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

      

NEW YORK, Monday—Saturday and yesterday were two wonderful days in the country! On Saturday for a short time black clouds obscured our blue sky, but it was only for a very brief period. Luckily, the short shower that visited us came at the end of the brief ceremonies that were held to commemorate the beginning of the new village being built on part of my son's land.

This enterprise will be called "Springwood Village," which is the name my mother-in-law used for our own old house. It is to consist of low-cost houses and a large group of apartments, with stores and all that is needed to make a small community pleasant to live in.

The moving picture theatre has already been built and is visited by the neighborhood in general, and the foundations of the first units of small houses are already in. My son's partner announced that he hoped the initial apartment units also would be built by Christmas. The owners will be in their houses by then and the tenants in their apartments.

The representative of the Federal Housing Authority said that it was a particularly interesting project because it was approved with the lowest level of rentals that agency has yet permitted. It is very interesting to see housing of this kind going up. It is not exactly prefabricated but a great deal is prepared beforehand, and while there is a certain amount of individuality the general pattern is similar, so it can be more quickly and inexpensively built.

On Sunday I went to meet a group from the old 240th Battalion of Military Police, which was stationed here during the war. They came first to my husband's grave and then we went to Mrs. Murtaugh's house in Hyde Park Village. Mr. and Mrs. Murtaugh were always in the forefront of anything the community did for the battalion while they were here and Mrs. Murtaugh says the men have never forgotten and have always kept in touch with her.

It was a pleasure to see these boys again, and I hope next year they will have an even larger gathering. Even so, it seemed remarkable to me that so many of them could come together now. One of the boys remarked, "What keeps some of the fellows away is the fact that they have babies and can't leave them." Quite a good reason, I think.

I hope everyone will be interested in reading a booklet called: "How People Work Together—The United Nations and the Specialized Agencies." This is published by the United Nations and can be obtained by writing to the information section of the U.N. at Lake Success. It is a very good description of the work being done and I think will give the average citizen an appreciation of the connection between the specialized agencies and the U. N. proper.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC., REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 27, 1949

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