115
When the latter part of January of 1925 came, I knew I just could not go through the spring as I had done the greater part of the winter, and I wrote Elizabeth, who was at that time with her husband in charge of certain music work at the Ohio University at Athens, Ohio, to come and get Elizabeth Ann if she could. It hurt me to do this, for I had taken my child with the full intention of being able to provide a home for her permanently. But I could not longer stand the physical strain of keeping up the apartment, though that strain was not equal to the mental strain of never knowing whether or not the captain could meet the rent and other obligations. The last month we lived there, January, I was obliged to go to a friend for $75 to help me out with the rent, and I did so, taking Elizabeth Ann with me and meeting the friend in the lobby of the Pennsylvania Hotel. I have not been able to pay that back any more than I have yet been able to repay the Italian the $90 borrowed in 1923. And January of 1925 found me owing other debts also—school tuition for my baby, Helen Anderson’s loans amounting in the aggregate to over $300, and others.