Elizabeth reported to me very graphically that visit with Mr. Harding. I was so upset over the whole situation that I must have listened but dully to the things she said. The above statements are all I can recall now, with the exception of one other. This “one other” stands out clearly above everything else that was told me by Elizabeth. She said that when she entered his office he shook hands with her and remarked with his Harding smile, “You are looking very stunning, Elizabeth!” Knowing his charm when he said complimentary things, I must confess to a tiny bit of jealousy, though I was naturally proud that he found my sister so attractive. I loved Elizabeth very dearly.
This inscription is to the sister of the author—1921
Elizabeth and I discussed very fully after that visit the advantage of such an arrangement, both from Elizabeth Ann’s standpoint and from mine. It must have been about this time that Elizabeth told me that she had been obliged to tell her husband, Scott Willits, the truth. Although I resented this further confidence on her part at the time, it was understandable in the light of many mysterious movements both on my part and on the part of my sister, and it was only natural that Elizabeth should take her husband into the secret.
I wanted so much to have the baby with me. To give her up completely through a legal adoption meant the greatest sacrifice of my life. Elizabeth presented the question to me in the light of my helping Mr. Harding at a time when he genuinely needed my co-operation. Of course I wanted to help my darling, but I loved our child with a devotion that was equal in its intensity to the love I felt for her father. I was so profoundly disturbed over the thing that my sleep became nightmarish; my nerves seemed to be gone completely.
Of one thing I was certain in my mind: I would not consent to Elizabeth Ann’s being adopted by anyone, not even my sister and her husband, unless I could have full control over her future, her education and her welfare in general. For some reason my brother-in-law took exactly the opposite viewpoint when we discussed it with him, and resisted such a plan, desiring, as I desired, to have full authority. While I could not understand then his attitude, I can more charitably view it now, for indeed a child with three parents means “a house divided against itself.” Scott Willits, my sister’s husband, was with the Chicago Opera Company then, and they were about to go on tour. Elizabeth and he and I talked and talked but what I agreed to did not seem to be what Scott would agree to, though Elizabeth loved me so much she would have done anything to make it possible for me to control my own child.
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It must have been in early February, 1921, that Mr. Harding wrote to me, telling me he and his family were going to Cleveland to have some dental work done and that I should meet him at the Hotel Statler there. I did so, following his instructions to await a messenger on the mezzanine floor who would bring me a note in his (Mr. Harding’s) handwriting so that I should know it was all right to accompany him to where Mr. Harding would be waiting for me. This messenger, whose name I do not recall, evidently thought I had considerable influence with the President-elect, for he talked to me very earnestly about certain things that Mr. Harding “ought to do,” all of which I listened to without much comment. Then at the appointed time he escorted me upstairs to the room which had been reserved for our interview. Mr. Harding joined me in this room almost immediately and we remained there for an hour or so. Outside the door a guard was stationed.
Mr. Harding looked worn and I asked him if he had had a trying time at the dentist’s, to which he replied, “I’ve been in the chair for four hours straight, Nan,” with a wry smile. I tried to kiss the memory of it away.
I told Mr. Harding how I felt about the adoption, and that I could not bring myself to give our child up to anyone. He said he understood how I felt, but that the time had come when we would have to devise some means of taking care of her and he did not feel the home of the nurse was the proper place.