The President's Daughter
Nan Britton
9781465624819
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
I was born in Claridon, Ohio, a very small village about ten miles east of Marion, Ohio, on November 9th, 1896. My father, a physician, was at that time practising under the supervision of his cousin, an older physician who had an established practice of long standing. My mother, who had received some of her high school training in Marion, where she had come from New Philadelphia, Ohio, to live with her maternal grandmother, was teaching a country school in Claridon when father met her. I was still a baby and my older sister Elizabeth about three when we moved to Marion, where we settled permanently. Inasmuch as this book has much to do with President Harding and myself, I may sketch briefly the friendly relations which existed early between our families: While my father was working up a practice in Claridon, Mr. Harding, then in his twenties, was struggling with Marion’s now well-known newspaper, The Marion Daily Star. Father, being himself somewhat of a writer, often wrote humorously to Mr. Harding of his experiences among the country-folk, and these letters were edited by Mr. Harding and published in his paper; I remember Mr. Harding’s telling me how delighted he always was to receive them. My father always spoke of Mr. Harding with warmest affection, and, later on, was one of Mr. Harding’s strongest advocates despite the fact that my father was a Democrat. It is very likely that they developed mutual regard and affection for each other back in those days of ambitious editor and country doctor. Certainly no finer tributes could be paid any man than those which I have myself heard from Mr. Harding concerning my father. Mr. Harding’s father was a physician also, and this fact may have strengthened the bond of friendship which early grew to warm regard. As far back as I can remember Dr. Harding had his office in the old Star Building, right across the hall from his editor-son. I believe it is only recently that he has discontinued active practice. I know he has passed his eighty-second birthday. My mother’s attitude in the matter of my relationship to Mr. Harding has not been conducive to discussion with her about her own early acquaintance with the Harding family, but this I know: she must have been attending high school at the same time that some of the Hardings were, because she is only a few years Abigail Harding’s senior. There were, as Miss Abigail Harding has often told me, three “sets” of Harding children: first came Warren, the eldest, then Charity, these two forming the first set; then came “Deac” (Dr. George Tryon Harding III, only brother of Warren) and presumably Mary, the sister who was almost blind and who died about 1910, I think, soon after Warren Harding’s mother passed on; then came Abigail, known to everyone as “Daisy” Harding, and lastly Carolyn, the “baby” of the family. It seems to me there was a child who died very early, though I am not sure about this. My mother had a sister Della who also lived a good part of the time with mother’s and her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Mary Richards, in Marion, and, I believe, went to school there also. Della Williams married a missionary to Burma, India, Howard E. Dudley. Some time after, Carolyn Harding also married a missionary to Burma, Heber Herbert Votaw. Up to that time “Carrie” and “Dell” had been friends, if not intimate at least upon the friendliest kind of terms. However, their husbands were missionaries of decidedly different denominations. Carrie Harding married a Seventh Day Adventist and my Aunt Dell married a Baptist. So from then on their paths diverged. Diverged indeed so widely that my first recollection of hearing the Hardings discussed at any great length is identified with a heated argument between Aunt Dell and my older sister Elizabeth.
