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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

NEW YORK—I was sent a book this week called "Hannah Fowler" by Janice Holt Giles. It is the second that has come to me about the settling of the wilderness, and particularly Kentucky.

This book presents a remarkable picture of the life of a woman in a pioneer community and makes you feel very close to her sorrows and joys. It brings out the realization that, basically, women are the same in today's modern world, but they certainly have an easier time in their physical surroundings.

The book's love story has charm and points up certain basic truths. Hannah, for instance, says that "we care about those for whom we do," which is as true today as it was of women in the wilderness!

Hannah did not know if she loved her man when she married him because she didn't know what love was, but she describes love very well a year later when she tells of her loneliness when her husband is not there.

The things that the two went through together are the things that bind people into an unbreakable relationship. But the fortitude of the women who stayed alone in those lonely settlements—always with a gun beside them, always with eyes and ears alert to danger—these were the situations which built strength in the individual women.

I think books of this kind are good for us today. The heritage passed on to us by such women should never be forgotten and should give us courage to meet the difficulties which today may be just as hard from some points of view but in other ways certainly are physically easier to handle.

That was a horrible airplane crash that killed 74 people off the coast of New Jersey, and I hope that something will be found to explain it. As long as we do not know the cause of a disaster there is so little one can do to prevent a recurrence.

There is always a chance of human failure and of mechanical failure, but flying is now such an accepted way to travel that it is a shock that anything which kills so many people should happen to one of our best airplanes.

Some time ago I told you about the first National Girl Scouts' senior roundup, but I want to mention it again. It is to take place in the Highland State Recreation area near Milford, Mich., on June 29.

This will be the largest outdoor gathering of girls in history.

Five thousand girls and 1,000 adults are expected. The girls will be between the ages of 14 and 18 and will come from every state, as well as from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Panama Canal Zone.

There will be girls from Canada, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, the British West Indies, and one patrol of Girl Scouts from Mexico City.

The encampment will last for 12 days and it will practically turn the 5,200 acres of Michigan State Park, which once was the estate of Edsel Ford, into a city of 2,980 tents. The purpose of the roundup is to give teenage girls, through travel, new friends. The theme is based on a greater appreciation of American tradition and heritage.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1956, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

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


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, June 23, 1956

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