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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

GENEVA—Our hotel rooms look right out on the lake and I expected to feel a cold wind blowing across, but so far the weather has been kind. And in spite of the appalling price of coal—I'm told it costs 50 to 60 dollars a ton—we have been most comfortable.

Because of the drought last summer, they tell me that electricity has had to be used sparingly and that, up to a short time ago, the street cars stopped running every now and then for stated intervals. These are really just little tram-cars, but when you go up some of the narrower streets you realize that any public conveyance built on expansive lines would hardly get through.

The other night, we went into the old town and dined at a little place called the Restaurant du Plat d'Argent. We enjoyed the quaint surroundings and a most excellent meal. We enjoyed, even more, driving through the streets, with their fascinating shops and old buildings, which seemed in places to be part of the old wall of the town when this was a fortified city.

* * *

The other day, the Human Rights delegates from Egypt and Iran lunched with Mr. and Mrs. James Hendrick and myself. The delegate from Iran is his country's representative in Berne, so he is not far from home. He showed me pictures of a beautiful harlequin Great Dane, and though Fala is not quite the same size, the pictures made me rather homesick for him.

Later in the afternoon, at a tea party given by John P. Humphrey, head of the Human Rights Division of the Secretariat, I met another gentleman from Iran. He spoke of the visit their charming princess had made to the United States and of her desire to keep in close touch with some of the groups there working in the interests of children. I suggested that the Children's Bureau in Washington might be the most valuable contact for her, since she is setting up various welfare organizations to benefit children in Iran.

What with long sessions of the Human Rights Commission and other activities, it is a little tantalizing to get no time during the day to look at buildings or visit anything that might be of interest in this lovely old city. I hope that at least one day before I leave, I can play hookey for an hour or two and see something by daylight.

All the Americans working in our section of the United Nations, whether young or old, seem to be enjoying their stay in Geneva, and I think the city must be benefitting from the activities carried on here by the U.N.

E. R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
Organizations
Geographic
  • Geneva (Switzerland) [ index ]
Other Terms and Topics


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 6, 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.

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