The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

The nicest part about having guests in the house is the fact that you can do so many things you like to do and feel virtuous about it! My cousin, Mrs. Joseph Alsop of Avon, Connecticut, Bishop and Mrs. Oldham of Albany, Mr. and Mrs. John Cutter of Boston, are all here for a few days so we ladies and the Bishop went to the Freer Gallery this morning. First the Peacock Room, and I saw it for the first time with the shutters closed which completes the design and really makes it a room. I love the portrait at one end and the fighting peacocks at the other but I never before knew that a painting needed daylight, hence the open shutters even though the dimmer light is much more becoming to the whole room. In the room with the Whistler water colors are three Winslow Homer s, and I thinking I knew there were only Whistlers in that room said: "How strange! I should have thought those were by another man!" Whereupon the soft voiced assistant director Miss Guest said: "They are!" Showing me that one should never be too sure that one knows just what is in an art collection. They have some new Chinese lions in bronze, just found in Honan and dating back to about 1000 B.C. They are much excited about the find and I kept thinking what wonderful models they would make for toys!

Now I am about to begin a series of teas, first a group of housing officials headed by Mrs. Mary Simkhovitch, then two young tennis players, Miss Jane Sharp and Miss Ethel Arnold, and last but not least a group of women executives from the Departments of Labor, Interior, and Commerce, and some of the "Alphabets."

It's a great life if you never get tired!

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Arnold, Ethel Burkhardt [ index ]
         American tennis player
  • Cole, Corinne Robinson Alsop, 1886-1971 [ index ]
         American politician, Representative of the Connecticut House
         [ VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC ]
  • Cutter, John, 1888-1955 [ index ]
         Second spouse of Margaret Richardson
  • Cutter, Margaret, 1892- [ index ]
         Spouse of ER's brother Hall Roosevelt
         [ LC | VIAF ]
  • Homer, Winslow, 1836-1910 [ index ]
         American painter
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | ANB ]
  • Oldham, Emily Pierrepont Gould, 1884- [ index ]
         American socialite; spouse of George Ashton Oldham (Third Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, NY)
  • Oldham, George Ashton 1877-1963 [ index ]
         American Episcopalian bishop
         [ VIAF | Wikidata ]
  • Sharp, Jane, 1913- [ index ]
         American tennis player
         [ Other source ]
  • Simkhovitch, Mary K. (Mary Kingsbury), 1867-1951 [ index ]
         American housing reformer
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | ANB ]
  • Whistler, James McNeill, 1834-1903 [ index ]
         American painter
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | ANB ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 25, 1936

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | WorldCat | DPLA | Wikidata | SNAC ]

Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ISNI ]
  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]

Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

XML master last modified on May 2, 2022.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated January 24, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 24 January 1936, AERP, FDRL