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

      

HYDE PARK, Sunday—The big snow has shut us in completely. My son, Franklin, Jr., and his wife and two children were planning to come up for this weekend, but they cannot get out of their place on Long Island and I doubt very much in any case whether they could get into New York and up here.

We ourselves cannot get out to the main road, except on foot. Friday night my son, Elliott, and his wife had to walk from our cottage to theirs when they found that they couldn't move their car, which now sits outside my door, almost covered with snow. The small boy of the family, who stayed with us for the night, is at the moment sweeping the snow away. This helps one to see that the car is there, but does not give much hope of ever moving it! We will take to a horse and sleigh today, I think, even to get as far as the farm for milk.

I have many times heard the story of the great blizzard of 1888, when for three days they could not go from the old house to the old farm. My husband's father finally managed to get halfway by walking on the top of the stone fences and shovelling his way in between. The farmer managed to meet him by doing the same thing, and in that way eggs, butter, chickens and milk kept the household going! This snowfall is not as deep as that one was, but we are more dependent on cars and not as ready to use horses.

Nevertheless I love the feeling of being shut in by the wide fields of snow. The white mantle, particularly on the evergreens, is very beautiful.

* * *

The new session of Congress will meet shortly, and the fight is evidently on between certain members of Congress who think we cannot afford relief to Europe and those wiser members who back the administration's plan.

I think it is very valuable for the members of Congress to make a careful study of their plans, provided this does not take too long. I hope they will improve the plans. But in any case more people in the United States need to understand that our economy has to be able to support a plan that will rehabilitate Europe, and a Congressional debate will give the public this information.

If our economy cannot stand this, then it means that we will be shut behind walls, much as the Russians have been. In two different parts of the world, two great nations will both stand still, and the rest of the world will struggle through a second period like the Dark Ages.

E. R.

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


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

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 29, 1947

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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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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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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