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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

SEATTLE, Friday—I have seen so many interesting things in the past few days that it is difficult to find space to tell you about them.

Among other things, I visited the Orthopedic Hospital yesterday. It is rather unique because it is managed entirely by a large group of Seattle women. On the top floor there is an occupational therapy room supervised by an exceptionally good teacher. The work which the children in this hospital have accomplished shows that she has real imagination. I would be willing to put the goods these patients have made on sale anywhere. A modern village, a series of tiny animals, even a toy rocking horse, seemed to have individuality you do not encounter in the ordinary toy store.

In one of the wards, a little girl recovering from infantile paralysis presented me with an old-fashioned bouquet made by the lady who is in charge of the sale they have every year for the benefit of the gardens surrounding the hospital. The children love these gardens and look forward to the day when they will be allowed to go out and enjoy them.

Today, we stopped for a minute at the Swedish Hospital to shake hands with a Boy Scout who is recovering from a broken hip he suffered after a case of infantile paralysis.

This morning, my daughter and I spent two hours visiting WPA and NYA projects. One WPA project stands out in my mind as especially valuable to the youth of the community. A recreation center is being developed which will include a golf course, baseball field, swimming pools and a camp site for the use of Girl and Boy Scouts.

This camp site reproduces in miniature the sports and the life which they may lead if they go camping in the mountains hereabout. For instance, they will be taught how to use a rope in climbing. A reproduction of a small glacial surface will enable them to learn how to cut steps and climb. There will be a rock slide and similar formations which they will be trained to negotiate. This might be called a training camp in the city for the great outdoors which lies all around them in this part of the world.

There is also a cold-pack project, developed in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is commercially valuable to a growing industry. In this part of the country this industry has a great future and should give permanent employment to many workers.

A tremendous land utilization project, the biggest in the country, I am told, has been developed in this county and the records should be useful as models for the same type of work in other places. This is a project which should appeal to county and city government officials, because the money furnished by sponsors may quite easily come back through a better knowledge of the community and its taxable potentialities.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1938, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Seattle (Wash., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 26, 1938

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 June 9, 2017.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
TMs, AERP, FDRL