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

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WASHINGTON, Sunday—Friday afternoon we were joined in our sightseeing by Senator and Mrs. Byrnes and Senator and Mrs. Moore for a brief time. We were shown two very unique tombstones in St. Phillip's churchyard in Charleston. One of them I asked them to copy, so eventually you will get it in this column. One other inscription amused me for two reasons. First, because to put just initials on your tombstone strikes me as slightly arrogant. The initials on this special tombstone, I brought home to my husband. They read "W.P.A." passed away in 1835! It seems however, today to be a very active corpse!

We left at eight o'clock Saturday morning and drove out of Charleston over the Cooper Bridge which is a very interesting bridge, and here occurred my first piece of careless driving. A very kind friend of Mrs. Huntington's had driven out to meet us there with some maps for the rest of our trip, and as we were talking some one drove up behind us. The friend told me to pull out to the right hand side, and without stopping to look whether there was anything in my way, I pulled the car over only to find myself colliding with a low cement division which was intended to keep the cars apart. The car got quite a jar, but no harm was done either to the cement or to my tires, but my feelings as a driver were very much injured. It is always worse to know the fault is all yours!

The rest of the day was uneventful. We stopped under a most gorgeous tree to drink our coffee and eat some of the Charleston specialties which had been showered upon us. I think the bene cookies are very good, but the supersitition which is attached to the growing of bene would worry me somewhat. They say that the negroes believe that if you ever let it die out the well being which comes with it, will also go. The meaning of the word is of course, "well being" and apparently there are no uses for it except as a food for the wild birds who come in great numbers wherever it grows, or for the making of cookies and candy.

We reached Richmond, Virginia, at six-fifteen and spent a quiet evening, starting off this morning at a quarter before nine for Washington. The roads were clear for the first part of the trip, but became more and more crowded as we neared the City and once in Washington the traffic was quite terrible.

I don't wonder however, for the day is glorious. Warmer than any day we had in Charleston and I should think everyone would want to be out of doors. I never return to this City especially when I come in along the Potomac Highway, that I do not think how really beautiful it is and the Washington Monument always seems to have a different color from the last time I saw it.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 19, 1937

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

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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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 draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated April 18, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 18 April 1937, AERP, FDRL