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

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CORONADO, Calif., Thursday—We spent a quiet afternoon Tuesday, during which time I renewed my acquaintance with Anne and John's boy, Haven. Memories are short at his age, but since the household's small dachshund greeted me with great friendliness and seemed to remember me, Haven decided I could not be a complete stranger.

After a short while, he felt he could sit on my knee and ride a cockhorse. When his father came home, Haven was annoyed by the grownups, who talked together instead of paying attention to him. We dined with my daughter-in-law, Mrs. James Roosevelt and spent a pleasant evening.

At 10:00 o'clock yesterday morning, the Admiral's wife, Mrs. Holmes, came for me and my daughter-in-law, Mrs. James Roosevelt, and went with us to visit the naval hospital. Captain Walcutt drove us around to show the enormous amount of expansion which has been necessary. This hospital was originally built for 900 patients and now has 5,000 beds.

All types of cases are treated here. They have lately acquired some buildings on the old fair grounds, where the men spend a short recuperation period in order to regain their strength before leaving. They have delightful grounds and porches, the food in the mess hall is very good, and I felt that everything was conducive to rapid recovery of the men. The nurses have pleasant quarters, too, which look out on a lovely court with a fountain in the center.

They showed me with pride their own special method of collecting and preserving plasma for blood transfusions.

While I was a bit bewildered by the size of the whole hospital, I felt that it was a most up-to-date, beautifully kept and cheerful place in which to be cared. They had four wards of nothing but appendicitis cases. Many of their patients are new in the service and from camps and stations nearby.

I went through the tuberculosis ward and was glad to find that all the men are now being given x-ray tests, thereby reducing the danger of infection to others. The disease is often discovered early enough for a very rapid cure. Several men there had come from Samoa. Lastly, I saw a number of the most seriously wounded cases, who had come in from the Pacific, some of them from Pearl Harbor, some from the Solomon Islands and the various other islands.

Nearly all of them seem to have such a cheerful spirit that you feel they must get well. I only wish that this hospital could be near enough, so that all the people who are worrying about their sons, husbands or sweethearts, could see for themselves that every care is being given them. The Red Cross has trained medical social workers who visit the wards and are prepared to help the boys in any way they can with specific personal problems.

E.R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Holmes, Nancy Jane Sellers, 1913-1995 [ index ]
         American; spouse of American naval admiral Ephraim P. Holmes
         [ Other source ]
  • Roosevelt, Anne Clark, 1916-1973 [ index ]
         American; spouse of John Aspinwall Roosevelt
         [ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC ]
  • Roosevelt, Haven Clark, 1940- [ index ]
         American lawyer; ER's and FDR's grandson; son of John Aspinwall Roosevelt
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF ]
  • Roosevelt, John A. (John Aspinwall), 1916-1981 [ index ]
         American politician; ER's and FDR's youngest son
         [ ERPP bio | LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives ]
  • Roosevelt, Romelle Schneider, 1916- [ index ]
         American nurse; spouse of James Roosevelt II
         [ LC | VIAF ]
Organizations
Geographic
  • Coronado (Calif., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 2, 1942

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 May 2, 2022.

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