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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

MEEKER, Colo.—We had rain last night—a gentle, soft, sinking-in kind of rain. And though it slows up haying I am sure there was rejoicing in those places that were blessed with last night's rain.

Every day in the afternoon here clouds form and thunder rolls and occasionally there will be a hard shower. By and large, however, these showers have done very little good and they have kept people from being able to go on piling up the dried hay. And the wind blows down the canyon, stirring up quite a fuss and blowing things around, but after a short time it stops and there is calm again and the skies clear and we have a beautiful sunset.

I took a long walk this morning along one of the branches of the river and on the hill just above it, and saw some beautiful views of the river and the ranch. I also tried this morning to take some photographs, but only after great care was taken to set everything on the camera for me.

The children went off for a picnic of their own and the rest of us had lunch in a house that used to belong to my daughter-in-law, Minnewa, but which now belongs to Mr. John Butts of Wichita, Kansas. There was a young couple visiting, Mr. and Mrs. Klaus Kollmai, from Bavaria, Germany.

Mr. Kollmai is studying at the University of Wichita to become a geologist and he and his wife are earning their way in this country by singing and playing in a Wichita club every night. They have only been here 15 months but they already have taken out their first papers. Their kind sponsor introduced them to many people in Wichita, and they told me that "we have so many good friends."

Mr. Kollmai plays the piano delightfully and gave us a great deal of pleasure before lunch. His wife sang to his accompaniment and one could see why they have made friends so quickly. They are a charming young couple.

I marvel at the easy way in which my daughter-in-law manages her very large household here. There are three different age groups: youngsters, young grown-ups, and grown-ups, and the last-named should be divided again into those the age of my son and Minnewa and Minnewa's mother and myself.

Somehow Minnewa manages meals for everyone—even on excursions when we all go off together. And she manages different occupations when the parties do not suit the different ages. It is all done with an ease which would make one believe that no thought went into it, but that is far from the case. Even when she was gone for a few days early this week she wrote out every menu, and it is not as though one lived in the early 1900's when trained servants were always on hand.

Here Minnewa gets her friends among the neighbors to come in and help her out as she needs them. With her guidance they do a perfectly remarkable job of giving us delicious food, and not one of the neighbors seems to feel she is being imposed upon or that she is being an extra burden on the daily routine. I think this requires a special kind of gift, both of an executive nature and in handling people, and my daughter-in-law can do both remarkably well.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1955, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Meeker (Colo., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, August 12, 1955

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 June 9, 2017.

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