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

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HYDE PARK, Wednesday—Yesterday afternoon my daughter and I sat by the fire for an hour and talked. We tried to remember all the things we meant to discuss during her stay. If I have one quarrel with modern life, it is that the leisure one is always looking for is never in the present but always in the future, and the people one would like to sit with in an unhurried mood are always somewhere else and rarely by your side. Anna, John and I had supper together and then I brought them to the train which took them to Detroit for the first part of their trip back to Seattle. Then I returned and spent an hour or so with Mrs. Scheider to celebrate her first evening at home.

Back at the big house I found myself sitting down in Ethel and Franklin, Jr.'s, room, when I should have gone to bed. I think family discussions are very valuable, but I wonder why it is usually so much easier to talk in the middle of the night. I finally left them with the feeling that they would never wake up to catch their train this morning unless they had some sleep, though all of us were apparently parently quite ready to go on talking indefinitely.

Once in bed, I started to read and suddenly realized that on the 28th of June I was actually cold, so I began prowling about the house and finally, on a couch, found a homespun blanket which I took back to add to my summer bed covering. We certainly have the strangest climate in the world. Last week, out on my porch, a sheet seemed more than I could bear, and this week, indoors, one blanket isn't enough.

Today the skies have cleared and the sun is out, but our brook has risen far beyond its usual banks and in consequence the cottage cellar is flooded. If any of you live in the country and have struggled with conditions of this kind, you will know how annoying it is to do everything you can to waterproof a cellar and then find that your pump doesn't work and the other precautions you have taken seem just as useless. However, after reading the morning papers and seeing that this little storm we have been having has done four million dollars worth of damage to crops, homes and roads, I certainly should not complain about anything which has happened here.

We have a fascinating little boy staying with us, and I can quite understand the story which his mother told me this morning. It appears that he does not like little girls. This came out when I suggested that he might play with one who lives nearby. On inquiring about this dislike at the early age of two and a few months, I was told that as soon as the little girls saw him, they took to kissing and hugging him, and he found that somewhat trying.

E.R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, June 30, 1938

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
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.

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