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MAGAZINE and BOOK SECTION ?fetD ?J FAKT VII . TWELVE PAGES Senator Harding Is Friends and Re ? i -1-? .._ i? ? ? SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 1920_PART VII TWELVE P.U.KS Popular in the Old Home Town; atives Recall Stories of His Boyhood Even His Father-in-Law, Now Dead, Admitted His First Judg- ; ment Was Wrong By Boyden R. Sparkes Marion, Ohio. IF OLD Amos King: were alive to- ; day ho probably would admit vhat the mistake was his and not his daughter's, though he was hard as cement once his mind had set. Dickersons and Hardings are al- i most as plentiful in Morrow County, Ohio, as the gray sheep that crop 'crass and carry on their affairs in ; the fallow fields of every faTn in , this black soil region. On his moth? er*, side United State? Senator War- ; ren Gamaliel Harding is a Dicker- j son, and so. if every one of ins kin | people casts a vote for him next No? vember Morrow County will poll a j solid Republican vote. These are simple country folks for ! the most part, and the hired man? j if they have a hired man?eats at j the table. The Dickersona and Hardings have Intermarried to such j an extent that a Harding may not say an unkind word about the Dick? ersons without insulting himself, and the reverse also applies. Senator Harding is a "double cousin" to some of these people. All Talk of Warren So. nowadays, when the family groups gather around the golden oak dining room table at noon, they talk of Warren and delight one another with stories of his boyhood. When the occupants of a flivver or a mud stained buggy stop in the road to ex? change the time of day with the blue overalled, broad-brimmed straw hatted operator of the cultivator that breaks the soil between the rows of foot-high corn, they talk of War? ren and the smart things he did and said when he was a boy. When the horses are brought in from the field?, at night, the talk around the great barns hat overshadow the houees is of Warren and his school days. His foreign policy worries them not at all, nor his stand on Philippine independence, nor his vote on the peace treaty. It is a relative, not a. statesman, they are inter? ested in. In one of the smallest farmhouses of Morrow County, in Blooming Grove, a settlement of sixty people, lives Mrs. Addie Baker, a "widow woman," as the neighbors put it. She moved in last September with he? brood of five children in a brave effort to reestablish th? home that had been broken up when her husband died, about the time three-year-old Lee was born. She rented the place for a very small sum from the owner. H. E. Erickson, who ciasse? it a* a tenant farm. It is a small frame s'eructure whose builder made no compromise with architectural beauty. When the .lim Widow Baker moved in all of its acr<- of ?and was overgrown with weed- and brush and the whole of an orphan asylum haunted the delirium of the mother and the chil? dren; but, thanks to a country doc? tor, she recovered and so did the youngster?, their red cheeks un? seamed. They had just finished the ceremony of fumigation a day or two ago and were moving their few sticks of furniture back into the front room, where there is an organ and wall paper unrelieved by any border design, when Landlord Erick son came into the yard. "Getting ready to move, eh?" he queried, and then before the Widow Baker could deny it he added: "You know this here is the house where Warren Harding was born, and now that he's going to be President some of the fellows over to Mount Gilead want to restore it like it was and give it to him." "I hadn't any idea of moving," said Mrs. Baker, a hit hysterically, "and it don't seem right to put me out after the way I've slaved on this place, and pa planted my po? tatoes and my brother planted my corn, and we're just getting started. ; It just don't seem right." Farmer Erickson assured her that she would be reimbursed for her crop if the plan went through and : went on to explain that the men from Mount Gilead thought it would be a fine surprise compliment tc '. Senator Harding to rip the porch j off the house, tear off the weather 1 boards from the sides, leaving ex ! posed the shiplap, as in Civil War : days, and replace the windows with the old six-pane sashes through which Warren Gamaliel Hardinp : first looked out on the world. "Senator Harding is a big man ; hut I ought to count for something I with all these young ones," declared I Mrs. Baker, and went into the po ; tato patch to look for bugs. Word of this scheme reached ; Marion, thirty miles away in the adjoining county, and came to thf ears of the Rev. Mr. McAfee, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, of whicb Senator Harding Is a trustee. Objected in Harding'? Name "Senator Harding won't countc nance this for a minute, ami if h< learns that this widow has sufferec worry on his account, even thougl indirectly, you'll see how fast he'l make it up to her." Mr. McAfe? : counted this an opportunity to ex ? press an estimate of Mr. Hardinj ! and said : "He has the dignity to grace an; office, yet he is so full of cordialit; . his dignity does not interfere witl your petting close to him. You ar? perfectly at home with him. He i a kindly man and a devotional one. So the Widow Baker's case will b straightened out, even if Senato Harding has to "discover" that h : wasn't horn in that house, after al Nace had the hopeless aspect of ?lltoet a complete ruin. But the J****** brother plowed the ?mail ?>??? ?nd her father came from hi? ?W! place and patched up the roof, ?Wered up the ham and fixed the ?weh, and the widow scrubbed an?*! ? ^?nte-l Gl??a, agH ten, milked the ?MM?]- '''??'?', a gift; Belva, eight, 2 tl* pig; and . ?f.(.t? ?jx> and . ?tr.a, four, kr-pr. a solitary hen "j^th a setting of eggs. *?mt sr* week? nyr, every single ??[*^/'f ?**? '?mil* excepting IT IS on this street, of shady * trees and wide lawns that Senator Harding ham his home though the people, of Blooming Grove insist it is his birthplace. Old Dr. George T. Harding, the Senator's father, bear . thin out, and adds the detail that construction of the house was hurried ho hin wife, that wan Phoebe Dickerson, migh have her first baby borri in the new horn?-'. Thj_ event, was superintended by Dr. Joseph Mc.Karland, a homeopathic practitionerr^whoaa hora*? never fcadtg a chance to take on weight so busy ' was the master. It was with Dr. McFarland that the masculine parent of the baby Warren "read" medicine, in lieu of medical college instruction, and later he went to Cleveland for a course of lectures with John D. Rockefeller's phytdcian, Dr. Bigger, as his pre? ceptor. The medical student was teacher in the little whitewashed ??school house of Blooming Grove when War? ren was born, in lKf,."), and mont of th9 impi1* who Were not orphan? of ] M RS. G. T. HARDING mother of the nominee M' ISS ABIGAIL HARD? ING, sister of Senator Harding TI/ARREN G A M A LIE L 'r HARDING, Republican candidate for President ,I rrHE Senator Har d i ng I * home in Marion, Ohio fSWi MRS- WARREN G. ?ri HARDIXG, who ivas active iti the conferences that gave her husband the nom? ination TPHE Trinit?i Baptist Church in Marion to which Senator I I ?* Harding belongs and of which he is a trustee L _. . : _._' T HIS house, next door to the Harding home, has been set aside as political ?headquarters for the, campaign , ., ? ?-?- -r-? ' ? """ ' ?????a '???in? ?. 1 ?" " i r)R. G. T. HARDING,] *?* f a t h e r of Senator Harding soldiers were the offspring of men who still wore the blue of the Union i Army and had* not yet lost their ? delight in the freshly acquired free? dom from military discipline. Spoke a "Piece" at School The school teacher was proud of his baby son and sometimes took him to school with him, and when he was three let him speak a piece of four lines one Friday afternoon. "He could hardly wait till he let that piece off," said old Dr. Hard ing last Sunday, in his home in Marion, where the news that his son had been given the Republican nomi? nation for President had started a train of recollections that carried the white-haired, sun-browned old man back to the days of his young manhood, when the Presidential nominee was a "pert little tyke." Stephen Byram Appleman, the oldest of the sixty people of Bloom? ing Grove, also remembers Warren Harding, the little boy. Mr. Apple man paused in the work of looking after his tomato vines in his back yard garden patch to talk about him. I "1? I last tm-Nowmber -U-TU.be ? f-fOME of "The Marion Star," Senator Harding's news ? \ *-* paper. The two windows to the right on the second door give light for his private office :_._ eighty-three," and he stroked a whit? beard with a gnarled, browned hand that twitched with palsy, "but I can remember little Warren Hard? ing. I was a wool buyer in those days and once I went to New York. I just remember the Harding hoy because I knew his folks. He was still a little fellow when they moved over Caledonia way. Blooming Grove used to be called Corsica when we had a postoffice, but they took that away and put us on the rural free delivery. I 'spect we'll have one again if Harding is elected. I'll tell you, I wouldn't want the folks around here to hear me say it, but my man was that fellow from Cali? fornia, Johnson. I'll vote for Hard? ing, though. First man I ever voted for was Abe Lincoln. My son, Joseph Seymour Appleman, could tell you about Harding. I recollect they went to school together." Mr. Appleman's son is a farmer and his place is beyond the Widow Baker's acre on a rise of land that is referred to as a hill in this level country. The cherries on the tree in his front yard are just begin? ning to invite attention by their blushes. There is a tin cup on top of the iron pump on the side porch. In the parlor there is revealed a lifetime of mail order catalogue fur? niture selections, mostly golden oak. On the floor is a rug that would give a conscientious interior deco? rator nervous prostration. Great roses the size of cabbages are the principal feature of the design. The gilt chandelier has two arm?, swell? ing at the ends into glass globe? with white china chimneys which point' an upward path for the acety? lene gas smoke that has faintly ;plotched the papered ceiling. "My father is mistaken," said Mr Appleman after a preliminary and hospitable "Take chairs." "I didn't go to school with Senator Harding but my sister did?Mrs. Alma Dick erson, up the road aways. Envied His Mustache "I can remember him, though, a; a very young man coming back or a visit to school. He had a dar. mustache, not a very heavy crop and I was envious of it." Mrs. Alma Dickerson apologizes for her blue calico frock that seemec to be engaged in a struggle to keej her ample form from protruding a hook-and-eye gaps, cautioned he grandchildren to drink their mill and finish their dinner, and thei said: "Everybody around here know Warrer*- Harding, and he is kin t my husband. I used to go to schoc. with him, though I was a mite oldei He had to pass our house twice day. He was a right pleasant dis positioned little feller, but he reall I grew up over at Caledonia ; that ; between here and Marion. He wa always smart. One of the girls wr ? went to school with us was h ?youngest aunt, Mrs. Ella Dickersoi ; of North Market Street, in Galio ; That's in Crawford County, ju i over the line, but it's right on tl road to Caledonia. She could t. lots about him when he was little." T^e aunt of the Presidential nom ? nee was also attired in blue calic \ but hers is a more slender figu: than that' of the other Mrs. Dicke son. Her hair, which she admitti ?was gray, was concealed beneath ' plain covering that some perso: 'might think was a boudoir cap, b which any buckeye born in Oh 1 would recognize as a dusting cap. "I'm his aunt, but Warren and .layed togJtfiJBr," she began. "Y Dr. Harding'? youngaafc sister? 1 n was Ella Harding. My hushand was a nephew of the Senator's mother, who was Ph?he Dickerson. It sounds tangled, doesn't it? When I got married my brother said I would have to call him uncle. You see that makes my daughter and the Senator double cousins. "Phoebe Pickerson was about the grandest woman in the world, but she never served any pork on her table or cooked with lard. She was an Adventist. Our houses were close together*. Warren was there every day. He always called my mother, who was his grandmother, 'mother,' He called his great-grandmother 'grandmam.' We nearly always had a crock of doughnuts?fried cakes we called them. An End to Doughnuts "When he'd come over about the first thing he'd say was, 'Got any doughnuts, mother?' and she'd al? ways load him up. Then his mother discovered this and instructed him not to ask for them again. "Next time he came over he said, 'Mother, I wish my mommy had some lard, so we could have some dough? nuts.' " 'Would you like some?'sheasked, and he said, 'Yes, but I'm not allowpd to ask for any.' He got them with? out asking after that. The Dicker sons in those days had a kind of an? tipathy for pork or lard. They were very hygienic about their cooking. "After Warren was older he taught school for a few terms just out of Marion. I was reading an old letter from him recently, in which he mentioned his class sayinq-*. 'It't*. 1 o'clock. I'll have to call in my herd and give them their brain fodder.' "Ho fairly worshipped his mother. She was an invalid for years before she died. He was lovely to her. j There was one blind sister, Mary I Clarissa, who died seven years ago. . He was always doing something for her. She taught in th?*** state insti? tution for the blind at Columbus. She hail just one twenty-fourth of her sight, barely enough to tell night from day. '"She was just a tiny child when we discovered she was going blind. She used to come to her grandmother . and say, T wish you'd thread my needle," and once my mother said, 'You with young eyes ought to be able to thread a needle a lot bettei than me,' and Mary Clarissa sai?! she had tried but 'it makes my fore head hot.' That wa? just the waj she put it, and then they tested h(*i little eyes and found she wa? goinj blind. She was very fond of Warren . He was the oldest, you see. Eight Children "There were eight children in Pi Harding's family. First, Wavrer ' then Mrs. Charity Me!vina liem? berg, of Santa Ana. Calif.; the Mary Clarissa, the blind girl; the Prisei?a Elmira, who died when sh was six; then Abigail Yictori : Harding, who teaches Estglish in th Marion High Schon!; then Dt ; George T. Harding jr.. of Columhut land last and youngest, Mrs. Hebe i Votaw. She spent eleven years i Burma as a missionary with h<? husband. She is a policewoman j ! Washington now." Mrs. Dicker son produced a Jarf, cardboard box filled with ?group ai individual photographs of membe ? of the Dickerson and Harding clan ? "Whenever Warren came over '?see me he'd always say 'Now, Ell gcrt out the photographs,' and th * i hefd sit there the longest kind 14 ta ^Continuedon r t$e?w^ ^j