“New York, September 23, 1925.
Dearest Miss Harding:
... When I was in Marion, I remember distinctly that you told me how deeply sympathetic and interested Mrs. Votaw was bound to be if you told her the whole story about Elizabeth Ann as I had related it to you. In your letter recently to me you ignored completely Mrs. Votaw’s possible visit to you.... I am naturally assuming therefore that you have told Mrs. Votaw and the attitude you felt sure she would take has not been the attitude she actually has assumed. Of course, the mere fact that you did not even allude to your having had a discussion with her on the subject has hurt me very deeply.
I hope you don’t mind my talking in a rather business-like manner about a subject which is a veritable part of me and nearest and dearest to my heart, but the time has come when I must make some kind of separation between sentiment and being fair to Elizabeth Ann. When I went West in June, as I told you, my sole reason was to talk with you and gain whatever helpful suggestions you might make. Your saying in your last letter that my attitude toward men and that of your own were at such wide variance as to make you hesitant about making suggestions was another thing that hurt me quite a bit. I will admit that Elizabeth Ann’s father and I indulged in the height of unconventionality—but to be fair to myself, I must say that it was as much his idea of right as mine—and I shall never be able to attach one iota of sordidness to the beautiful, natural, and finely impelled love we had for each other which resulted in God’s giving us Elizabeth Ann.
I am very sure, knowing your loving regard for his happiness and your deep affection for him as a brother, you would not in the same breath imagine him capable of being actuated by any but the finest, truest motives, and that I, loving him as I always have, could respond had I not instincts as lofty as his own. Bless him! But my declarations now are merely to prove to you that if you loved him one-tenth as much as I, you would lose sight entirely of the “right” or “wrong” of the question, in assuming that you are incapable of advising or helping simply because our views concerning relations with men differ, in your desire to see things as he saw them—and in your intense longing to help me to solve the problem which his tragic death has left unsolved.
Not that I believe you do not want to help me. Understand me, I am sure you do. Both you and Mrs. Votaw. Else you could not have loved him dearly. I think I would have died for him. But my problem now is to live and care for and protect a precious gift—our gift to each other. I wish I might picture to you his face when he talked of the future—the worshipful sweetness of his smile when he talked with me about Elizabeth Ann—his pride in her, his adorable pride in me, his enthusiasm about little girls in general, where, he said to me, the very last time I saw him, he “never used to feel so deeply moved.” You see how I have all these things with me, and how endeared every remembrance makes her to me.
It has all been going through my mind all summer, and I feel very strongly that before I take any big steps, I should immediately put my problem up to you very frankly.
You intimated to me that perhaps this fall—your property there having involved your own income quite deeply—you might be able to help me to put E. A. in school—to have her with me. I am up against the following problem:
I could, presumably, though not positively, procure funds wherewith to enable me to put E. A. in school this winter—but ever since I married the Captain in order to have E. A. permanently, have I been borrowing—from Peter to pay Paul. It has not worked out at all well. I am now in debt over $500 and only this very afternoon have I gone on the witness stand in an endeavor to have my marriage annulled and start anew....