Biographical Note
Isabelle Phillips Mathée (1897-1968) was the daughter of James Eaton Phillips and Carrie Fulton Phillips, the paramour of Warren G. Harding. Born in Marion, Ohio, she was educated in Germany from 1911-1914 and subsequently in a New York State boarding school during the First World War. On September 27, 1919, she married William Helmuth Mathée (1893-1976), who was born Helmuth Wilhelm Mathée in Aachen, Germany. He departed Germany on July 29, 1914, three days before that country's entry into the war, and arrived in the United States to study agriculture at Cornell University. After studying at Cornell, he was a student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1915-1916. In 1916 he became a farm superintendent in Florence, Wisconsin, where he worked during the war, followed by a banking position at Ladenburg Thalmann of New York in 1918. After his marriage to Isabelle, they resided with the Phillipses in Marion, Ohio. Their son was born in Ohio in 1920 and William became a naturalized United States citizen in 1921. The Mathées moved to Zurich, Switzerland, in 1922 where William held the position of commercial attaché and vice consul for several years. In 1927, he began a lengthy career with Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey, followed by other management positions at other companies in New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The Mathées opened an antique store in 1960 in Genoa City, Wisconsin. When the Warren G. Harding-Carrie Fulton Phillips correspondence became known to the public in 1964, the Mathées were drawn into newspaper stories and lengthy legal proceedings to determine rights, ownership, and disposition of the papers. After Isabelle passed away in 1968, it fell to William Mathée and their heirs to complete the legal work.