and Elizabeth Ann spied it immediately and recognized it. “Oh,
there is our dear Mr. Harding,” she said, pulling my hand, and we both
stood in front of the portrait silently. In our bedroom were all the
needed evidences to make one know that it had been Mr. Harding who had
inspired the building. Even in the bedspreads was woven the likeness of
the 29th President of the United States.
That night, or early the next morning, I telephoned Miss Harding,
who was, by the way, Mrs. Ralph T. Lewis now, and told her we were
passing through Marion to Chicago and I would likely return that way
enroute East. I had previously written of my intended trip West and
Miss Harding had advised me by letter when it would be most convenient
for her to have me at her home. I told her over the phone I was making
arrangements to be there at the time she suggested.
We went on to Gary, Indiana, where we were obliged to spend the night
because of tire trouble. The following day we were in Chicago. That
afternoon, after a short rest, Elizabeth, Scott and the baby went on
down to the farm, and I, after visiting with friends for a couple of
days, went back to Marion, Ohio.
_126_
On my trip from Chicago to Marion I went very carefully over the whole
situation as it affected and might affect everybody concerned. I
decided it was paramountly _my_ problem, to solve for Elizabeth Ann,
and, regardless of the shock which the revelation of my secret might
cause, there did exist an obligation in the Harding family toward
Elizabeth Ann, and I owed it to my child to apprise the Hardings of her
true identity and parentage.
Of course, it would be difficult for me to tell Daisy Harding. It would
mean for me the retracing of a word-for-word picture of that part of my
life which I would fain recall only by sad-sweet memories unspoken, and
the indelible imprint upon my character. Miss Harding’s cordial, “Why,
come right on out, Nan!” when I telephoned her from the Marion railroad
station, brought me face to face with my promise to myself: that I
would not postpone the telling, but have it over with.
I had scarcely seated myself when I said, “Miss Harding, I have
something which I want you to know and I am going to proceed to tell
you immediately.”
I sat on the couch in the living-room. This was the first time I had
been in Daisy Harding’s new home since her marriage to Ralph Lewis. On
the table stood a picture of my darling, taken with Laddie Boy, and it
was the first time I had seen this particular picture of Mr. Harding. I
looked closely at it when I sat down. Its presence bolstered me in the
ordeal I must go through.
I plunged into my story and followed it as best I could from beginning
to end. Neither nervous tension nor tears stopped me until I had pretty
well covered the ground. Daisy Harding’s face was a study. As I talked
it expressed kaleidoscopically the varied emotions she must truly have
experienced--amazement, pity, hurt, sorrow,--all there, _but never for
one moment incredulity_.
The very first thing she said was, “Why, Nan, I’ll bet that was
brother Warren’s greatest joy!” I said I thought it _had_ been. Then
she added, “If Carrie Votaw knew this she would want to go right out
there and get that baby right away. She’d just love her!” I knew Carrie
Votaw’s fondness for children exceeded even Daisy’s. The Votaw’s had
no children of their own. I told Daisy in tears that that was exactly
what _I_ had been wanting to do ever since Elizabeth Ann was born, and
especially was it unbearable for me not to have her, since I no longer
had _him_.
I shall not attempt to give the details of our conversation, for it was
inclusive of every phase of my situation and would be a mere repetition
of my story thus far told. I showed her letters I had, and pictures of
Elizabeth Ann, and she, too, saw the likeness which her brother’s child
bore to him.
Miss Harding was understanding and kind, never once criticising her
brother, even though she made a brave attempt to convince me that
Mr. Harding’s legal wife was fond of him. Though it seemed futile to
me to expend so much time discussing this point upon which no one in
the world was probably as intimately informed as I, I took occasion
to remark that I had fully appreciated her _rights_, imposed by
the long-standing union between her and Mr. Harding, and that this
recognition on my part and my respect above everything else for my
sweetheart’s peace of mind, had resulted in the tragic situation I was
today attempting to face.
It was pitifully plain to me that Miss Harding’s immediate concern was
for the Harding name, to preserve it conventionally intact, although
the very method she chose to employ in her endeavor to impress me with
my own duty toward my child and her brother’s, only made her alarm the
more apparent. It would be unfair to Elizabeth Ann, she said, to tell
her who she was until she became twenty-five years of age--and perhaps
had had a love-affair of her own. Miss Harding asserted that there was
every probability that Elizabeth Ann might turn against me, her own
mother, if she were told before that time. But this I would not admit
for one second. I said that it might be a shock to Elizabeth Ann, but
that I knew my child well enough to know that I could never lose her,
because she was too much like her father and mother, both, ever to be
unduly swayed emotionally by such a revelation.
“How many people know this, Nan?” Daisy Harding asked me.
I told her each one of them, not forgetting to include Tim Slade.
At the mention of Tim Slade’s name, Miss Harding seemed greatly
distressed, and questioned very much the wisdom of my having made
Tim a confidant, telling me a story in which Tim figured and which I
had heard from Tim himself, though in an entirely different version.
It had to do with an alleged indebtedness left unpaid by Mr. Harding
in the amount of $90,000, so Miss Harding said, which amount was due
a brokerage firm for stocks of some kind to which Mr. Harding had
supposedly subscribed, but for which he had failed to pay previous to
his passing. The firm had sued the Harding Estate and Miss Harding said
that their lawyers had advised them that, inasmuch as there remained
no proof that Mr. Harding did _not_ owe it, they might better strike a
compromise than have it made a matter of public knowledge. This they
had done, settling for $40,000. I cannot repeat Tim’s version of the
same story, but it had been colored throughout with resentment frankly
expressed, for it had been the brokerage firm for which Tim had acted
as Washington manager, and he therefore said that he knew whereof he
spoke when he said Mr. Harding actually owed the money.
I told Miss Harding, as I had told Tim Slade, that Mr. Harding had said
to me upon my last visit to the White House that he was then in debt
$50,000, and I suggested that perhaps this was the very indebtedness
to which he referred, although it seemed to me I did remember hearing
him add something about “campaign expenses.” However, I had never been
interested in remembering those things verbatim which pertained to
business, though I knew by heart the sweet things he had said which
affected our personal relations, and it was the amount of $50,000 which
had stayed in my mind and the fact that the poor darling had said he
just could not seem to get out of debt.
I would not be disloyal to Tim, who was, I was sure, trying to help
me in his own way, and so I tried not to bring his name into our
discussions after that, except in a general way. Miss Harding suggested
to me later on that I might try in an off-hand way to get Mrs. Votaw’s
opinion of Tim. Her sister from Washington was then in Marion, and Miss
Harding said she thought it would be fine if the friends who had driven
through from Washington to Battle Creek, Michigan, and had dropped Mrs.
Votaw off in Marion, would invite me to drive back East with them when
they stopped in Marion again in a day or two to pick up Mrs. Votaw, and
that it would save me that much carfare. I said I would be delighted.
_127_
That evening Mrs. Votaw came over to her sister Daisy’s. I had not
seen Carrie Votaw for several years, but I observed that she had lost
none of her regal beauty, and she, too, had certain facial expressions
which reminded me strongly of her brother. Early in our conversation,
Mrs. Votaw found occasion to inquire about my Aunt Dell, who, you will
remember, had been a missionary to Burma at the same time Mrs. Votaw
and her husband, Heber Herbert Votaw, had been engaged in work of the
same character, and it was plain to be seen that the old feeling toward
my Aunt Dell was still smoldering in the heart of her whose religion,
as a Seventh Day Adventist, was not generally concordant with that of
my Aunt Dell, who was a Baptist.
Mrs. Votaw said to me that she had felt very bitter when my Aunt Dell
had taken occasion to have published in a certain paper an article,
written by my aunt, which voiced the hope of her church that Mr.
Harding, now the most distinguished member of the Baptist Church, as
President of the United States, might see fit to exert his influence
in the direction of promoting the very worthy work which the Baptists
were carrying on so admirably in Burma. I knew my Aunt Dell’s sense
of humor, and it would have been too much for her to refrain from
making capital of a situation such as this, and I could not help being
secretly amused. But it saddened me to realize how this given instance
of Mrs. Votaw’s resentment proved that the work which should be so
universally missionary in spirit and never pettily denominational, was,
after all, permeated with the spirit of sect jealousy.
_128_
The following afternoon I walked with Miss Harding (I never called her
Mrs. Lewis, having gained her consent to continue addressing her in the
old way) to the home of a friend where she was having tea. From there
I went over to my friends’, the Mousers. I remember the queer sense of
detachment I felt toward old landmarks which since my childhood had
grown strangely unfamiliar to me. Here in my own home town, the same
feeling of unreality, of walking through the picture-book, possessed me
as it had in France, and it was difficult for me to realize that I was
alive and not dreaming dreams. In current slang, I wondered “what it
was all about.”
Yet all the time Miss Harding and I were discussing my problem. I was
telling her how deeply in debt I was, and she was telling me how she
had invested in real estate until she and Ralph were both frightened
lest they should lose heavily. I was a bit sensitive about even
discussing money, feeling assured that now that one of the Hardings
knew my story, she would set about to right things for Elizabeth Ann.
Miss Harding said she herself would tell Carrie Votaw the facts about
their brother’s child, but that Mrs. Votaw had not been particularly
well and it would be such a shock that she would prefer to wait until
later on, perhaps the following month, when she expected to see her
sister again. I agreed very readily to this, and told Miss Harding I
would leave the matter entirely in her hands, as she asked me to do.
When Mrs. Votaw came to the Lewis home the next time, Miss Harding
suggested to her that she and her friends take me along back as far
as Washington with them, and to this Mrs. Votaw heartily agreed,
saying that there was ample room in their Hudson car. She said
the car belonged to her friend, Mr. Cyrus Simmons, who, with his
brother-in-law, would be the only other two occupants on the return
trip. Mrs. Votaw remained over night at her father’s, Dr. Harding’s, on
East Center Street, the night before we were to leave Marion, and I,
staying at the Lewis home, slept that night in Miss Harding’s room. Her
husband had left that day for Florida to attend to some business down
there.
I remember well how it stormed that night. It occurred to me, as we lay
there talking in our beds across from each other, that the frequent
flashes of lightning and peals of thunder were possibly symbolic of
Miss Harding’s mental state. I felt so sorry for her. She seemed
to be so full of fear. I had passed all through the stage of fear
of exposure, and did not fear anything except my inability to get
Elizabeth Ann and to _keep_ her.
The question of the $90,000 came up again and I said to Miss Harding
that I could not see the awfulness of her brother’s speculation, for
most big men played the market, and just because the President had had
no cash with which to cover his pledge, likely they had volunteered
to go ahead and “play” _for_ him. Miss Harding took the attitude
that her brother was above gambling. I was not, however, at all in
agreement with her views that he would not have been capable of “taking
chances.” He and the fellows in Marion with whom he had played cards
had always played for stakes. I told her about one night when Mr.
Harding had come over to see me in New York. He related how three men
had approached him on the train with an invitation to play cards. They
had all repaired to the end compartment. He said that he did not seem
to “catch on” to them at first, but very soon he found himself deeply
in debt--that is, as I remember, to the extent of something over $100,
which was a considerable amount for a train card game I suppose--and
he told me how he had said to them, “Gentlemen, I always pay my just
indebtednesses, but in this instance I am going to give you only as
much as I can spare.” Thereupon he gave them $50 and his personal
card, and told them they could look him up in Washington if they
desired to collect the balance. He said to me that it had been a plain
“hold-up game” and that he never expected to see them in Washington
at all. So, even though the $90,000 in question, which Miss Harding
felt her brother did not owe, was nine hundred times the amount of the
indebtedness he incurred in playing cards, _I_ was quite sure in my
own mind that he had very possibly “taken chances” in this instance
as well. I decided he might even have done it for Elizabeth Ann and
me, knowing how he so frequently talked of “taking out some kind of a
policy,” or setting aside some money for me in some way.
_129_
When finally, after discussing my problem, Daisy Harding went off to
sleep, I lay there thinking, trying to recall anything of importance
that I had failed to relate to her. I heard Miss Harding in her
sleep mutter the word “child” several times, and I knew that the
subject-matter of our conversation had drifted into slumberland with
her, and wondered what she was dreaming. I was sorry, too, very sorry,
that I had been obliged to tell her, for I knew the whole thing was
worrying her tremendously. She had said to me that she had not known
good health for quite some time, and I confess she did look tired. I
felt so sorry for her and I loved her deeply; but I loved my daughter
far more. In the shadows, as she lay there sleeping, she looked so much
like her brother, more perhaps than any of the others in the family
save the father, Dr. Harding, in whom I have more than once seen Mr.
Harding so strongly that I could just hug him.
[Illustration: GEORGE TRYON HARDING, M.D. the President’s father]
It was in fact during that very visit to Marion that I had gone over
to the Dr. Harding home on East Center Street one afternoon to join
Mrs. Votaw, and be there so Mrs. Mouser could pick us both up and take
us for a drive. Passing through the house out to the garden I had
come across Dr. Harding, lying down on the couch in the living-room.
I had not seen him before on that particular visit, and I went over
and leaned down and kissed him on the cheek and spoke to him. His eyes
were closed but I knew he was not asleep. He opened them and recognized
me immediately. I doubt very much whether I have ever encountered Dr.
Harding even in passing greeting that he did not remark in the same
exclamatory fashion, “Oh, yes,--Nan, _Nan_! Yes, I remember how your
father used to tell me how you stood up for Warren! He said you thought
Warren was the finest man in the country--yes, your father used to
say....” And I have known Daisy Harding to interrupt more than once
and say, “Yes, dad, you’ve told Nan that before,” or, “Yes, dad, Nan
knows.” And when I bent and touched his cheek with my lips and took his
dear old wrinkled hand in mine, he spoke to me immediately of his son
Warren. But now the voice was the far-away voice of a grief-stricken
aged man, and so pitifully weak that I bent over him and listened
intently to catch the words. Bless him! He was trying to recall to me
my father’s words to him about my love for his son. But the feeble
voice trailed off and I felt more than heard his whispered heart-cry,
“Too bad Warren had to die!” My heart was so full of love and sympathy
for him whose son I worshipped that something which must have been the
maternal in me longed to stoop and take the snow-white head on my arm
and mingle my tears with his against the wrinkled cheek. But, instead,
I stood looking down upon him and seeing in the deep-set faded eyes
of the father the eyes of the other, the younger man, his son and my
beloved.
I have yet to see, however, except in the eyes of my baby, who is
the soul of Warren Harding, the spiritual lights of understanding,
gladness, and sorrow that shone from the eyes of him whose gaze was
ever fixed beyond the pale of the material. I recall how one time Mr.
Harding and I were motoring in New York, in a car hired by him for the
purpose by the hour, and were passing under the elevated bridge at
Broadway and 64th Street, when I said to him, “Darling, you have such
beautiful eyes. Somehow I never can really see _into_ them.” And he
smiled and answered, “Aren’t they too sad, Nan?” Yes, I told him, they
were sad, but beautifully and spiritually sad.
He, in turn, seemed to delight in telling me how he loved my eyes, my
lips, my teeth, my woman’s body, my voice, and my nose. It was when he
said he loved my nose that I would interrupt him. “Oh, now I _know_ you
must be fooling,” I would say, “because I have always heard from my
family how big my nose is!” But he would shake his head and smile and
plant a kiss right upon the end of that emphasized feature and swear
over and over again, “I love your nose!”
_130_
It was with a great sense of relief that I looked now to my return
to New York. Daisy Harding was my friend, she knew the whole story,
she loved her brother dearly, and I was sure she would act quickly in
acquainting her family with a situation which needed immediately to be
righted for the sake of her brother’s child.
The motor trip to Washington with Carrie Votaw and her friends was,
for me at least, a lark. Not since my early days in France, before the
tragic news of Mr. Harding’s death reached me, had I experienced such
comparative relaxation, mentally. We were a jolly four, singing songs,
reciting pieces, and talking about everything--everything except those
things which lay nearest my heart. I was thankful that there would
be no more mental metastasis to shock and hurt me. My answer to all
fears henceforth would be, “Daisy knows; _Daisy_ knows!” And I would
soon, through the goodness which I knew was as inherent a quality in
the Hardings as was their knowledge of right, have my baby with me
permanently.
Many and many a time I thought to myself, as my eyes drank in every
move Carrie Votaw made, “What a wonderful family, these Hardings! Each
superlative in individual ways!” I visualized Mrs. Votaw with her
brother’s child on her lap, and thought within myself that God always
compensated in His own beautiful way for the things we longed for but
which were not always within His will. I had so prayed that I might see
our child with her father, on his knee, but instead I was to see her
with his sisters whom I also loved.
Our first night enroute to Washington was spent in Uniontown,
Pennsylvania. Mrs. Votaw and I shared the same room, and, after we had
retired, it occurred to me to inquire casually concerning her opinion
of Tim Slade. She answered very briefly, and said she thought that
he, like a good many others, had been “roped in” unconsciously, and
that he was very probably not a bad sort of man at all. I explained my
curiosity in some way which did not at all arouse her suspicions or
lead her to think I knew him personally, and it was very gratifying to
me to know that she held no unfavorable opinion of him.
Proceeding on our way, the following day we had luncheon in the
mountains at the log cabin of Mrs. Votaw’s friend, Miss Barnett. The
only knowledge I had ever had of log cabins was through conversations
with Mr. Harding. I think it was his friend, Senator Weeks, who had
many times entertained fellow senators and friends at his camp, which
was in New Hampshire. And Mr. Harding’s final exclamation, when he
described for me the beauty of the country up there and the comforts of
the lodge in the mountains, always was, “I wish I might have _you_ up
there, Nan, way off in the woods!” He longed, he said, to carry me away
to some spot like that for “weeks at a stretch.”
I was enchanted with Miss Barnett’s log cabin, with its spacious rooms
and screened-in porches, its picturesque furnishings, its hardwood
floors in bedrooms, where nothing had been forgotten to make the guests
perfectly comfortable, the grounds, the deep green coolness of the
forest which rose majestically around it. And most of all did it amaze
me to see served to us a luncheon as delicately appointed as one might
get at the Plaza or Ritz-Carlton.
_131_
When we arrived in Washington that night about eleven o’clock, we
found Mr. Votaw waiting up for us, having received word from Mrs.
Votaw as to when we would arrive. Daisy Harding had told me that her
brother-in-law, Heber Herbert Votaw, had been very ill, and one needed
only to glance at him to know it. I had seen Mr. Votaw only a few
times, and these occasions dated back to my high school days, when he
and his wife had returned from Burma on a furlough, and it occurred to
me as I looked at him closely for the first time that night, that he
might be described as being handsome in much the same way that George
Christian was considered handsome. He had very dark hair and eyes
that laughed, and teeth of flashing whiteness, and he was of pleasing
height and bearing. On meeting him again after these years I liked Mr.
Votaw immediately, with one reservation. It seemed to me his voice was
unpleasantly loud. I decided it had been abnormally developed because
of his wife’s difficulty in hearing, and was not at all his own natural
voice. And further, I concluded that even if he _were_ inclined to be
irritable, his late illness and resultant weakness were sufficient
grounds. I remember when I was passing through the most trying months
of my nervous breakdown following Elizabeth Ann’s birth, I used to
manifest a disposition of irritability both in my voice and actions
which I may, in justice to my true self, disclaim as a part of my
nature when I am physically sound.
Yet somehow, despite these explanations to myself, I could not
reconcile the irritancy of Mr. Votaw’s voice, no matter to what it
might be attributable, with the meekness and patience which should mark
a missionary of religion.
The Votaws lived in a very comfortable house which Carrie Votaw told
me they rented partially furnished, having brought some of their own
things to complete the outfitting. They kept one maid, a young girl
Mrs. Votaw had befriended in a motherly way, and Mrs. Votaw herself
went into the kitchen and superintended the getting of the meals. Mrs.
Votaw liked young people about and very early introduced me to a young
man and several young people, all nearer my own age. She was a charming
hostess and did many things I was sure were done just to please me.
When she said to me she wished I would come down there and live with
them and help her in a secretarial way to write up her many experiences
in Burma, I was quite thrilled. I thought it might work out that I
could bring her brother’s child with me and in that way introduce her
into the household along with myself. Then we could _all_ share her.
Mrs. Votaw talked a great deal about “wanting a baby,” and I could not
help reflecting how tragic it is that into some homes come so many
children, oftentimes unwanted, while into other homes where they would
find welcome and love awaiting them, for some reason they do not come.
I felt genuinely sorry for her and thought to myself, “How she will
adore Elizabeth Ann!” even as her sister Daisy had prophesied. And her
longing for a child only served to strengthen my hope of being asked
very soon to bring Elizabeth Ann, their beloved brother’s own child,
into their homes and into their hearts as the child of their flesh
and blood. And, although I would never, never part with her, to have
them know the blessing of her smile and the happiness I knew she would
radiate for them all, would, I thought, be a great joy to them, even as
it was for me my life joy.
_132_
One evening Mr. and Mrs. Votaw and I sat talking before bedtime, and
our conversation drifted into religion. We had talked pro and con
about this phase and that for perhaps an hour or more when Mrs. Votaw
excused herself and went on upstairs to bed. Mr. Votaw and I talked
on until one o’clock. His fervency struck me as being that of a man
genuinely convinced that he had found the truth, and I expressed the
wish that I, too, some day would find a religion that would fill me as
satisfyingly. Mine up to this time had become merely a philosophy of
my own, from conning religious books, and influenced predominately by
the bitter-sweet experiences I had met up with in life. I must always
have been innately religious, else I would not always have longed to
know that something which satisfies the soul. But I had witnessed on
all sides the hypocrisy which makes people live lives they despise
and practise religions insincerely for the mere sake of upholding
conventional standards. I had therefore turned into my own mental paths.
My independent thinking was of course inspired by my intimate knowledge
of Mr. Harding’s apparent unhappiness with his legal wife and his
evident preference, in his relations with me, for subterfuge, which
seemed to promote peace of mind, rather than open rebellion and
consequent turmoil. “She’d raise hell!” had been Mr. Harding’s frequent
statement to me, and, even though she seemed not to love him in the way
a man has the right to expect to be loved by his wife, I knew, without
Mr. Harding’s telling me, that she would not release him to another.
And, though I had been surrounded ever since a child with an atmosphere
of strictest convention, I had found with Warren Harding that the
realest happiness is of the spirit, and far transcends in its sublimity
the exquisiteness of physical rapture. And stress of circumstances,
preventing our more frequent trysts, and fraught with pain, had brought
me to a realization that our love was a thing divine. The love I
bore Warren Harding, my love for the spirit which was he, was the most
God-like instinct I possessed--a thing not of this world.
[Illustration:
PHOEBE CAROLYN (“CARRIE”) HARDING
(_Mrs. Heber Herbert Votaw_)
the President’s sister
]
To Mr. Votaw I said, as I realized anew these things, “To me, Mr.
Votaw, Warren Harding was spiritual, almost an immortal.” Tears were in
my throat. “Bah!” he replied, with a slight grimace, “don’t you believe
it! Warren was as material as any of us.” I marvelled that he had not
understood that I only meant that Warren Harding’s soul had finely
shone through the veil of his material body.
How little the world knew the true Warren Harding!
_133_
The following day I was to leave Washington for New York. Carrie Votaw
and I were chatting together in the room I had occupied since my
arrival, and she was showing me some of her lovely clothes, many of
which she said she had not worn since the days her brother was in the
White House. This hat had been bought for a garden party at the White
House, and this dress was selected for another particular occasion.
The prematurely snow-white hair of the woman before me, coupled with
the beauty of a face which was, like her sister Daisy’s of queenly
loveliness, made a startlingly beautiful woman, one who could, I
reflected, more fittingly fill the role of the First Lady than she who
had recently actually held that title. As I stood there handling this
gown and that, my mind flew back to a certain White House reception
held on the lawn one summer afternoon in 1922, the only one I ever
witnessed, and I wondered if Mrs. Votaw had been there.
I had visited with President Harding that morning, in his private
office as usual, and he had told me how he wished he might “get me
in on” the party scheduled for that afternoon without Mrs. Harding’s
suspecting the source of my invitation. As he sat pondering the
possibility, I could see many difficulties--my lack of a suitable gown
and so on--and I assured him I would be just as happy knowing he had
_wanted_ me there.
That afternoon I strolled past the White House, along the side near the
conservatory which commanded a view of the sloping green. It was a gay
assemblage, and in its midst I spied my sweetheart, handsome and tall,
standing with Mrs. Harding and receiving guests who were arriving in
throngs. It occurred to me he stood in an unusually conspicuous spot,
easily observable from my post outside the fence, and I suddenly knew
he must be standing there so that I could see him. When I accused him
lovingly upon my next visit of raising a hand to me as a signal of
recognition, he only smiled and said, noncommittally but fondly, “That
_would_ please you, wouldn’t it, Nan.” And I nodded and told him the
next time I would hope for a friendlier guard, one who would not say
“No loitering, young lady!” as I stood there harmlessly adoring _my_
president!
Little did his sister suspect what was going through my mind as she
spoke of this gown and that and I viewed them in unfeigned admiration.
And, I thought, wasn’t it just like her to have invited me on one
occasion to wear her own black wrap trimmed with ermine, and one of
her evening hats? If I were to live there, it would be just like her
generous self to let me wear all of her pretty things!
Before we went out of the room, Mrs. Votaw went to the dresser and took
from one of the dresser drawers a black pin-seal wallet or bill-book.
It bore the marks of long usage.
“Here, Nan. You always loved Warren so much and I want you to have
this. Brother Warren carried it with him right up to the time he died,
and that makes it very precious.” What could I say to her! How could
she know how it tortured me to see again the old familiar wallet and to
experience the rush of memories which this new sight of it conjured up
for me! How often had I adored the offhand manner in which her brother
had inquired of me across the dinner-table, “How are the finances
today, Nan?” or, “Have you paid Mrs. Johnson your rent a month in
advance?” And whether or not my finances were in good shape, he would
draw out contemplatively a twenty or fifty, depending upon my immediate
needs, often a cigarette between his lips, his eyes narrowed to keep
out the smoke, as he drew the bill from the wallet. Then he would hand
it to me and say, “Better put that in your bag, dearie, right away,” if
I sat oblivious, adoring the nonchalant manner in which the cigarette
hung from his lips--I never saw anyone smoke with such perfect grace
as he. The leather fairly smelled of him! How queer that she should
have elected to give me _this_ as a memento! Yet here it was, the empty
bill-book, and I opened it to read in gold lettering his name, “Warren
G. Harding.” Why, it was in this very worn wallet that he used to keep
a certain snapshot of me to which he had taken a particular fancy!
Now, at the hand of his sister, it had come back to the mother of his
child....
[Illustration: The President’s wallet, presented by his sister, Carrie
Votaw, to the author in 1925]
My heart was full of gratitude for these visits, both with Miss Harding
in Marion and with Mrs. Votaw in Takoma Park, suburban to Washington.
It seemed I had surely trod upon holy ground, for had I not been among
those who knew and loved him dearly? Yes, it was good, good to have
been in both homes, good to renew friendship on a more intimate basis,
good to realize how genuine was their affection for their brother,
whose child they would surely welcome lovingly, and who in turn would
know the full depth of their love in the material expression they would
give as proof.
_134_
I returned to The Town Hall Club in New York on July first (1925) to
take up my duties again, and took a room within walking distance of the
Club.
July passed and no word came from Daisy Harding. So on August 3rd I
wrote her briefly, greeting her again after the lapse of a month or
more and making inquiry as to whether she had seen her sister, Mrs.
Votaw. When Daisy Harding speaks of Elizabeth Ann, she often calls her
“Bijiba,” the baby’s self-imposed nickname, and in her letter she used
merely the initial “B” to indicate “Bijiba.”
She wrote: “I feel that we have such different ideas about men and our
relations to them that it is useless for me to suggest or advise.”
(Why, I had _sought_ her counsel, her help!) “I want so much to see you
happy and attain the desires nearest to your heart that I hesitate to
say anything which might interfere with your plans....” (Plans? I had
no plans, as she surely must have known, except as they might develop
through financial help from the Harding family.) “... My heart goes out
to you in any of your suffering, relative to B-- (Bijiba), and you must
know and feel that....”
This letter astounded me. Even the concluding words of endearment,
“Lots of love, Nan dear,” failed to carry the usual note of sincerity.
I read and reread the passages pertaining to Elizabeth Ann, trying
to read into them something which was obviously not there, trying to
discern an attitude of active interest instead of merely a passive
inactive acceptance of a tragic situation. Could it be that she had
failed to understand that my revelations to her had been for the
express purpose of bringing the Harding family to a realization that
there existed an obligation on their part to Elizabeth Ann, and not
merely to solicit sympathy and discuss the intimate details of my
relationship with her brother?
If such were the case, I would have to make plainer the import of my
appeal to her, and frankly state my desire to see this wrong toward
my child, and their brother’s, righted. She had asked me, with kindly
spirit and apparent understanding, to “leave it with her,” and she
had promised to confer with her sister, Mrs. Votaw, at the earliest
opportunity. Was it possible that this talk between them had resulted
in the apparent indifference her letter indicated? Impossible. They
were _Hardings_!
But I had their brother’s daughter’s future at stake, and her welfare
was dearer to me than life. I deliberated well, and then wrote her
at length, and below are excerpts from my letter which dealt almost
entirely with Elizabeth Ann’s problem:
“New York, September 23, 1925.