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

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MONTCHANIN, Del., Wednesday—The first time I woke this morning, I looked out of the window and was greeted by the usual early morning Washington mist, and for a little while I wondered whether we were going to have uncertain weather for the wedding. I remember how anxiously we have watched the skies at Hyde Park when various country weddings have taken place, and I felt sure that Mr. and Mrs. DuPont were watching it just as anxiously today, so I was glad when, with the rising sun, the day seemed clear and settled.

The few old friends who spent last night with us in order to go over with us today on the train, were up, and breakfasted with me on the porch at eight o'clock. We all left the White House at ten minutes before nine, standard time.

The details surrounding a trip of this kind are very complicated. Cars have to take us to the station, and they have to meet them tomorrow morning in Poughkeepsie. Other cars have to meet us in Wilmington and they have to be sent on ahead. The same thing holds good of secret service protection. Bags have to be sorted out. When we first get on the train everybody is looking for some particular piece of baggage which hasn't turned up in their compartment. Mrs. Scheider and I are usually looking for a typewriter because on the train there are so many typewriters we are always a little nervous that ours may be lost or appropriated by some one else. After all, all typewriters look somewhat alike and tags do get torn off!

My brother drove down in the car with my husband and myself and before we started I made sure that the people I was really responsible for were at least on the train and had a place to sit. Now Mrs. Scheider and I are in my compartment and the trip seems to be going very quickly.

We reached Wilmington in ample time for my husband and myself to be with the rest of our family at Mr. and Mrs. DuPont's for lunch.

I have a curious detached feeling about all the photographs in the newspapers and all the stories about this wedding and it somehow seems to me as though it could not really be our own children, or even ourselves. Perhaps the effect of schooling yourself for years to look upon both criticism and praise in an objective manner, does this peculiar thing to you that you feel that all publicity is not about you or yours as individuals, but about some people who have very little to do with you except that as public figures they are out in the public eye to be written about. I wonder if all people in public office have this sense of dual personality?

I always have a sense that occasions of any kind are not times during which you live, they are just times which you live through. They may later leave you something of significance, or they may melt into that vast limbo of official occasions which belong to the personality which is not really you yourself, but an official representative doing an official job.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Montchanin (New Castle County, Del., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, July 1, 1937

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

  • Brick, Christopher (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 June 9, 2017.

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 June 30, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 30 June 1937, AERP, FDRL