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

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NEW YORK City, Friday—We had the most beautiful drive over to Westbrook, Conn., yesterday. Here and there young trees are turning red, which gives a lovely color but makes my heart sink. I really love the early autumn and the winter too, but I'd like to feel that I was going to spend most of it in the country. The prospect of the next few months, with their busy days and nights, would not be as alluring at any time as my country cottage with an open fire and the beauty of autumn to contemplate.

Just now, however, with the feeling that all of us have that something must be done in this crisis which will continue our own recovery, which must not be retarded, and still be of use to the people of the world, we feel it may be a long time before any of us will again feel free to spend three solid months in an environment of more or less leisure, as I did this year.

Yesterday we cooked our lunch and ate it in the woods overlooking the marshes which run in front of the Sound along the Connecticut shore. A solitary figure could be seen poling a flat bottomed boat along the channels which run through the salt meadows. In front of us was a most beautiful old oak tree which had withstood the ravages of last year's storm, just as had several others in the depths of the woods. The sun flickered through and it was a most peaceful and restful interlude. When we walked up through the woods after lunch to the higher ground, we had a view of the blue water with the dancing sunlight on it. All the way home we enjoyed every panorama of hills and valleys and every bit of road closed in by trees. We will look back happily on one of our last days of summer freedom.

Franklin, Jr., and Ethel came over to see me soon after I returned to my cottage, for they were somewhat worried about friends who have not yet returned to this country.

Then dinner and an evening of catching up on mail and this morning we again left for New York City. We have several errands to do, but two things are really important. One is the luncheon which I am attending for the opening of the Brides' School, which is to be run by Good Housekeeping Magazine. This plan seems to me to have great possibilities. I shall tell you more about it tomorrow.

I shall leave the lunch at 2:15 and dash over to Brooklyn to meet Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and two of her children who are landing on a Norwegian steamer. It was a very difficult thing for the Secretary of the Treasury, with his son Robert, to leave the others in order to be back at his desk a week sooner. However, when one has to do things, one does them regardless of preference. This will be a happy day of reunion for them and I shall certainly be glad to have all these dear friends safely home.

E.R.

COPYRIGHT, 1939, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 9, 1939

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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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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