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

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HYDE PARK, Friday—I got up early in my cottage this morning, breakfasted on my porch, and started for the big house to be there to greet the President on his arrival. As I reached our gate, a state policeman, usually our only one, greeted me and I asked whether the President had yet arrived from the train. He answered: "No," and I sped down the driveway. The rain was gently falling again, so I went out to the stable and told them I would not ride.

I was greeted at the door of the house by one of our Washington butlers who had arrived ahead of the others. Hearing an automobile horn on the road, I dashed out to the porch, but nothing happened, not even an automobile materialized. I sat there reading and in a little while two motors came down the drive, and from one Colonel Starling and Mr. Clark of the Secret Service, emerged. I greeted them, and told them I was beginning to despair of the arrival of anyone from the train, but at that moment three automobiles swept down the drive and the first one, an open one with curtains partly down, was driven by my husband's chauffeur, Monte Snyder, and the President was at home!

From the car behind the secret service men got out and as my husband was going into the house, I noticed Colonel Starling nod to each one as he went off to his particular post around the house. Miss LeHand, my husband and I sat for nearly an hour over the breakfast table talking about happenings in the world, plans of various kinds, and possible visitors.

Then my husband went to his study and I went to the kitchen to greet the other people who had come up from the White House and to give the necessary orders. My husband looks well and not very tired, but Miss LeHand looked as though the heat in Washington and a night on the train made sleep the most desirable thing in life! I encouraged her by telling her that when I had been back to the cottage and had done the mail, I would bring her back a few choice items for the President! Just to fill up this one day when mail would not arrive from Washington!

Yesterday was Miss Cook's birthday, but we postponed the celebration until this evening so that my husband could be here. This is certainly going to be a busy evening, we will have to dine at six o'clock. Then our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Moses Smith are having a meeting of the Roosevelt Home Club, at which Miss Dickerman is to speak, and the executive committee of the Hyde Park Improvement Association is using my living room for a meeting this evening also. What a busy place this seems to be, just when the President is anxious to feel that nothing, at least in his immediate environment is going on! He can't feel that way about the world at large I fear, for I open the morning paper with dread every day of what may be happening somewhere in the world.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
Organizations
  • Hyde Park Improvement Association [ index ]
  • Roosevelt Home Club [ index ]
         [ LC | VIAF | SNAC ]
Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, August 28, 1937

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)
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  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ISNI ]
  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text 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 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 draft dated August 27, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 27 August 1937, AERP, FDRL