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

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NEW YORK—We saw a most entertaining play last night called "Stage Door" in which Margaret Sullivan is a most enchanting heroine. I liked her all the better I suppose because she made her thesis so attractive. You could not help but feel that being an actress in the theatre was an art and being a moving picture star in Hollywood was just a way of earning a living. Of course, this is not always so and great actors and actresses make great pictures but a movie will never be to me quite the same as a play where you get the full play of a personality and feel a depth of emotion and are moved either to tears or to laughter in a more poignant way than you can be through the medium of the screen.

I was up at the Buckley School at nine o'clock this morning and spent almost an hour listening first to the music period in which the Primary sang and played various instruments. I think it is quite remarkable how these youngsters learn to conduct and my own small grandson with one other little boy beat a drum in time to the march of the wooden soldiers, with a very sure sense of rhythm. I sat through the ready lesson and even took part, much to the children's joy. I would gladly have stayed longer for there is nothing in the world more interesting to me than a school, but there was a dentist appointment at ten o'clock.

The election is still very much in the minds of the youngsters apparently for Mrs. Adams, who is now the head of the Buckley School, smilingly whispered to me that one of the boys came up to her as I came in and asked: "Isn't that Mrs. Roosevelt?" When she said "yes" he remarked sagely: "Then we mustn't mention, Mr. Landon ."

It seemed funny to be sitting there where I have sat so often in the days gone by for three of my own boys spent a number of years at Buckley and afterwards when I stopped for a few minutes chat with Mrs. Adams I found myself sitting in her office just as I had sat many times talking with Mr. Buckley and I am sure that the great gift of understanding boys which he brought to that school still continues in Mrs. Adams, not only because she was with him so long, but because she has sympathy and real interest which boys are quick to feel.

After an hour with the dentist I was released with the pleasing information that I was through for this autumn at least. By this time the rain was coming down in torrents but I walked down to Sixty-Fifth Street and stopped to see my mother-in-law. A few more errands, then lunch with some friends.

I am trying to finish my Christmas shopping, buy some hats, have tea with my cousin, Mrs. Henry Parish and be home and dressed by seven o'clock when Miss Esther Lape and Miss Elizabeth Read , old friends of mine, are dining with us.

I talked to Franklin, Junior this morning on the telephone and he is still about the same. Infections of this kind are so slow and it is of course, very pleasant to have the doctors tell you not to worry but it makes it no less annoying to have an illness lengthen itself out into weeks which you hoped would be over in a few days.

E.R.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 12, 1936

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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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.

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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 draft dated December 11, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 11 December 1936, AERP, FDRL