Part 14
Mrs. Belle Woodlock shed real tears when we took Elizabeth Ann away in the taxi, never again to return to her. Only once afterward did I see Mrs. Woodlock, and it had then been so long since I had heard myself called “Mrs. Christian” that she had to hail me several times, on the elevated platform downtown, before I realized she was calling to me. The baby had been with her, you see, over a year, and one grows attached to a baby in that length of time even though the parents hover near.
My sister Elizabeth continued for several weeks to play in the theatre where she led the orchestra, but Scott’s work permitted him to be home on certain evenings. Scott’s father, a hardy farmer, was visiting the Willitses about a week after the baby had arrived to make that her home, and both he and Scott were home one evening when the baby exhibited unusual lung force and much temperament. The reason therefor was doubtless because she had begun to cut her first difficult teeth. I shall never forget how that night she cried herself to sleep in my arms, her cheek, tear-wet, against my cheek, her tiny arms wrapped about my neck. This, of course, excited wonder from Mr. Willits, Sr., who, not knowing of course that I was the mother, marvelled at my “way with babies”!
In the spring of that year, 1921, possibly in April when most people move, we went over to the North Side. Dr. and Mrs. John Wesener, the latter a first cousin of Mr. Harding, also lived on Lafayette Parkway, down the street in an apartment house right on Lake Michigan. I have forgotten how we discovered this; perhaps Daisy Harding told us in a letter after Elizabeth or I wrote to her giving her our new address. Lafayette Parkway is but a block or so long and runs from West to East between Sheridan Road and Lake Michigan. It was at the Weseners’ that Daisy Harding visited when she came to Chicago, and it was when she made such a trip--in the summer of 1921, I think--that she first saw her brother Warren’s child, her niece, though, of course, not known to her then as such.
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I was at this time unable to walk a block without feeling the most inexpressible sensations of fatigue. I would waken in the morning, always being able to sleep all right--a sort of heavy, dead sleep--and could not stand on my feet unless I immediately had something to eat. At last I decided if I could but get into a hospital, anywhere, where I would not be allowed to get out of bed for weeks, and where I would be waited upon hand and foot, I might regain some of my lost strength. There was a minor operation which I had contemplated having for some time, and I thought I would go ahead and have it and thus get into a hospital. I consulted doctors about it and was headed definitely in that direction. I wrote to Mr. Harding. He sent me $450 for my expenses. He sent this of course in a plain envelope, as usual, enclosing it several times in smaller envelopes.
Elizabeth, however, who had tried all along to persuade me not to go to a hospital, finally did influence me to see her friend and family doctor, Dr. Frederic L. Barbour, a physician whom Scott had known for several years and who had skilfully treated Scott early in January of 1920, when the latter was seriously ill. Dr. Barbour had two offices; one on the South Side and one in the Marshall Field Building downtown. It was to the latter office that Elizabeth took me one noon. I shall never forget how I looked those days. My eyes were weak as a direct result of my general run-down condition and I wore tortoise-shell glasses most of the time. I was extremely thin, and I had no smile except certain times when I had been lying down for awhile and felt comparatively rested.
Dr. Barbour was young and cheerful. I think it did me good to look at him. He examined me thoroughly, took an X-Ray of my chest, and in the end told me I was in a very excellent condition to pass on under any anesthetic, refusing to treat me at all if I even so much as considered an operation of any kind. I became Dr. Barbour’s patient at once, giving up all thought of an operation, and remained under his care for many months. And he became one of my best friends. He was obliged among other things to treat me for a very weak condition resulting from lack of recuperation after my baby’s birth, and he himself guessed intuitively the whole of my story with very little information from me, even to the identity of Elizabeth Ann’s illustrious father.
My sister Janet was living with us at that time, and my brother “Doc” was also in Chicago and at our apartment frequently. It was difficult for us to hear each other correct Elizabeth Ann, who was now approaching the age when she had to be told right from wrong. It annoyed Scott, my brother-in-law, fully as much as it annoyed me, I am sure, to suffer her to be reprimanded first by one of us and then by the other, though I felt I was naturally the one to give orders in her behalf and the one whom she should obey above all others. This created a state of continual dissension and superinduced an added nervous condition in me which I was trying desperately with Dr. Barbour’s treatment to overcome. Therefore, I determined the only thing for me to do was again to yield my baby to the care of others and return to New York for the oncoming winter, allowing the Willits home to regain normal composure. I am sure this must have brought a great sense of relief to Scott and I know it made things far easier of accomplishment for my sister Elizabeth, in regard to both the baby and Scott.
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In June of that spring, 1921, I made my first trip to Washington. I had wanted so much to attend the inauguration on March 4th, but it did not seem wise for me then to undertake a trip which would doubtless prove physically detrimental to me; and there was much to do anyway, because my precious girl was with us; and, mother-like, I felt no one could handle her as well as I. So this June trip was the first I had made to Washington since the President’s formal installation in the highest office of the land.
Up to this time I had for the most part sent my messages to the President through Tim Slade. The first letter I sent to Washington after Mr. Harding’s inauguration I sent independent of Tim, simply addressing it to my sweetheart at the White House, taking care, however, to enclose it a couple of times in inside envelopes, on one or both of which I had written, “This is a confidential and private letter and is to be handed immediately to the President.” I followed it with another, similarly addressed, in which I inquired if the first one had been received. My distress was very genuine when I had Mr. Harding’s reply that he had received but one letter, the second one I had sent. The first one had contained several snapshots of Elizabeth Ann and some of Elizabeth Ann and me. On the backs of these snapshots I had written explanatory messages, calling his attention to her eyes, or her expression, or something about her which resembled her father so strongly.
So, after this experience Mr. Harding advised me to send the letters in Tim’s care until he could think of another and better way. Which I did, of course, Tim delivering them in person to the President. And I had arranged through Tim, he fixing it with the President, for my first visit to Washington.
As soon as I reached Washington I connected with Tim on the phone. It seems to me he told me my appointment with Mr. Harding had already been arranged. In any event, Tim called for me at my hotel and escorted me to the White House.
Needless to say, I “took in” everything I could on that first visit. We entered the executive offices through the main office entrance, which is the entrance on the right of the White House portico, and passed through the hall leading to the Cabinet Room. Here we waited for Mr. Harding.
While we waited, I observed the Cabinet Room with less awe, I guess, than natural curiosity. There was a long table around which stood the substantial chairs of the twelve men who met there every Tuesday morning and every Friday morning, each chair having the name of the particular Cabinet member engraved upon a little metal plaque which was fastened on the back. A fireplace, a clock on the mantelpiece, and a few pictures completed the furnishings. Mr. Harding’s chair at the head of the table interested me most, and I stroked the back of it and sipped stale water from a partially filled glass which stood on the table in front of the President’s chair. So this was where sat the leaders of the greatest nation in the world! I recalled articles I had read about this awesome office. One had recently appeared in _The New York Times_ and was entitled, “At the Keyhole of the Cabinet Room.” But I was not at the keyhole. I was on the really-and-truly _inside_!
We had been waiting only a very few minutes when Mr. Harding opened the door, a door immediately behind and opposite his Cabinet Room chair. He greeted me cordially and instructed Tim to remain in the Cabinet Room. Then I preceded him into a very small adjoining room, a room with one window. He explained to me that this was the ante-room, and crossed over to another door which led into his own private office.
Once in there, he turned and took me in his arms and told me what I could see in his face--that he was delighted to see me. Not more delighted, however, than I was to see him.
There were windows along one side of the room which looked out upon the green of the White House grounds, and outside, stalking up and down, face rigidly to the front, moved the President’s armed guard. But in spite of this apparent obliviousness on the part of the guard, we were both skeptical and Mr. Harding said to me that people seemed to have eyes in the sides of their heads down there and so we must be very circumspect. Whereupon he introduced me to the one place where, he said, he thought we _might_ share kisses in safety. This was a small closet in the ante-room, evidently a place for hats and coats, but entirely empty most of the times we used it, for we repaired there many times in the course of my visits to the White House, and in the darkness of a space not more than five feet square the President of the United States and his adoring sweetheart made love.
I was tremendously interested in Mr. Harding’s private office.
First I examined his desk. It was very large and seemed to contain much drawer space. Mr. Harding told me that in one of the drawers he intended to keep my letters and anything that pertained to me, and that for this reason his private secretary, George Christian, had been instructed as at the Senate Office, to burn everything in that particular drawer if anything should happen to the President.
On his desk stood a miniature portrait of his mother, and I observed on my calls upon him at the White House that in her memory fresh flowers frequently stood upon his desk near her portrait.
There was a grate fireplace directly opposite the President’s desk. Here, Mr. Harding told me, he burned all the letters I sent him after he had committed their messages to his heart. In this connection we discussed the loss of the first letter and, deplorable as it was, Mr. Harding said it “was done” and all we could do was to guard against future losses. He begged me to write him _much_, actually mailing the letters, however, only occasionally and a number at a time. He said he would “sit right in that chair” (indicating his desk chair) and read my letters and think of me. And his expressions of hunger for worded love from me made me homesick in anticipation for the visits I knew could nevermore be as they had been in the past. I promised him he should have many love-letters, and I told him that after all, writing to him and being near our blessed child were the only real joys in my life, and to be separated from him for such long intervals was fully as great a hardship for me as for him.
I recall the dress I wore upon that occasion. It was of white silk crepe with a tiny black figure, a figure so small that from a distance the dress looked grey. It was trimmed with a narrow border of cerise and many-colored wooden beads. With it I wore a rather large picture hat, also cerise, and grey suede slippers and grey stockings. The excitement had brought unnatural roses to my cheeks and, despite my physical weakness, I felt exhilarant and strong when I was with my darling sweetheart.
In the ante-room there was a leather couch, so dilapidated that I remember I remarked to Mr. Harding that one might think it had been there ever since the White House was built. We used to sit there a great deal, especially the times when Tim Slade would wait for me either outside or on the other side of the President’s office, in a large room beyond Mr. Christian’s office and far away from the sound of our voices. And sometimes, especially later on in Mr. Harding’s brief two and one-half years of service, it was wise that we should be away from everybody, for I took many tears down to the White House.
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On this first visit we discussed the wisdom of continuing to send letters in Tim Slade’s care, and Mr. Harding seemed disposed to make a change. I imagine he didn’t want to impose too much upon Tim and didn’t wish to further arouse Tim’s curiosity. At that time Tim was out of the secret service, I believe, though for a month or two after Mr. Harding’s inauguration Tim said he helped George Christian until the latter “got onto” things in a secretarial way.
The most direct channel through which my letters could be delivered into his hands, Mr. Harding said, was to address them in care of his valet. Major Arthur Brooks, a light colored man, who was, in the opinion of Mr. Harding, entirely trustworthy and, what was better, so far as Tim was concerned, Major Brooks was always availably near to deliver them immediately without putting himself out to do so. Mr. Harding always referred to him as “Brooks.” So it was arranged: I was to enclose my letter to the President in another envelope, sealed, and then enclose the whole in an envelope addressed to Major Brooks personally, with a short letter to Brooks instructing him to deliver the enclosure to the President immediately. I remember very well, because I wrote so many of those letters, that they always read something like this:
“MY DEAR MAJOR BROOKS:
“Kindly hand the enclosed letter to President Harding immediately upon its receipt. This is in accordance with the President’s request.
Very truly yours, (Signed) E. BAYE.”
“E. Baye” was the name I used also when I wrote to Tim Slade, and was, if I remember correctly, suggested by Tim, as a result of his first trip to Eagle Bay in the summer of 1920, when he for the first time delivered a communication from Mr. Harding to me.
After my visit to Washington when we had decided upon sending my letters to the President in Major Arthur Brooks’ care, we never experienced any further losses, and up until June of 1923, when Mr. Harding left for Alaska and I sailed for Europe, I sent my letters to my sweetheart in care of Major Brooks.
I have already stated that there existed a mutual agreement between Mr. Harding and me to destroy each other’s letters, and as a result I have in my possession only certain formal letters (from most of which I have quoted near the beginning of my story) which I asked Mr. Harding if I might keep. In view of the fact that I was to destroy all love-letters from him, and these early letters contained no intimate allusions, being the first ones he ever wrote me, he gave his permission for me to keep them; otherwise, they, too, would have gone with the rest.
Two letters Mr. Harding sent me--one in 1918 and another in 1919, the first to New York, in care of the United States Steel Corporation office, and the second to Asbury Park addressed in error to the Hotel Marlborough instead of the Hotel Monmouth--were never received. They contained respectively $30 and $40 in cash. The third letter lost in the mails was the one I have spoken of as having been sent to the fictitious name of “A. Y. Jerose” and mailed from Chicago by me to Mr. Harding in Atlanta, Georgia. So, with one letter sent to the White House which he did not receive, there had been four letters sent which had gone astray, two from Mr. Harding to me, and two from me to Mr. Harding.
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As I have said, things occur to me which happened and may be of interest to the reader, but which I do not think of in chronological order, hence occasionally I must go back to them. Such an incident comes to my mind in connection with that first memorable visit to the White House. I expressed my delight to Mr. Harding that “we” had beaten his long-time Ohio rival, James M. Cox, so overwhelmingly for the presidency. Mr. Harding shrugged his shoulders, evidently recalling the following incident.
It was back in 1918, upon the occasion of one of my trips West when I visited my mother in New Philadelphia, Ohio, where she was living and teaching school, that I, doing up the breakfast dishes one morning, took a notion to do some extra cleaning, and forthwith began to wash the kitchen shelves and paper them with clean newspapers. I smoothed the lower shelf with the front page of the local paper, stopping to glance a second at the face which looked up at me. It was that of James M. Cox, then Governor of the State of Ohio. He had recently made a speech in New Philadelphia or thereabouts and his picture was appearing for that reason in connection with his speech.
Shortly after that I returned to New York and work. In leaving New Philadelphia, Ohio, I was obliged to go to a nearby town to catch the fast 5 P. M. train, and had to take a taxi because a severe electric storm had put the interurbans out of commission temporarily, and the ride over and my excitement in catching the train and the warm weather had inclined me to have some ice cream in the diner as soon as I boarded the train. I had previously dined with my mother before leaving. As I passed through the Pullman from my seat about midway in the car, I noticed sitting in the end section a man whose face looked strangely familiar. However, I quickly forgot it and passed on to the diner.
When I returned I found that man sitting in the seat opposite my own, the porter being engaged in making up his berth for him. I took my bag and went into the ladies’ dressing-room, thinking I also would retire early, and assuming that upon my return the gentleman in question would have departed for his dressing-room.
However, when I came back, he was still there. I sat down opposite, cupped my chin in my hand, and gazed out of the window into the gathering darkness in which vagrant lights were flashing.
“Do you mind if I sit here until the porter has finished my berth?” I looked up. “Certainly not,” I replied.
“It is very warm isn’t it?” he continued pleasantly.
“Yes, sir,” I answered. Then I looked directly at him. “Do you know,” I said, as it suddenly dawned upon me where I had seen that face, “you _look_ enough like the Governor of Ohio to be he?”
“I _am_ he,” replied Governor Cox.
Being somewhat familiar with Mr. Harding’s natural dislike for the man opposite me, even though he had mentioned him to me but casually in the course of our friendship, I was not hasty to speak with him further. But he had evidently made up his mind to talk to _me_, and we gradually drifted into conversation.
He had known Judge Sinclair, Mr. Harding’s friend, at whose home I had been visiting when in Marion that trip, and of course I told him, with encouragement from him, of other people I had visited, not forgetting the Hardings on East Center Street. He asked me all about how I knew them, and I told him Miss Daisy Harding had been my teacher in high school. However, I did not, of course, even mention Mr. Harding’s name.
“I understand Mr. Harding is a great one with the ladies.” For no apparent reason Governor Cox fairly tossed these words at me. I was infuriated, probably more at the plural “ladies” than at anything else. I replied as coolly as possible, “I don’t know anything about _that_; I know he is very lovely to his wife.”
He inquired where I worked in New York and I told him in the United States Steel Corporation. He asked me if they treated me nicely and I assured him that they did, indeed. He became very friendly, offering me a position in his own executive office in Columbus, Ohio, the State Capital, if I cared to leave the Steel Corporation. I saw here a possible opportunity to help my young brother Howard, and told the Governor how I myself wanted my mother to allow him to join the army or navy, but that mother would not give her permission and that Howard was under age. Governor Cox said I should send him to Columbus to see him and he would see that Howard got a commission. I was delighted with this promise. (After I returned to New York I wrote Governor Cox, reminding him of his promise and telling him it was a pleasure to meet him, and I have a letter from him, which was sent for Howard to use as a form of introduction, but which Howard never used and I retained.)
In the morning, I arose bright and early. I had not been able to secure a lower berth and Governor Cox had the previous night urged me to take his section, as it would, he thought, be more comfortable for me. To which I replied that if he could get along in an upper I ought to be able to, and I have a vivid recollection of mounting the ladder that night, the porter on one side and the Governor of Ohio on the other, assisting me into my upper berth. I was in the diner early next morning, but had scarcely been seated when Governor Cox appeared in company with another man who was obviously taking the Governor to breakfast. They found their table, and then Governor Cox immediately excused himself and came over and asked to sit a minute at my table. He inquired after my health and my sleep and expressed the wish that some time he would see me again.
When our train reached the Pennsylvania Station in New York, the red caps were all busy and I proceeded to pick up my suitcase and mount the stairs. But Governor Cox was on the platform and very kindly offered to carry my bag. He said he was stopping at the Ritz-Carlton and had come to join his daughter, whose husband, Mr. Mahoney, was sailing the next day. He asked me to ride uptown with him. He said he would very much like to have me meet his daughter Helen, and invited me to dine with them at the Ritz-Carlton that evening. I was very frank to tell him that I had no clean blouse, and that I really didn’t think I would even dine with the King of England that night after my long journey to New York. He left me at his hotel and I went on uptown, but before he got out of the taxi, he put his hand on my knee and said, “Let me tell you, young lady, I’d trust you anywhere in the world.”
I could hardly wait to relate this to Mr. Harding--the entire episode I was sure would interest him. However, the knee business and Governor Cox’s reference to Mr. Harding’s being a favorite with the ladies infuriated him far more than it had me, and his letter in answer to mine was the first of its kind I had ever received.
“I never did have any use for that man,” he wrote, “but now I despise him.”
I could scarcely blame him, but why he should have scolded me I could not understand. At least I could not understand it then. I remember well Mr. Harding also wrote, “Perhaps Mr. Cox can assume all responsibilities toward you more capably than I have done.” This was cruel.