The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 57
The latter part of January Mr. Harding sent for my sister Elizabeth to come to Marion to see him. When she returned to Chicago, she repeated to me his almost desperate concern about a final, permanent arrangement for caring for our child. She told me how they had discussed at length the advisability from many angles of her taking Elizabeth Ann, and how Mr. Harding had paced the floor of his office (the same office in the Christian home where he had sat with Mr. Will Hays when his sister and I had beckoned for him to come out) and said, "My God, Elizabeth, you've got to help me!" She told me that he had said to her, "Nan is just a child in many ways and must be guarded and guided," a statement I think I resented just a little because I felt I had thus far engineered our secret safely. Mr. Harding told Elizabeth, "I would not hesitate a minute to give you and Scott $300 or $400 a month to care for Elizabeth Ann if you would adopt her."
My sister on this occasion had taken with her a picture of Mr. Harding to him to autograph for her. It was one of those for which he had posed at Moffett's in June of 1920, after which sittings he had rushed out from Moffett's to see me, and Elizabeth said that when she showed it to Mr. Harding he said he preferred it to all the others taken at that time. His autograph for Elizabeth is as follows:
"With greetings and good wishes to Mrs. Scott A. Willits, with that high regard which goes to the daughter of a valued friend. Warren G. Harding."
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.
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
_15.png)
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.