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Soon after receiving the November 5th, 1925, letter from Daisy Harding, I received from her a draft for $65 for Elizabeth Ann’s clothes. She wrote a very hurried note, signed, “Lots of love, A. V. H.”
It was a delight to purchase winter things for Warren Harding’s and my child with money received from Warren Harding’s sister. It seemed so right. I retained all of the receipts for the purchase of these things in order to show them to Miss Harding if she should ever care to see them, and indeed the purchases ran over the $65 sent. Elizabeth Ann had no winter things to speak of, even though my sister Elizabeth had made her some pretty summer dresses. But I had to buy her winter things, from underwear to a coat, hat, galoshes and gloves. She looked adorable in them.
Under date of November 12, 1925, I replied to Miss Harding’s brief note enclosing the check, and I wrote, “It makes me feel so good inside—the knowledge that it comes from you. And I love you. You know that.” I also said that I felt sure it was Mr. Votaw who refused to understand my situation—and not Mrs. Votaw. Miss Harding had said she might be coming to New York soon and I wrote that it would be fine if she and Mrs. Votaw could come to New York to see me. On December 1st I wrote again to Miss Harding after I had finished the shopping for Elizabeth Ann, and I told her how very pretty the baby looked in her new things. She was growing out of her babyhood, however, and was beginning to shoot up, and I observed daily how much like Mr. Harding she was, with the Harding olive complexion, the Harding eyes, and the height which belonged to me as well as to her father.