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

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WASHINGTON, Tuesday—Last night after a rather prolonged dinner, because I actually had the temerity to discuss with the gentlemen, my husband and my brother, a question of mathematics which takes time! I know women should never discuss mathematics, our minds don't function that way but on the whole it didn't work out so badly, because everything was so carefully explained to me and I was so persistent that I think they finally got my point of view, which was in this particular care that mathematics made little difference, though they do seem to loom very large in the masculine mind.

As soon as we went upstairs I said goodnight to my guests, and went to work at my desk. There is one thing quite certain, and that is that visitors who come for anything but formal entertainments, should be prepared to entertain themselves from dinner time on unless the President happens to be having a movie! Otherwise we both of us retire to our respective studies and a guest who expected to be entertained would have a disappointing time.

The weather continues to be lovely and this morning I got out for an hour and a half on the bridle path. My own horse, Dot, is lame and so with considerable trepidation, I rode Johnny's hunter, Badger. He is the most quiet and well behaved horse and gradually I became accustomed to his gaits. When he started for the first canter, I found myself thrown out of my seat into the air with every motion and wondered if I was ever going to sit him in comfort. Before long I achieved this, however, and we returned very good friends. Badger having evidently learned to understand my signals and I having grown accustomed to his gait. When I got off, a young man was waiting for me with a photograph which he had taken one day along the path and it really is extremely good of the horses and I am glad to have it. He had his photograph with him also and he had had it tinted and rather diffidently he asked if I would be willing to autograph it. Most people are not so shy!

A few people to lunch today and a busy afternoon. I really do shake hands with the Children of the Revolution today. I go to the Goodwill Industries, to the Young Women's Christian Home where I am expected to say "a few words" and then I attend the opening of one of the police clubs for colored boys, which means that I will not be home until well after six o'clock.

I have just been given the most comprehensive and really wonderful book on Washington which has come out in the American Guide Series done by the Federal Writers Project by the Works Progress Administration. Its size may be formidable but its content is quite thrilling. I am sure that any one who visits Washington will be interested to have it.

E.R.



About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 21, 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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  • 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 20, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 20 April 1937, AERP, FDRL