The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 71

by Nanna Popham Britton

71

Enroute to New York, Scott Willits, my brother-in-law, my sister Elizabeth and Elizabeth Ann, stopped in Washington. They went almost immediately to the office of Mrs. Heber Herbert Votaw, youngest sister of President Harding whose husband, Heber Herbert Votaw, had been appointed by Mr. Harding as Superintendent of Prisons. Mrs. Votaw was prominent in welfare work of some kind. Mrs. Votaw, or Carrie Harding

This photograph of Elizabeth Ann was taken by the author to Mr. Harding at the White House

as you may recall, was my sister's favorite among the Harding sisters back home in Marion. In her office they were introduced to Colonel Forbes who, my sister told me, took quite a fancy to Elizabeth Ann. Mrs. Votaw entertained them at the Senate Dining-Room for luncheon, where, Elizabeth said, Vice-President Coolidge sat across from them at the next table. In the afternoon Mrs. Votaw took them through the White House, and, Elizabeth said, voiced her regret that her brother, the President, was attending a conference. Otherwise, Mrs. Votaw told them, they might have gone in to see him. And also otherwise, I have often thought wistfully, he might have seen his own little daughter whom he never once saw in the almost four years she had been living at the time he passed on in San Francisco. A queer topsy-turvy set of circumstances—the President's own sister escorting the President's own child, unknown to her as such, through his home and grounds!

I almost devoured Elizabeth Ann when she landed with Scott and Elizabeth in New York. She was but two-and-a-half, and the best-natured child imaginable. I shall never forget how she became sleepy during our gaddings, and actually walked along the street so asleep that the sympathetic interest of pedestrians was drawn to her. I would take her on my lap every chance I got, hugging her to me, and worshipping the little face which bore to me such a pathetic resemblance to her father. And, oh, the joy of taking her to bed with me, and of doing the little things for her which she told me in her baby way she wanted done—her back rubbed or her "pidda" fixed this or that way. I think there is nothing comparable to the pleasure it gives a mother to wait upon her baby, though in the extreme it may possibly be poor training for the child.

Scott sailed for Bremen on the America (1922) and I gave up my work at Columbia, having completed the first semester with a B grade, and returned with Elizabeth and the baby to Chicago to remain the year Scott was to be abroad. That spring and summer I resumed my treatments with Dr. Barbour and in the fall, feeling much stronger, sought a suitable secretarial position. I did some part-time work during that summer, but for the most part I remained at home helping as I could with the house work and taking care of my precious darling.