Florence Kling Harding (August 15, 1860–November 21, 1924), wife of Warren G. Harding, was First Lady of the United States from 1921 to 1923.

Girl of the man of means inside the microscopic town—Amos Kling, a successful man of affairs—Florence Mabel Kling was born inside Marion, Ohio, in 1860. Very much rather her heavy-strong-minded father witharound temperament, she developed the self-self-direction uncommon in girls of that era. a music course at the Cincinnati Conservatory completed her education.

At age Nineteen, Florence eloped by using Henry (Pete) De Wolfe, her childhood friend & neighbor. Up to now, scholastic research worker own been unable to official documentation or even the legal marriage licence for the few, leading to the belief that Pete DeWolfe & Florence Kling were never civilly married, however instead declared "common law" marriage every bit allowed at a instance under Ohio law. DeWolfe proved a spender & the heavily drinker; shortly when the birth of their boy Marshall Eugene DeWolfe (also referred to as Marshall Eugene Kling), Florence left her hubby & returned to Marion. She divorced De Wolfe within 1886 & resumed her maiden title; he died at age 35. Refusing to survive home, she rented rooms & earned her have money by yielding piano lessons to tykes of the front yard. Her father, dismayed that his girl wwhen working for a residing mass produced her a treat: she may pull away to the home by having the tyke; notwithstanding, she would exist as restricted to the property & the tyke would exist as raised as her father's boy. Sorting through it hard to act & observe her yearling son age, she gave a boy to her parents to raise however continued to function & earn her have keep.

One of Florence Kling soft students was Charity (Chat) Harding, older sister to Warren G. Harding, a immature publisher of a town’s lone day-to-day newspaper, the Marion Daily Star (now a Marion Star). Florence chased Mr. Harding, whose attentions were supplementary apt to focus in immature beauties of the day. Still, Harding was by having difficulty with Amos Kling & his chum & the marriage to the lasting Florence Kling would politically advantage him. Them were married inside 1891 around the house that Warren experienced planned & built in Marion, Ohio. A few did does'nt stand babies of their have; yet, Florence’s boy Marshall Eugene DeWolfe lived with the two on occasion. the young human idolized his stepfather, & hoped to be a correspondent himself a single day.

Mrs. Harding shortly took all over a Star's circulation department, spanking carrier once necessary. "No pennies escaped her," a friend recalled, & a paper prospered when its creator's political profits increased. When he rose across Ohio politics and became the United States Senator, his married woman directed whole her acumen to his career. He became Republican nominee for President in 1920 & "the Duchess," when he known as her, worked inexhaustibly for his election. Inside her have words: "I have only one real hobby—my husband."

She got never been a guest at the White House; & previous President Taft, meeting a President-elect and Mrs. Harding, discussed its social customs using her & accented a value of ceremony. Writing to his married woman Helen Taft, he concluded that the recently Number one Lady was "a nice woman" & would "readily adapt herself."

After Mrs. Harding go in a White Home, she opened a mansion & evidence to the public over again—each experienced been closed across President Wilson's malady. She herself suffered from either the chronic kidney ill (unremarkably known as "Floating Kidney" in a Twenties), however she threw herself into the job of Foremost Lady using smashing zestfulness. Fete champetre for veterans were regular cases in the crowded social calendar. A President & his married woman relaxed at poker parties in a White Home library, in which liquor was available although the Eighteenth Amendment made it illegal.

Mrs. Harding embarked by owning her married man in his countrywide "Voyage of Understanding" in the Summer of 1923. She was at his side whenever a President died around San Francisco, California in August 1923.

As punishment the dying of President Harding, a previous Number 1 Lady placed just about making a newly life for herself. Her intention was to remainside in Wa, temporarily staying at Friendly relationship, a estate of her right friend Evalyn Walsh McLean, herself best known when a so creator of the Hope Diamond. Yet, the flare higher of Mrs. Harding’s kidney complaint was mass produced known to the previous Operating surgeon General, Dr. Charles E. Sawyer, and Sawyer insisted that Mrs. Harding go to to Marion for professional assistance & recovery. Dr. C.E. Sawyer died that September & Mrs. Harding, under a care of Dr. Sawyer’s boy, Dr. Carl Sawyer, died 2 months late inside November 1924 at a Sawyer Sanitarium, White Oaks Domestic, Marion, Ohio.

Mrs. Harding was number one buried inside the getting vault in Marion Cemetery, next to her married man. As punishment a completion of a Harding Memorial around 1927, a bodies of the President & the 1st Lady were reinterred around the Harding Memorial in Marion, Ohio.

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Reference
Original text based on [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/fh29.html White House biography]