Mrs. Tonnesen, having learned not to inquire into my affairs too far, suggested that it would be foolish for me to go to Chicago just to have the baby, as I was contemplating, when I might better remain with her and her brother Billy and have my sister Elizabeth come on to Asbury Park. She even suggested that I allow her to snap my picture and that I send it to Elizabeth to show her how healthy I was looking—which fatal thing of course I did not do.
The birthplace of Elizabeth Ann, Asbury Park, New Jersey
However, her interest was becoming more appreciated by me since my trip to the Brooklyn hospital, and finally I wrote my sister in Chicago not to bother about hospital accommodations there for I had decided to remain in Asbury Park, away from everybody, and go through it all by myself. I was so free from fear concerning any serious complications that I even welcomed the coming pain of childbirth; I have never been so superbly healthy as I was that summer.
Mr. Harding had listed some books which had been favorites of his at different times in his life and these books I obtained from the public library in Asbury which was just down the street. I have a notebook which contains many of the names of these books, copied from the list Mr. Harding gave me, and others which I read that summer. Among them were Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd, Gertrude Atherton’s The Conqueror (Mr. Harding said he had met Mrs. Atherton, and had told her how he admired her novelized life of Alexander Hamilton, his favorite character in American history); O. Henry’s books, and many others. I can see Mr. Harding now as he wrote down the list for me—the way he would look up and ask me if I had read this or that, and his hearty, “Oh, you must read that, Nan!”
My time was delightfully idled all summer, reading, crocheting baby’s jackets and writing love-letters to my beloved. The latter consumed a great deal of my time. His letters to me were the most beautiful things imaginable, always full of cheer, and ever implying that he wanted to do everything in his power to make me comfortable. He spoke often of the “reverential love” he felt for me as the mother of our coming child. I used to wish in moments when I naturally yielded to the longings I felt for him, that we were together on the longed-for “farm” and that he could minister to me personally in the manner portrayed in his incomparable letters.
It was Mrs. Tonnesen who suggested my seeing the “society doctor of the Jersey shore,” as Dr. James F. Ackerman is called. He was of a very sympathetic and kindly nature, albeit brusk. I liked him immensely from the start. He advised me that I should make a reservation for my confinement period in the hospital in Spring Lake, not far distant, but I said I would wait, for I might yet decide to go on to Chicago. It was only my fear of hospitals that made me say that, and when I found he would attend me at Mrs. Tonnesen’s home, I indicated to him definitely that I wished him to take my case. I was happy in the contemplation of having the baby in my own sunny room.
38
On September 22nd, just one month before the baby was born, I made a trip to Washington, stopping while there at the Capitol Park Hotel near the Railroad Station. I telephoned Mr. Harding immediately upon my arrival, at the Senate Offices, and he told me afterward that the man who answered the phone was Heber Herbert Votaw, his brother-in-law, “Carrie’s husband.” When he heard me on the other end of the wire he seemed so pleased and said that he would come right over. Which he did.
I shall never forget how he rejoiced to see me, even in the shape I was in! I remember we sat by the window, I on his lap, and talked about everything. It was while we were sitting with our cheeks together looking down upon the passing automobiles that he sighted Senator Newberry’s car. With some pride he told me the occupant was the richest man in the Senate, and said what he would like to do for me “if he had Senator Newberry’s money.” I forthwith assured him he could have done no more that summer to make me happy if he had had the combined riches of all his senatorial colleagues.