him, but he was constantly in the background of my thoughts—why, I have thought about him every hour of the nine years now since we first met at the Manhattan Hotel in 1917, and not a day has passed since I first saw him in Marion when I was a child that I have not thought lovingly of Warren Gamaliel Harding.
During his visits to our 60th Street apartment, Mr. Harding had advised me to deliberate well before deciding upon a suitable place to summer, and await my confinement. He suggested numerous avenues of procedure with regard to helping determine the best place to go, and I remember it was with some timidity that he even made the suggestion that I might look into the Catholic institutions here in the East where I might find comfort and quietude and safety, and perhaps some occupation for diversion. However, this appealed to me not at all, because an institution immediately presented to me a picture of enforced seclusion. I vetoed the idea and he then suggested I take a taxi and go along the Jersey Shore and also over into Long Island, sizing up the possibilities and going there leisurely afterwards. I spent several days going about week-ends in search of a place where I felt I might live happily for the several months intervening. Long Island did not appeal to me and I finally decided upon Asbury Park, New Jersey. There seemed to be plenty of entertainment there, good air, pleasant surroundings, and yet it was far enough from New York to make embarrassing contacts improbable. As a matter of fact, I saw only one man during the whole summer whom I knew, and that was during my first week in Asbury Park while I was still in such figure as to excite no comment.
I registered at the Hotel Monmouth, one block from the ocean, under the name of Mrs. Edmund Norton Christian.
