institution continued to operate until the late 1960s. The site is now known as Sawyer Ludwig Park and is operated by the Marion, Ohio Department of Parks and Recreation. Dr. Sawyer's relationship with the family of Warren G. Harding’s parents began when Sawyer stepped forward to save the reputation of Harding’s mother, Dr. Phoebe Dickerson Harding. Harding’s mother had been caring for a sick child and provided a prescription for the child, which unknown to her also contained an opiate; the child died from the drug. Sawyer stepped forward to validate Phoebe Harding’s diagnosis and treatment, thus saving her career. President Harding's death Sawyer acted as the personal physician to Warren G. Harding and to Florence Harding as well. He never accepted payment from them for his services; in doing so he felt that he provided himself a level of protection in the event that either died while under his care. Sawyer diagnosed and successfully treated Mrs. Harding’s "floating kidney" condition, the first doctor to do so, and thus gained her loyalty. Harding gave Sawyer the rank of brigadier general in the Army Medical Corps. Sawyer's reliance on dated medical practices resulted in the misdiagnosis of the President's coronary condition that led to the President's death in San Francisco in 1923. Joel Boone, M.D., the Vice Admiral in the United States Naval Medical Corps, had diagnosed the condition while Harding was on tour in Alaska. Sawyer deferred to the attending physician; however, Harding insisted on finishing the trip. It has even been speculated that Sawyer's use of harsh purgatives was the cause of Harding's fatal heart attack. The nursing notes from President Harding's medical records do not support this contention. Harding died of congestive heart failure and suffered a fatal heart attack. Harding's medical records from the western trip (the six-week trip during which he died) exist, and they show a man suffering from high blood pressure, chest pains, respiratory discomfort, indigestion, etc. Cardiac medicine was in its infancy, and these very recognizable symptoms to us were not automatic signals then for an impending catastrophic event. At Sawyer's recommendation, Mrs. Harding did not have an autopsy performed. Following the President's death, Sawyer resigned his commission, and focused his attention on the formation of the Harding Memorial Association, to which the task of designing and building the Harding Memorial in Marion fell. Sawyer died within a month of the announcement that