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

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LOS ANGELES, Monday—I pulled my curtains back early yesterday morning as we were leaving Tucson, and soon afterwards the stars began to fade and the sky turned a delicate pink. Even in the west, the reflection of the sun was seen as it came over the horizon.

I wish it were easier to talk to one's neighbors on a plane, but I find it a little difficult, unless they are sitting in the seat with me. I enjoyed talking to the gentleman who shared my compartment. I also liked chatting for a few minutes with Miss Rosemary Lane, who was across the aisle. She has a nice friendly quality, so that when we landed in Los Angeles I really felt I had made not simply an acquaintance, but a friend.

Yesterday was, I think, the most completely lazy day I have spent for a long time. James and I had breakfast in the most leisurely fashion, and then we sat on the roof in the sun until we had lunch. In the afternoon we drove to Arrowhead Lake, which is some 5,000 feet up in the mountains. The pines grow tall and straight around the blue lake and the view of the plains and mountains as you drive up is very impressive.

It was the drive down, however, at sunset time, looking straight toward the west, which was almost breathtaking in its beauty. I do not think the brown hills of California are in themselves very beautiful, but when they are colored by the sunset and turned to a sort of purple and pink, you lose all sense of arid waste lands and think only of the space and color spread out before you. There is space in this land out here—so much space that you wonder whether man's ingenuity will have to be exercised to bring it all under cultivation to make it serve his will for food and sustenance. At present, there is waste everywhere, but then, we can still afford to be wasteful.

We dined at the Arrowhead Springs Hotel, after a look at a most unique swimming pool, which was very inviting if only we had had time to go swimming. I was very much interested in the hotel, for they tell me it was decorated by my friend, Mrs. Dorothy Draper. She has done some bold and almost startling things.

I'm sure she received her inspiration for the doors from some of the old-fashioned iron safes, which I can remember seeing when I was a child. The predominant color is an emerald green, which reappears in many shades and forms in many rooms. While I feel that her work here is somewhat in the nature of a little boy who is showing off and says: "See what I can do," in a spirit of bravado; still it is most attractive. The dining room, cocktail room, and card rooms are all charming and restful. The porch, with its light green benches and chairs is inviting.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1940, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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  • Los Angeles (Calif., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 15, 1940

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
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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