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

      

HYDE PARK, Sunday—This is the first Sunday that I have been in Hyde Park for a long while. My only other visit, since January 1, was just for the day on my husband's birthday.

I have received in the mail a number of questions as to the day on which the Hyde Park library and house are closed. Ordinarily, Monday is the only day on which the grounds are closed to the public.

But once the weather is good again, if the crowds are very great, people may find it difficult to get into the house itself. While a good many can go through the library and visit my husband's grave without too much congestion, a house which was not built with the idea of having large crowds going through it all day long has a limited capacity. They tell me that 2,500 people is about as large a number as can go through the house in a day. If it is a fine day, therefore, try to get there early or you may be disappointed!

There is just one other thing which at present might disappoint visitors—namely, during the winter months some repairs are being made in the house to make it safe for crowds.

One of my letters also asked me about the "Gould" mansion. I think the writer must mean the Vanderbilt mansion, which is also open to the public. It was given to the government by Mrs. Van Alen when she inherited it from her uncle, the late Frederick Vanderbilt. It was accepted by the government as a perfect example of a type of house built in what might be called the "millionaire period" in the United States. It is a very beautiful house of its kind, and is an enlarged copy of the Petit Trianon which Marie Antoinette built at Versailles.

Visitors should not forget that, by driving some five or six miles up the Hudson River, they can also visit the Ogden Mills house, which is owned by New York State and is historically interesting as an old home of the Livingston family.

I have given this information before in my column, but so many people have been writing to ask me questions, I thought it was worth repeating, since spring will soon be here and people will be on the road again.

* * *

The other evening, I presented the awards at the annual dinner of the New York Newspaper Women's Club. It was great fun. I get so much pleasure out of seeing young women gain recognition in a field which, as one of the judges remarked, was almost entirely a man's field 25 years ago.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Bruguiere, Margaret Louise Post 1876-1969 [ index ]
         American socialite; niece of Frederick Vanderbilt
         [ VIAF | Wikidata ]
  • Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793 [ index ]
         Austrian-born French Queen consort
         [ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC ]
  • Vanderbilt, Frederick William, 1856-1938 [ index ]
         American businessman
         [ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ]
Organizations
Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]
Other Terms and Topics
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
         [ LC | VIAF | FAST ]
  • Travel
         [ LC | FAST ]
  • Women employees
         [ LC ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 17, 1947

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.

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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.
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