The First Ladies: Florence Harding
She was nicknamed the Dutchess, and when her husband died unexpectedly in 1923, some suspected her of engineering his demise. Most doubt that to be the case, although given her husband's propensity for extra-marital dalliances, many would understand if she had.
Florence Mabel Kling was born on August 15, 1860 in Marion, Ohio. Her father was Amos Kling, who had been a hardware store owner, a real estate developer, a banker and local investor. Her mother was Louisa Mabel Hanford Bouton. When her mother died in 1893, Amos Kling remarried in July 1907 to Caroline Beatty Denman. Florence was the oldest of three children. She had two younger brothers. Florence Kling attended primary school and then three years of high school studies. She also studied classical piano and she wanted to attend the Cincinnati Conservatory and become an internationally-recognized concert pianist. Her father was more pragmatic and imagined a career for her as a piano teacher.
Florence worked for her father, as a store clerk in his hardware store and as a rent collector. At the age of 19 she eloped with Henry Atherton DeWolfe and gave birth to a son with him, Eugene Marshall DeWolfe. Henry DeWolfe found work in a roller-skating rink but he abandoned his wife and child just before Christmas in 1882. She filed for divorce in May of 1886 and the divorce was granted to her on the grounds of "gross neglect of duty". She resumed "Kling" as her last name.
At the age of 30 Florence married 25 year old Warren Gameliel Harding, the owner of the Marion Star newspaper. The wedding took place on July 8, 1891, in the new home they built on Mount Vernon Avenue in Marion. Her son from her first marriage became the legal ward of his maternal grandfather Amos Kling. Warren Harding and Florence did not have any children together.
Florence worked as business manager for her husband's newspaper. She created a Circulation Department, mapping out service routes to provide delivery to homes and businesses. She hired and trained a team of newsboys. She also re-negotiated with the bank for shorter-term, lower-interest rates to buy printing equipment. She alone kept all the business accounts. Her decision to subscribe to a news wire service proved to be a turning point in the paper's financial success, bringing global news to the county within twenty-four hours of it happening. She did not write or edit stories, but she did make editorial decisions. She also hired Jane Dixon the first female reporter in the state.
Warren Harding served two terms as state senator (1900-1904), and one as lieutenant-governorship (1904-1906). Florence managed her husband's social and political contacts, finances, and even his wardrobe. On February 24, 1905, Florence Harding underwent emergency surgery for nephritis, a kidney ailment that continued to afflict her and left her reliant on homeopath Charles Sawyer. During her convalescence, Harding began an affair with Florence's close friend Carrie Fulton Phillips, the wife of a neighbor. When Florence Harding learned of the affair in 1911, she considered filing for divorce, but decided against doing so when he agreed to end the affair. Despite this agreement, it continued. Also, Warren Harding may have fathered Marion Louise Hodder, born in Nebraska in 1895 to Susan Pearl McWilliams Hodder, childhood friend of Florence Harding. There are various claims of his affairs with others, including Grace Miller Cross of his U.S. Senate staff, Augusta Cole, Rosa Hoyle, and Ruby Randall.
Warren Harding was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914 and the Hardings moved to Washington. In early 1920, Florence Harding consulted Marcia Champrey, an astrologer, who predicted that if Warren Harding was able to win the Republican nomination, he would go on to win the presidency - but not live to complete the full term. As Warren Harding was contemplating a run for the presidency, Carrie Phillips threatened to reveal her relationship with Harding if her monetary demands were not met. He responded that he could only do so if he were to win the presidential nomination. Then private funds could be surreptitiously solicited by the National Republican Committee. At the Chicago Republican Convention in June 1920, Florence Harding was the first candidate's wife to speak with the press. Carrie Phillips was paid her hush money and made inaccessible to the press by being sent on an Asian trip until after Election Day.
During the campaign, Florence Harding played a dual public role of traditional housekeeper and modern activist. One day she wore an apron to pare apples and chat with farmers' wives. On another she told a group of women how she refused to wear a wedding ring because she considered it a symbol of bondage. She told one reporter that she preferred to work rather than cook as she offered a sample of her famous waffle recipe. She reviewed outgoing press releases, and vetted the candidate's public remarks and speeches. Working with advertising king Albert Lasker, she helped organize large events at the house. Unlike any of the previous presidential candidates' wives, Florence Harding offered her political opinions, most notably her anti-League of Nations and pro-suffrage views. To questions about her first marriage, she misled reporters into believing that she was a widow when she married Harding. In October of 1920, when rumors about Harding's alleged African ancestry were printed in some newspapers, campaign officials were unsure of how to respond. Florence Harding insisted no official response be given, permitting the campaign to neither deny nor confirm the allegations and not prolong the story in the press. By Election Day, the issue faded and Harding won.
During the transition period, Florence Harding weighed in on Cabinet and other appointments. She successfully urged the appointment of Charles Forbes as head of the Veteran's Bureau, supported Harding's choice of their friend Senator Albert Fall as Interior Secretary, but unsuccessfully advised against naming friend and lobbyist Harry Daugherty as Attorney-General. She successfully urged Andrew Mellon to accept the offer of Treasury Secretary when he hesitated. She was able to get her doctor Charles Sawyer, made an Army Brigadier-General so his presence was near her. A editorial written about her declared, "When the people elect a President they at the same time elect a Presidentess." On inauguration day she was reported to say, "Well, Warren Harding I got you the Presidency. Now what are you going to do?"
Florence Harding appeared comfortable going out among public crowds, whether with or without the President. She invited women's political groups as well as female federal workers, girls graduating from high school, college girls, and even African-American girls from local Dunbar High School to the White House. She broke an unwritten social code and invited divorced women to social events. To promote physical exercise for women, she hosted a women's tennis exhibition game on the White House courts. To the Camp Fire Girls, she wrote: "The part that women play in the world has been greatly changed. It has broadened and enlarged and we will all be wise to recognize that a larger consideration for the health and physical advancement of the girls will better fit them for the role they must assume."
Florence Harding led a national boycott on sugar when prices were too high for most households. She defended her support of a protectionist policy of American industry to the Southern Tariff Convention of Women, Florence Harding, calling housewives "the makers of the household budgets, the managers of the homes, which in the final analysis are the end and aim of organized society." Her efforts to promote economic, political and society equity for women won her wide praise in publications ranging from the Sacramento Union, Philadelphia Public Ledger and New York Times.
Florence Harding supported a prison reform movement that grew from the harsh experiences of women suffragists in prison. She advocated for protection of women inmates from the exploitation of male inmates and staff and for provision of a communal setting with provisions for nurseries and childcare to imprisoned women. It would result in Alderson Reformatory Prison, the first federal correctional institution exclusively for women prisoners, located in West Virginia.
Florence Harding invited scientist Madame Marie Curie to the White House to promote her view of professional women as equal to professional men. She lobbied for the appointment of women in politics positions. She also joined an effort to memorialize the long struggle for women's suffrage in a U.S. Capitol statue for the by the National Women's Party. Republican Party pressure on the White House forced Florence Harding and the President to rescind their acceptance of an invitation to dedicate the new headquarters of the National Women's Party, but she refused to give in to pressure from National Republican Women's Executive Committee to disassociate with the League of Women Voters and their push for an Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in 1921.
Florence was a strong advocate for the ASPCA and Animal Rescue League. She promoted the Humane Education Society's plan to educate humane animal treatment in public schools. She turned down invitations to rodeos and removed all the big game heads placed in the state dining room by Theodore Roosevelt. She would wear fur that had been taken from animals that had died naturally, but refused to permit feathers used on her clothing because they were usually plucked from live animals. "Cruelty begets cruelty," she wrote, "hardness towards animals is certain to breed hardness towards our fellow man. Of this, I am very sure from both observation and analogy, the converse is just as true. That is why I am always willing to give every encouragement to humane causes." She interceded with the Commerce Department's commissioner of fish and fisheries when she learned that San Diego fisherman were killing seals that ate fish they were trying to catch. "It is difficult for me to believe that the protection of fish requires the sacrifices of these seals," she wrote.
Florence Harding worked on behalf of World War I wounded veterans. She visited hospital wards, and called the men recovering at Walter Reed Hospital"my boys". She made the visits without any public notice and hosted garden parties for thousands of the disabled men from area hospitals and care centers. Whenever she traveled around the U.S., Florence Harding would visit wards for those suffering from mental trauma, tuberculosis, blindness, or missing limbs all resulting from the war. She was part of a "Lest We Forget" Week to prompt donations of clothing, books, records and other items needed in the wards. Often, if she noticed a veteran on crutches when she was being driven somewhere, she had her car stopped and the veteran given a ride to wherever he was headed. She led a national effort to create a monument to the World War I soldiers on the National Mall.
On international affairs, Florence Harding led a national relief effort following the Armenian genocide of 1915. She also advocated for greater race relations. Publicly she always made a point of shaking the hands and thanking the African-American cooking staff at events she attended, going into the kitchens of hotels and private homes to do so. She had the President rescind his offer of a political appointment to an individual that Florence Harding correctly suspected of being racist.
Florence Harding turned down the automatic $10,000 congressional appropriation for decorating the private quarters. She said this was done because she understood the economic pressures that ordinary Americans were going through. When she greeted the public, she physically touched them, hugging, sometimes kissing their cheeks. She re-opened the White House for public tours, sometimes leading them herself. Florence Harding became a popular figure. A song "Flo From Ohio" was written in her honor, and "Flossie Clings" which copied the silk neckbands she wore were adapted as a style by young women. She was the first First Lady to provide feature movies as entertainment following state dinners. Fascinated by the era's advances in air travel, Florence Harding dressed in pants, soft helmet and goggles to experience first-hand flying in a plane. One religious newspaper editorial chastised the First Lady for having a navy jazz combo perform the "sinful syncopations" of jazz at a garden reception and that she and the President reportedly took part in some of the "new" dances.
Although Prohibition was the law of the land, the Hardings like many Americans managed to find enough alcoholic beverages to serve their guests where a regular supply might otherwise have become depleted. With the First Lady serving as bartender, in their private quarters, the Hardings served liquor from a private reserve that a member of the Attorney General's circle later claimed came from the confiscated alcohol by the Prohibition-era Justice Department.
The May 1923 suicide of her close friend Jess Smith, the Attorney-General's companion hit her hard, especially as allegations of his illegal operations out of the Justice Department reached their ears. Without regard to widespread belief that Smith was gay, Warren and Florence Harding had accepted him into their trusted circle of friends.
Florence Harding strongly urged her husband to take a trip to Alaska. Naval physician Joel Boone was alarmed by Harding's enlarged heart and general condition, and advised against the trip. Florence nevertheless pushed for the trip. Shortly after the election, she had consulted a new astrologer, a Mrs. Joseph, who assured her that Warren would not meet his demise as the earlier astrologer had warned her. As the Hardings went out across the country with numerous stops in the Midwestand West, Florence Harding's popularity increased. She insisted on fulfilling all of the scheduled appearances despite its toll on her husband. In Alaska, Florence Harding spoke openly to the press of her belief that the territory was ready for statehood. Shortly after the President sampled some seafood and had returned to the U.S.mainland, he fell ill. The train was sped down the west coast, headed to San Francisco. President Harding became more obviously ill, and although Boone correctly assessed that Harding was in grave danger, his diagnosis was angrily dismissed by Florence's naturopath, Sawyer.
Sawyer told the press at the time that he administered some unnamed stimulants to Harding. Some have theorized that the incompetent Sawyer may have accidentally induced the heart attack that killed Harding on August 2, 1923. By all contemporary accounts, Sawyer had an enormous power over Florence Harding, and her refusal to permit an autopsy of her husband may have been to protect Sawyer from having his incompetence exposed.
Harding's funeral train journeyed back to Washington, and dozens of editorials praised Florence Harding's conduct during Harding's illness and death. When Harding's body arrived back at the White Houseing on August 11, Florence Harding famously spoke to her late husband in his coffin, being overheard to say "they can't hurt you any more."
On August 17, 1923 Florence Harding left the White House for the estate of her friend Evalyn McLean. She burned much of her husband's papers and on September 5, 1923 she briefly returned to Marion, Ohio, to cull Harding's papers. She returned to Washington, D.C. on January 2, 1924, taking a large suite at the Willard Hotel. The "Teapot Dome Scandal" congressional hearings were held and she watcher her old friend Interior Secretary Albert Fall as he was charged, convicted and imprisoned for accepting oil company bribes after leasing naval oil reserves in California and Wyoming. Through the trials, Florence Harding insisted that her movements were monitored and her telephone tapped. Despite the scandals, Florence Harding planned to attend the 1924 National Republican Convention. She did not deny rumors that she might seek political office as governor of Ohio, even though they were not true. Her last public appearance was at an Armistice Day (now Veterans' Day) parade in Marion, Ohio. Despite a driving rain, she stood up in her car to salute the World War I veterans who passed before her.
Florence Harding did not live to see the publication of Nan Britton's book, The President's Daughter, nor the one written by former F.B.I. agent Gaston Means, The Strange Death of President Harding, which accused her of poisoning the President. The book has been discredited by many reputable historians. Her mistake was likely her having placed too much confidence in the incompetent Sawyer.
Florence Harding died on November 21, 1924 at the age of 64. When her kidney ailment returned, she followed Sawyer's advice, and took a cottage in the grounds of his sanitarium in Marion. A few days later, she died of renal failure. She is buried at the Harding Memorial in Marion,Ohio.
Florence Mabel Kling was born on August 15, 1860 in Marion, Ohio. Her father was Amos Kling, who had been a hardware store owner, a real estate developer, a banker and local investor. Her mother was Louisa Mabel Hanford Bouton. When her mother died in 1893, Amos Kling remarried in July 1907 to Caroline Beatty Denman. Florence was the oldest of three children. She had two younger brothers. Florence Kling attended primary school and then three years of high school studies. She also studied classical piano and she wanted to attend the Cincinnati Conservatory and become an internationally-recognized concert pianist. Her father was more pragmatic and imagined a career for her as a piano teacher.
Florence worked for her father, as a store clerk in his hardware store and as a rent collector. At the age of 19 she eloped with Henry Atherton DeWolfe and gave birth to a son with him, Eugene Marshall DeWolfe. Henry DeWolfe found work in a roller-skating rink but he abandoned his wife and child just before Christmas in 1882. She filed for divorce in May of 1886 and the divorce was granted to her on the grounds of "gross neglect of duty". She resumed "Kling" as her last name.
At the age of 30 Florence married 25 year old Warren Gameliel Harding, the owner of the Marion Star newspaper. The wedding took place on July 8, 1891, in the new home they built on Mount Vernon Avenue in Marion. Her son from her first marriage became the legal ward of his maternal grandfather Amos Kling. Warren Harding and Florence did not have any children together.
Florence worked as business manager for her husband's newspaper. She created a Circulation Department, mapping out service routes to provide delivery to homes and businesses. She hired and trained a team of newsboys. She also re-negotiated with the bank for shorter-term, lower-interest rates to buy printing equipment. She alone kept all the business accounts. Her decision to subscribe to a news wire service proved to be a turning point in the paper's financial success, bringing global news to the county within twenty-four hours of it happening. She did not write or edit stories, but she did make editorial decisions. She also hired Jane Dixon the first female reporter in the state.
Warren Harding served two terms as state senator (1900-1904), and one as lieutenant-governorship (1904-1906). Florence managed her husband's social and political contacts, finances, and even his wardrobe. On February 24, 1905, Florence Harding underwent emergency surgery for nephritis, a kidney ailment that continued to afflict her and left her reliant on homeopath Charles Sawyer. During her convalescence, Harding began an affair with Florence's close friend Carrie Fulton Phillips, the wife of a neighbor. When Florence Harding learned of the affair in 1911, she considered filing for divorce, but decided against doing so when he agreed to end the affair. Despite this agreement, it continued. Also, Warren Harding may have fathered Marion Louise Hodder, born in Nebraska in 1895 to Susan Pearl McWilliams Hodder, childhood friend of Florence Harding. There are various claims of his affairs with others, including Grace Miller Cross of his U.S. Senate staff, Augusta Cole, Rosa Hoyle, and Ruby Randall.
Warren Harding was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914 and the Hardings moved to Washington. In early 1920, Florence Harding consulted Marcia Champrey, an astrologer, who predicted that if Warren Harding was able to win the Republican nomination, he would go on to win the presidency - but not live to complete the full term. As Warren Harding was contemplating a run for the presidency, Carrie Phillips threatened to reveal her relationship with Harding if her monetary demands were not met. He responded that he could only do so if he were to win the presidential nomination. Then private funds could be surreptitiously solicited by the National Republican Committee. At the Chicago Republican Convention in June 1920, Florence Harding was the first candidate's wife to speak with the press. Carrie Phillips was paid her hush money and made inaccessible to the press by being sent on an Asian trip until after Election Day.
During the campaign, Florence Harding played a dual public role of traditional housekeeper and modern activist. One day she wore an apron to pare apples and chat with farmers' wives. On another she told a group of women how she refused to wear a wedding ring because she considered it a symbol of bondage. She told one reporter that she preferred to work rather than cook as she offered a sample of her famous waffle recipe. She reviewed outgoing press releases, and vetted the candidate's public remarks and speeches. Working with advertising king Albert Lasker, she helped organize large events at the house. Unlike any of the previous presidential candidates' wives, Florence Harding offered her political opinions, most notably her anti-League of Nations and pro-suffrage views. To questions about her first marriage, she misled reporters into believing that she was a widow when she married Harding. In October of 1920, when rumors about Harding's alleged African ancestry were printed in some newspapers, campaign officials were unsure of how to respond. Florence Harding insisted no official response be given, permitting the campaign to neither deny nor confirm the allegations and not prolong the story in the press. By Election Day, the issue faded and Harding won.
During the transition period, Florence Harding weighed in on Cabinet and other appointments. She successfully urged the appointment of Charles Forbes as head of the Veteran's Bureau, supported Harding's choice of their friend Senator Albert Fall as Interior Secretary, but unsuccessfully advised against naming friend and lobbyist Harry Daugherty as Attorney-General. She successfully urged Andrew Mellon to accept the offer of Treasury Secretary when he hesitated. She was able to get her doctor Charles Sawyer, made an Army Brigadier-General so his presence was near her. A editorial written about her declared, "When the people elect a President they at the same time elect a Presidentess." On inauguration day she was reported to say, "Well, Warren Harding I got you the Presidency. Now what are you going to do?"
Florence Harding appeared comfortable going out among public crowds, whether with or without the President. She invited women's political groups as well as female federal workers, girls graduating from high school, college girls, and even African-American girls from local Dunbar High School to the White House. She broke an unwritten social code and invited divorced women to social events. To promote physical exercise for women, she hosted a women's tennis exhibition game on the White House courts. To the Camp Fire Girls, she wrote: "The part that women play in the world has been greatly changed. It has broadened and enlarged and we will all be wise to recognize that a larger consideration for the health and physical advancement of the girls will better fit them for the role they must assume."
Florence Harding led a national boycott on sugar when prices were too high for most households. She defended her support of a protectionist policy of American industry to the Southern Tariff Convention of Women, Florence Harding, calling housewives "the makers of the household budgets, the managers of the homes, which in the final analysis are the end and aim of organized society." Her efforts to promote economic, political and society equity for women won her wide praise in publications ranging from the Sacramento Union, Philadelphia Public Ledger and New York Times.
Florence Harding supported a prison reform movement that grew from the harsh experiences of women suffragists in prison. She advocated for protection of women inmates from the exploitation of male inmates and staff and for provision of a communal setting with provisions for nurseries and childcare to imprisoned women. It would result in Alderson Reformatory Prison, the first federal correctional institution exclusively for women prisoners, located in West Virginia.
Florence Harding invited scientist Madame Marie Curie to the White House to promote her view of professional women as equal to professional men. She lobbied for the appointment of women in politics positions. She also joined an effort to memorialize the long struggle for women's suffrage in a U.S. Capitol statue for the by the National Women's Party. Republican Party pressure on the White House forced Florence Harding and the President to rescind their acceptance of an invitation to dedicate the new headquarters of the National Women's Party, but she refused to give in to pressure from National Republican Women's Executive Committee to disassociate with the League of Women Voters and their push for an Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in 1921.
Florence was a strong advocate for the ASPCA and Animal Rescue League. She promoted the Humane Education Society's plan to educate humane animal treatment in public schools. She turned down invitations to rodeos and removed all the big game heads placed in the state dining room by Theodore Roosevelt. She would wear fur that had been taken from animals that had died naturally, but refused to permit feathers used on her clothing because they were usually plucked from live animals. "Cruelty begets cruelty," she wrote, "hardness towards animals is certain to breed hardness towards our fellow man. Of this, I am very sure from both observation and analogy, the converse is just as true. That is why I am always willing to give every encouragement to humane causes." She interceded with the Commerce Department's commissioner of fish and fisheries when she learned that San Diego fisherman were killing seals that ate fish they were trying to catch. "It is difficult for me to believe that the protection of fish requires the sacrifices of these seals," she wrote.
Florence Harding worked on behalf of World War I wounded veterans. She visited hospital wards, and called the men recovering at Walter Reed Hospital"my boys". She made the visits without any public notice and hosted garden parties for thousands of the disabled men from area hospitals and care centers. Whenever she traveled around the U.S., Florence Harding would visit wards for those suffering from mental trauma, tuberculosis, blindness, or missing limbs all resulting from the war. She was part of a "Lest We Forget" Week to prompt donations of clothing, books, records and other items needed in the wards. Often, if she noticed a veteran on crutches when she was being driven somewhere, she had her car stopped and the veteran given a ride to wherever he was headed. She led a national effort to create a monument to the World War I soldiers on the National Mall.
On international affairs, Florence Harding led a national relief effort following the Armenian genocide of 1915. She also advocated for greater race relations. Publicly she always made a point of shaking the hands and thanking the African-American cooking staff at events she attended, going into the kitchens of hotels and private homes to do so. She had the President rescind his offer of a political appointment to an individual that Florence Harding correctly suspected of being racist.
Florence Harding turned down the automatic $10,000 congressional appropriation for decorating the private quarters. She said this was done because she understood the economic pressures that ordinary Americans were going through. When she greeted the public, she physically touched them, hugging, sometimes kissing their cheeks. She re-opened the White House for public tours, sometimes leading them herself. Florence Harding became a popular figure. A song "Flo From Ohio" was written in her honor, and "Flossie Clings" which copied the silk neckbands she wore were adapted as a style by young women. She was the first First Lady to provide feature movies as entertainment following state dinners. Fascinated by the era's advances in air travel, Florence Harding dressed in pants, soft helmet and goggles to experience first-hand flying in a plane. One religious newspaper editorial chastised the First Lady for having a navy jazz combo perform the "sinful syncopations" of jazz at a garden reception and that she and the President reportedly took part in some of the "new" dances.
Although Prohibition was the law of the land, the Hardings like many Americans managed to find enough alcoholic beverages to serve their guests where a regular supply might otherwise have become depleted. With the First Lady serving as bartender, in their private quarters, the Hardings served liquor from a private reserve that a member of the Attorney General's circle later claimed came from the confiscated alcohol by the Prohibition-era Justice Department.
The May 1923 suicide of her close friend Jess Smith, the Attorney-General's companion hit her hard, especially as allegations of his illegal operations out of the Justice Department reached their ears. Without regard to widespread belief that Smith was gay, Warren and Florence Harding had accepted him into their trusted circle of friends.
Florence Harding strongly urged her husband to take a trip to Alaska. Naval physician Joel Boone was alarmed by Harding's enlarged heart and general condition, and advised against the trip. Florence nevertheless pushed for the trip. Shortly after the election, she had consulted a new astrologer, a Mrs. Joseph, who assured her that Warren would not meet his demise as the earlier astrologer had warned her. As the Hardings went out across the country with numerous stops in the Midwestand West, Florence Harding's popularity increased. She insisted on fulfilling all of the scheduled appearances despite its toll on her husband. In Alaska, Florence Harding spoke openly to the press of her belief that the territory was ready for statehood. Shortly after the President sampled some seafood and had returned to the U.S.mainland, he fell ill. The train was sped down the west coast, headed to San Francisco. President Harding became more obviously ill, and although Boone correctly assessed that Harding was in grave danger, his diagnosis was angrily dismissed by Florence's naturopath, Sawyer.
Sawyer told the press at the time that he administered some unnamed stimulants to Harding. Some have theorized that the incompetent Sawyer may have accidentally induced the heart attack that killed Harding on August 2, 1923. By all contemporary accounts, Sawyer had an enormous power over Florence Harding, and her refusal to permit an autopsy of her husband may have been to protect Sawyer from having his incompetence exposed.
Harding's funeral train journeyed back to Washington, and dozens of editorials praised Florence Harding's conduct during Harding's illness and death. When Harding's body arrived back at the White Houseing on August 11, Florence Harding famously spoke to her late husband in his coffin, being overheard to say "they can't hurt you any more."
On August 17, 1923 Florence Harding left the White House for the estate of her friend Evalyn McLean. She burned much of her husband's papers and on September 5, 1923 she briefly returned to Marion, Ohio, to cull Harding's papers. She returned to Washington, D.C. on January 2, 1924, taking a large suite at the Willard Hotel. The "Teapot Dome Scandal" congressional hearings were held and she watcher her old friend Interior Secretary Albert Fall as he was charged, convicted and imprisoned for accepting oil company bribes after leasing naval oil reserves in California and Wyoming. Through the trials, Florence Harding insisted that her movements were monitored and her telephone tapped. Despite the scandals, Florence Harding planned to attend the 1924 National Republican Convention. She did not deny rumors that she might seek political office as governor of Ohio, even though they were not true. Her last public appearance was at an Armistice Day (now Veterans' Day) parade in Marion, Ohio. Despite a driving rain, she stood up in her car to salute the World War I veterans who passed before her.
Florence Harding did not live to see the publication of Nan Britton's book, The President's Daughter, nor the one written by former F.B.I. agent Gaston Means, The Strange Death of President Harding, which accused her of poisoning the President. The book has been discredited by many reputable historians. Her mistake was likely her having placed too much confidence in the incompetent Sawyer.
Florence Harding died on November 21, 1924 at the age of 64. When her kidney ailment returned, she followed Sawyer's advice, and took a cottage in the grounds of his sanitarium in Marion. A few days later, she died of renal failure. She is buried at the Harding Memorial in Marion,Ohio.