times I had ever observed that before were when death had visited our family, I knew that something of the gravest nature had occurred.
His emotion was partly due to the knowledge that a man whom he had met and liked was gone, partly to the feeling that must possess all of our citizens when the life of their President is taken from them.
But he must have been moved also by the thought of the many sacrifices he had made to place me where I was, the twenty-five-mile drives in storms and in zero weather over our mountain roads to carry me to the academy and all the tenderness and care he had lavished upon me in the thirty-eight years since the death of my mother in the hope that I might sometime rise to a position of importance, which he now saw realized.
He had been the first to address me as President of the United States. It was the culmination of the lifelong desire of a father for the success of his son.
He placed in my hands an official report and told me that President Harding had just passed away. My wife and I at once dressed.
