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

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NEW YORK, Thursday—I came down from the country Tuesday morning and, as usual, caught a train ahead of the one I expected to take! Our train service these days is excellent, but it seems we are always taking a train that is ahead of the one which we actually come to the station to take. I suppose these trains that come from the West may have been through storms, which we have been spared so far this year, and that must be the reason for the many delays.

I went to the New York Herald Tribune -Book and Author Luncheon and enjoyed very much hearing the two other speakers. I find myself peculiarly unprepared to talk about writing a book. I am sure my methods are unorthodox. As far as my second volume of my autobiography goes, "This, I Remember," I must say that it was very difficult to write. I wrote and rewrote it so often that Miss Thompson ceased to number the copies she made of certain chapters! I had to do it intermittently, in time stolen in summer from enjoying myself with the children or at other times between different jobs that had to be done.

It took me over three years to write this book. In some ways I think this made it harder, but in other ways it probably meant that I reread it more often and gave it more consideration than I would have done had I sat myself down for a period of several months and done nothing else. Each time I picked it up it seemed as though some new angle presented itself to my mind. I also had the very great advantage of Miss Thompson's criticisms, since she had lived through most of the experiences with me or at least had heard of them shortly afterwards.

After the lunch I went to the office of the United States Mission to the United Nations to hold a press conference on the suggestions our country is making for the covenant on Human Rights. I hope we were able to make these suggestions clear to the various correspondents who took the trouble to come to the conference.

I managed afterwards to get in for a short time to a board meeting of the NAACP. I resigned from the board a short time ago, saying that they should have a more useful member who could attend meetings more frequently. They were so insistent, however, that I will remain with them another year and will try to go to meetings as often as possible. Though I have always thought I was making as much of an effort as possible in the past, I shall try even harder this coming year to be present more often!

At five o'clock Mrs. Oswald Lord came into my apartment at the Park Sheraton to talk about her efforts in the United States to raise money for the Children's Emergency Fund of the United Nations. After we had talked a while, Dr. Shafaq of Iran, who is a member of the minorities subcommittee of our Human Rights Commission, came in.

In the evening I was completely frivolous and went to see a play, but I will tell you more about that another time.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC., REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 6, 1950

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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Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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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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