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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—From the press conference on Tuesday morning in Lubbock, Texas, we went directly to a seminar, a most-interesting workshop, which was attended by an unprecedented number of people, many of whom headed other organizations, such as the Business and Professional Women, the League of Women Voters, and The Churchwomen.

People came to this meeting from towns in Texas and New Mexico within a radius of 250 miles. The President of the United Nations Council, Dr. Donald J. Tate, presided, and there were four 10-minute speeches, two by women and two by men. The subjects of the four talks were: organization of the United Nations, community participation, organization participation, and American Foreign Policy. Following these discourses there was a period for questions. Finally, the meeting was summed up by Dr. Carr who reminded everybody of the salient points that had been brought out during the meeting.

This was followed by a luncheon which was presided over by Mr. Nelson, and there I was presented with a certificate of honorable citizenship, which was given to me by the Director of Public Works, Mr. McCullough.

By 2:15 in the afternoon we were back at our second workshop and that session Judge Stokes of Amarillo presided. The subject was criticisms of the United Nations. Then the speeches were made by three gentlemen and one lady. The lady was an unexpected addition to the program, and she observed rather wryly that she had organized the committees for the whole day's program and that she knew that a chairman must be prepared to do anything except perhaps mop up the floor. But she had not realized, she said, that if a speaker did not appear the chairman of arrangements must be prepared to take the speaker's place. She did very well, however.

The questions following the talks kept us busy until almost four o'clock when we adjourned until the evening meeting.

I was very happy to have Mr. Nelson ask me about my son Elliott and tell me that he had known him and been fond of him and regretted that he was no longer in Texas.

People come up to me frequently at these meetings and remind me of meetings when we have previously met, many years ago. One woman reminded me here of a meeting I had addressed in Amarillo, Texas, 18 years ago. If I am not mistaken the particular meeting that this lady remembered was held on mother-in-law day and I spoke behind the most beautiful bank of red roses I can remember ever seeing.

I was always glad that I had been to the meeting, because years later, in the summer of '43 when I was in the Pacific going through a hospital, the fact that I had been in Amarillo, brought a gleam to the eyes of a wounded boy whom the doctors told me no one had been able to rouse to making an effort to live. The mere fact that I could remember his hometown and he could remember my being there gave him a moment of interest and pleasure.

I have often wished since then that I might know whether he had survived and if today he is living a normal and useful life somewhere in the United States.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1956, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Albuquerque (N.M., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 27, 1956

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