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

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CHICAGO, Wednesday—The campus at St. Olaf's College in Northfield, Minn. is a very beautiful setting. It is situated on high ground that rolls down over a wide area of fields and countryside.

The attacks on the United Nations have inspired no fear in this area so far as I can tell. I had one anonymous letter from Minneapolis, telling me that the U.N. was the product of Satan's work, but that was the only sign of hysteria I came across.

The senior class had brought me to the college and entertained me most thoughtfully. We had a late breakfast in the "Lion's Den," the place frequented by students and faculty for coffee and snacks.

After a brief rest in our comfortable rooms in one of the girls' dormitories, we went to lunch in the annex of the cafeteria. This was a fairly large gathering of faculty and students and newspaper people. Here I was welcomed again and because of the close tie between Norway and the Norwegian-Americans of this area, and the visit here of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Norway some time ago, I told them a little of our contacts with the Norwegian Royal family as I knew them from their Washington visit during World War II.

Then there was a press conference, and later the students conducted me around the campus, showing me their radio station, which carries about six hours a day of programs, their laboratory and the fine library. They are now building a new chapel. In the art building a group of three architects have been working on a new type of architecture for Lutheran churches.

I had a long and restful time during the afternoon and then an early dinner with a few of the seniors. At 8:15 I went into the gymnasium which, in spite of slippery roads, was practically filled. I talked again for an hour on the same subject of the U.N. and our responsibility and there followed a half-hour question period. Later we all went into another building for a reception which lasted until 11 p.m.

Early Tuesday morning we had breakfast in our dormitory and my old friend, Miss Adelaide Enright, drove us to St. Paul. The roads were a little less slippery so we had an uneventful ride and arrived in plenty of time for a 10:30 meeting with the board members of the Minnesota Association for the U.N. Mr. York E. Langton, president of the group, told me of their organizing activities and then introduced the members of the Board of Directors. It is a very large board, with many people from cooperating organizations serving on it.

This group is extremely active and I think they must have done a great deal of work, but they plan to try to organize more chapters and get more memberships during the coming year.

At the close of this meeting I had the pleasure of meeting two Democratic members of the state legislature and some of the other Democratic workers.

Then we had luncheon with Miss Enright and some of her friends before taking the train to Chicago.

The countryside we are now going through is snow-covered and everywhere you look bare trees show up against a gray sky. Only here and there do you see a few evergreen trees in patches through the woods. This is farm country and some of the farms look very prosperous. Part of the time we rode through rocky, hilly country, with few houses to be seen. I must confess that in winter it does look old and somewhat bleak up here.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 22, 1953

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
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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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