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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. Monday—Up at 7:00 o'clock this morning to see some of the family off by an early train, and then a rather hurried going over of the mail, for by 10:00 o'clock we were to be on our way to Saratoga.

An old friend of ours, Major Henry S. Hooker, came up to join Mrs. Scheider and myself and we drove up. We stopped at the outskirts of Albany to look at a house which is being built by a friend, and in which I am very much interested.

We reached Mr. George Foster Peabody's a few minutes after 1:00. As we sat down to the table the sound of negro voices singing some spirituals floated in very softly. Later came a special song for me, and Mr. Peabody said:

“These girls are from the Hampton Institute and are specializing in home economics, so they have come to us for the summer.”

I asked Mr. Peabody about our own cook, Daisy, from Warm Springs, who is with Mr. Peabody this summer, but found that she, alas, was up at their camp on Lake George and so I could not see her.

The rose gardens at Yaddo, which is the name of Mr. Peabody's place, are open to the public. The large house takes in as guests about twenty artists for a varying number of months to give them an opportunity to work at whatever they may be doing free of care.

We walked about the grounds and admired the beautiful roses and gorgeous trees which surrounded the garden. Mrs. Peabody was an author and a poet, but her artistic gift showed itself also in what she could do to add beauty to a landscape which nature itself had already made very lovely.

From there we went to the Roosevelt Baths, the Gideon Put-nam Hotel and the Recreation Building. All of this is a State development and was started under the President when he was Governor of the State of New York.

A passing observation on the conditions of the day interestested me. They say that in May and June the hotel did very well. In July and August it was filled to capacity and the indications are that September and October will be excellent months.

These guests spend money at Saratoga as well as at the cure, which adds four months to the usual season. The buildings are nice and the baths seem to be the last word in efficiency and comfort, and I am told, are considered as beneficial as any in Europe for rheumatism, arthritis, neuritis and heart trouble.

By 4:30 we were at Camp Saratoga where another young friend of mine is working. He had asked us to see the transient camp, which is under the direction of the National Park Service, and to have supper there with him. Now we must go an join him.

E. R.

(Copyright, 1936, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
Geographic
  • Saratoga Springs (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, August 25, 1936

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 draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column, UFS wire mimeograph copy from the files of FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, AERP, FDRL