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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

LUBBOCK, Texas, Tuesday—The drive from Fort Worth to Witchita Falls, Texas, was taken at slow speed, for Elliott and Ruth are breaking in a new car. I never realized before how slow it seems when you drive at 40 miles an hour and every car goes past you. However, it gave us an opportunity to see the countryside very thoroughly. We passed two lovely lakes with little camps dotted all along their shores, and a very elaborate amusement park where swimming was allowed at one end of the lake. The lakes form part of the water supply for nearby towns, so swimming is restricted to one end.

The country is rolling even though there are few hills and, while there are not many big trees, you nearly always find wooded sections along the streams. The red bud and peach trees are in full bloom. The wild plum blossoms are nearly gone, but the other blossoms give color to an otherwise wintry landscape.

In Ruth's garden, the daffodils and hyacinths were in bloom and, when we drove over the pastures, I saw many little wild flowers just coming up. They tell me it will be another month before the real wild flowers bloom, but to a person who only discovered crocuses the other day, Texas seems to be well along toward summer.

After my lecture last night, we left Witchita Falls, changed trains at Amarillo at 8:30 and arrived at Lubbock at 11:30 a.m. We are settling down to our usual traveling routine. The press, consisting of six girls and one man, came up as soon as we were settled in our rooms and with them came a very attractive young photographer who was sent by a magazine to cover our day in Amarillo and, on the side, to get anything else of interest which he can find. As a result, he has been doing whatever I have done, not always under such comfortable circumstances, but he seems to be bearing up well under the ordeal.

On the train this morning, we met a representative of the Young People's Christian Endeavor Society. I was amazed to hear him say that frequently young people, who heard him speak in one place, drove to the next place and reappeared in his audience, to his great embarrassment because he so frequently had to talk on the same subject.

I chuckled and thought: "We speakers all labor under the same difficulties," for Governor James Allred, of Texas, is introducing me at each lecture I shall deliver during these three days and the groups have all chosen the same subject. I think I shall have to bribe him to leave during my talks, or he and Mrs. Allred will be modelling their days in Austin on "A Day In The White House."

In spite of a gentle rain, we are going out at 3:00 o'clock this afternoon to visit a homestead and various projects. This rain is giving everybody great satisfaction. The gentleman who drove us up from the station announced that he was sorry he had no umbrella, for they had almost forgotten how to use them here.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1938, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Lubbock (Tex., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 9, 1938

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 June 9, 2017.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
TMs, AERP, FDRL