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

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WESTBROOK, Conn., Sunday—I was very glad on Friday night that I had kept my promise to speak at the United States Student Assembly at Simmons College, and to go and visit our grandson.

I think young groups find it harder to get speakers, particularly in the middle of a political campaign when most speakers are doing campaign work and the young people are not basing their meetings or their forums on a political subject. In addition, I learned long ago that having once told a child you will do something, if you wish to build up confidence in the future promises, it is well to keep those you make right along.

I was sorry, however, not to be able to go to Philadelphia and Chicago with my husband. But I listened over the radio to both speeches, and I am quite sure my husband was so surrounded by crowds that my presence was not necessary. In previous campaigns I have always made certain engagements during the week before election, and there are some that I must keep in this campaign.

This morning in Connecticut, where I am visiting Miss Esther Lape, is cold but lovely, with white clouds blowing across a deep blue sky. Leaves are nearly gone from the trees, but there is still a little red color and much russet and gold, and the grass is still green. On my dressing table was a little vase of mignonette. Mignonette always carries me back to my grandmother's garden, where it grew in great quantities. I loved the smell when I was a child, and I love it still.

We spent last night in the old done-over farm house where my head nearly touches the ceiling in the bedroom, and where I am sure in the old days no such warm carpets and comfortable chairs greeted the children as they climbed to their very chilly attic bedroom. Today, however, the sun shone in on the warm pink colors, and I woke to the smell of a wood fire burning somewhere in the house to take off the early morning chill. We went for a walk in the woods this morning, and this afternoon I will continue my journey back to New York City.

I can hardly believe it, but I have received an anonymous letter which says nothing but pleasant things. That has never happened to me before. Both the letter and the verse accompanying it are very kindly meant, and certainly helped to do the thing the writer wished to do. She says: "Even Mrs. Roosevelt must need morale lifting too."

Sometimes I do, so many thanks to an unknown friend.

E. R.

(COPYRIGHT 1944 BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Westbrook (Conn., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 30, 1944

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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