Name/Title
Letter from James A. Kreitler describing photographs.Entry/Object ID
1995.1.359Scope and Content
Letter from James A. Kreitler dated April 10, 1965, describing the photographs he took on June 18, 1921 at the dedication of the bust of President Warren G. Harding at the National McKinley Birthplace Memorial in Niles, Ohio.
The letter reads as follows:
"James A, Kreitler
12936 Clifton Boulevard
Lakewood 7, Ohio
April 10, 1965
In sorting through “souvenirs”, one sometimes stumbles
on an item of interest.
Vice President Coolidge was summoned to the McKinley
Memorial in Niles, Ohio, on June 18, 1921 to dedicate a bust
in honor of President Warren G. Harding.
At the time I snapped these pictures, I was eighteen and
impressionable. As I looked up from my Eastman Kodak, I found
Vice President Coolidge's gaze riveted on me. The crowd had
fallen back and I stood alone at the edge of the reviewing stand.
Vice President Coolidge was left standing entirely alone on the
reviewing stand and, with a quizzical smile, he stepped to the
edge and engaged me in a fifteen minute conversation. He asked
about the historical highlights of Niles. Where is the house
located in which President McKinley was born? Had I successfully
managed a picture of him? He reminded me that he had two young
sons.
The triumphs that were the Coolidges' had started, but the
tragedies to come within the next twelve years would find the
President finished with his office and dead in Northampton,
Massachusetts, and about to join his young son Calvin and other
members of his family in their plot in the rugged country of
his home state of Vermont.
The picture in the upper left-hand corner:
Governor of Ohio Harry L. Davis
Vice President Coolidge
Mrs. Coolidge
The picture in the lower left: (Left to right)
Governor of Ohio Harry L. Davis
Secretary of Labor James J. Davis
Vice President Calvin Coolidge
Dr. G. T. Harding, President's father
Miss Harding, President’s Sister
Mrs. Calvin Coolidge
Mrs. Harry L. Davis
Mrs. James J. Davis
Mrs. Waddell
The picture upper right was snapped just Niles's Mayor
Crowe turned away from the Vice President to greet Mrs.
Coolidge, who had just come on the reviewing stand. A part
of the face of that indominatble steel tycoon, Joseph G.
Butler, is visible.
James A. Kreitler
[Actual signature below]"Collection
McKinleyAcquisition
Accession
1995.1Source or Donor
General Museum CollectionAcquisition Method
Gift