We left Columbus on Memorial Day and made the short drive to Marion Ohio to visit the home of president Warren G. Harding. The house is a museum that is jointly administered by the Ohio Historical Society and Marion Technical College. The College recently came on board when budget cuts for the Ohio Historical Society threatened to close the museum. This was an odd choice since Ohio Technical College doesn't even have a history department!
This place is an absolute treasure! The front porch was the porch where Harding conducted his so-called "front porch campaign" making many of his speeches while he ran for president. Harding's widow died two years after he did and left their home to the State of Ohio to be run as a museum. The home is 90% furnished with original pieces and decor. It contains many posessions of Harding and his wife. His drawers are still filled with his clothes! While this makes for a very interesting tour, we were alarmed to see the docent repeatedly remove and exhibit many of these pieces. To be fair, he wore gloves before handling the artifacts, but even I know that these things aren't going to last with repeated daily handling. They really need to be properly preserved and displayed.
There's a wonderful quilt on one of the beds which had been donated to the president by a women's suffrage group. The names of the women in the group that sent it had been embroidered on the quilt, but the ink had faded over time. Our docent said that he had seen his former supervisor actually darkening the names with a magic marker! He questioned whether this was a good idea, and his supervisor stopped, leaving the quilt half "magic marker restored." Perhaps they should have found a college with a history department to administer this collection! Help! They need your donations!
More US presidents have come from Ohio than any other state: William Henry Harrison, US Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding. Harding was 55 years old when he entered the White House in March 1921, with Calvin Coolidge as his vice president. President Harding died in office in 1923, 29 months into his first term as president. In his short time as president, Harding reduced the federal deficit by 25%. He took a trip by train and boat across the country to see the new Alaskan territory. During his return visit he became ill and died of an apparent heart attack.
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