It was Mr. Harding himself who pointed out to me the McLean residence when I rode with him in Washington upon my visits there back in 1917-18. But at that time, as Senator, he was not so intimate with the McLeans. In fact, Mr. Harding then seemed to speak of Mr. McLean, as well as Senator Newberry and others, with awe, and I can remember how he used to say such-and-such a person “has a pile of money, Nan,” probably looking up to them somewhat for having acquired the riches which he himself might never possess.
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Meanwhile, during these monthly visits of Tim Slade to New York, “to report to his boss and get his salary check,” I was going ahead with my plans to have my baby and my mother with me in New York under the arrangement worked out by me with the financial assistance Daisy Harding had agreed to provide.
Under date of October 16, 1925, I received a letter from Miss Harding.
“I sent your letter on to sister but it didn’t have the desired effect,” she wrote, “but I’m glad I sent it just the same....” Mrs. Votaw had written her sister Daisy that she had been ill and in the sanitarium, Miss Harding wrote to me, and, following this, she said, “Somehow, I can’t write it in a letter, the whole situation, resulting from the disclosure to her and her husband, especially in regard to him (Mr. Votaw) who just idolized E. A.’s father and therefore can’t and doesn’t want to believe it....” Those had been almost Tim Slade’s identical words to me, “Say, they don’t want to believe it!” Miss Harding went on to say that her sister, Mrs. Votaw, could not understand why, if I cared so much for their brother, I should have found it necessary to tell so many people the story about Elizabeth Ann’s identity as our daughter. It occurred to me that in a nation of millions, the real truth was that our story was known to amazingly few! I could count on less than ten fingers those who had heard it from my own lips, and this number included Daisy Harding and Tim Slade as well as certain members of my own immediate family who had been indispensable in the handling of our situation to date. As for the two or three others, friends of mine, they had certainly shown their friendship for me in guarding well the secret entrusted to them. I determined to make a point of this picayunish written parley either to Miss Harding or to the Votaws when I wrote to them. I felt my resentment was justly indulged. If for six and one-half years I could, with Mr. Harding, protect almost to inviolability a secret as colossal as ours, it seemed to me I deserved credit for that much at least.
“As soon as you make arrangements for E. A.’s return to New York, let me know as to schooling, etc., and I’ll help you as much as I can.... I want to help you,” Daisy Harding wrote in this letter. I knew that the school circular I had sent her which specified $165 for Elizabeth Ann’s kindergarten expenses could not as yet have reached her. Miss Harding spoke of having made some investments and promised me some help on my debts as soon as she realized some profit on her investments. Her letter, signed, “Lovingly, A. H. Lewis,” was, on the whole, comforting. It was good to know that at heart she took a sympathetic view of my situation. But what a bitter disappointment that the Votaws should take the opposite attitude!
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Then under date of October 18th, having received Miss Harding’s letter, sent the 16th, I wrote her again, sending her a carbon copy of a letter which I had written to the Votaws, having been inspired to do so by the following incident:
Upon receipt of the letter from Miss Harding which I have quoted above, I determined that I ought now to go directly to the Votaws in Washington and discuss the matter with them. After all, Mr. Votaw, whom Miss Harding had particularly cited as wishing to discredit my story, had probably got only a smattering of it from Daisy, or through his wife second-hand, and I felt a first-hand knowledge might bring him to a clearer understanding of the truth of the matter and a fairer viewpoint concerning the obligation of the Harding family to Elizabeth Ann.
My mother had not as yet arrived from Ohio with the baby, and I phoned the Votaws, requesting them to allow me to come to Washington for an interview. Mr. Votaw answered my call. I told him I wished to come down that week-end to see them, and would arrange a time that would suit their convenience. I spoke very kindly and the telephonic service was excellent, for I heard his “hello” very distinctly.