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

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HYDE PARK, Tuesday—Between showers yesterday all of us had a little exercise and a swim. While I was over at the big house sorting out things which are to go to various children, I suddenly realized that rain was falling again as hard as ever. I woke this morning to a sky of clouds, which made me wonder if the sun would ever burn through.

It has, and the birds are hopping around and drying themselves. A beautiful scarlet one flew right by my porch bed this morning and a whole family of small pheasants dashed across the road as we walked home yesterday afternoon.

Today I hope we are going to have blue skies all day and a warm sun to lie in for awhile. I happened to see a doctor friend of mine in Poughkeepsie yesterday afternoon and he asked me if I didn't feel that I wanted to go away and leave all the things I have been doing. I told him that life was varied enough at home and that I could get plenty of rest and still be busy, and that with three little girls in the house just now we certainly are gay.

My daughter wrote me from Seattle about a difficulty between her dog and the neighbor's chickens. Any of us who have animals and children about know that these difficulties are part of the picture of everyday life and somehow or other must be coped with.

They are good practice because they teach us that we have to find a solution to every situation and make the best of it, no matter if it isn't a perfect one. I find that the people who have the most difficult time in life are the perfectionists who never learn to get along as well as they can, but keep worrying because things are not as perfect as they should be.

The news from the Solomon Islands, Russia and India makes us all very anxious these days. One headline says that Secretary Knox tells us we must face more Valley Forges before we win the war. I cannot help feeling that Russia is facing a good many of them these days.

We are learning that industrial efficiency and well thought out and planned equipment, with long years of training, cannot be met by anything which is improvised in a short time. We will achieve our goals eventually, of that I am sure. But we will have to achieve the same kind of efficiency behind the lines, the same kind of discipline among civilians and training in our armed forces that has been accomplished through long years of effort by the Axis Powers.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, August 12, 1942

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

  • Brick, Christopher (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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