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

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WASHINGTON, Tuesday—Yesterday morning I attended the first of the series of concerts which Mrs. Lawrence Townsend arranges for Washington audiences every winter. Mr. Richard Crooks is always very popular and I enjoyed Mr. Robert Nicholson, the new baritone from Australia, very much also. In fact, their duet together at the close was perfectly delightful. The new young Hungarian violinist, Mr. Robert Virovai, only eighteen years old, played charmingly and gives great promise for the future. I was grateful that I could stay to the end and not have to take a train to New York City, as I feared when I first looked out on a gray sky. Flying makes many things possible, but trains do have one advantage of being able to operate under weather conditions that would keep one out of the air.

I came on to New York City to make a speech at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences on the "Citizen In The Community," a subject which I am very grateful to have an opportunity to talk about just now, because it seems to me to have assumed greater importance than ever before in view of present world conditions.

Today I spoke at an early luncheon at the Men's City Club of New York and flew back in time for tea at the White House.

I almost forgot to tell you an amusing little incident that happened to me in New York City last week. I came out of a hotel on 34th Street and found that my brother's car, which was supposed to meet me, was not there. Because several people were with me, we attracted attention and before I knew it a small crowd began to gather. I decided that I had better not delay and stopped a passing taxi and jumped in. At the next red light, the taxi driver turned around and said: "This is an interesting day for me, Mrs. Roosevelt, one of my dreams has come true."

I suppose I looked a little surprised, for he proceeded to explain that a year ago he had dreamed that he had walked into a restaurant and sat down at a table and found me sitting there. He was impressed by the coincidence that he had picked me up on a street in just about the locality where he had dreamed he had found me eating! He was going home, he said, "to tell the wife that dreams come true."

Mrs. William Brown Meloney has been staying with us for a couple of days and it is a joy to have anyone of such keen intelligence and vivid interest in the house. In this case, I am particularly happy because she has been ill for many months and this is to me a fulfillment of the hope which I have had, that she would be able to carry one her full share of work again.

My personal maid, Mabel Haley, had to go to the hospital for a slight operation, and I felt a real responsibility, for I think Mabel felt that if I said something ought to be done, that was the final word of authority. The doctors were more than kind and everything has gone well, I am happy to say, but I never like operations nor the time one spends in a waiting room while they go on.

E.R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Crooks, Richard, 1900-1972 [ index ]
         American opera singer
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ]
  • Meloney, Marie Mattingly, 1883-1943 [ index ]
         American journalist; known professionally as Mrs. William B. Meloney
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ]
  • Nicholson, Robert [ index ]
         Australian singer
  • Townsend, Natalie, 1866-1962 [ index ]
         American music patron
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | SNAC ]
  • Virovai, Robert [ index ]
         Hungarian violinist
  • Webster, Mabel W., 1892-1969 [ index ]
         ER's personal maid at the White House
         [ Other source ]
Geographic
  • Washington (D.C., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 14, 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)
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  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
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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.

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