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

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WASHINGTON—I have literally been flying around the last twenty-four hours! I left here yesterday afternoon and had an amusing experience in the bus driving up from the Newark airport to the Pennsylvania station. A lady next to me suddenly said: "I went to Washington just a year ago to interview you. I am not a regular reporter but arrangements had been made for me to see you, when you left very suddenly to fly somewhere. It has been interesting to me to you in the same plane today when I did not need to see you." She then went on to say: "I have been abroad all summer and it was a satisfying trip for it is the first time in many years that I found respect and admiration for America and its policies in many countries."

I went to my daughter's house and stayed with them until she left with her husband for the train at eleven o'clock last night. It was not exactly a quiet departure and I still marvel at what she accomplished in two days. They did not definitely decide to leave until Friday and they got off Sunday night, having made all the arrangements for the moving of their household goods, all the plans for the children and packed most of their personal belongings to take with them. Friends kept coming in and the telephone kept ringing all the late afternoon and evening up to the final moment of departure!

The children behaved like little soldiers. They had wanted very much to join the family in Seattle for Christmas but it has been decided that they had better stay here until after the Inauguration and both of them tried very hard to say cheerful good byes when they went to bed.

Buzzie came up to me very quietly and said: "Grandmere, when did you say Jack and Jill (the red setter dogs) were going out to Mummy?" Rather vaguely I said: "Oh, some time in January, just before you go you will see them in Washington when you come down." With a puzzled little look, he said: "That will be a long time before they see Mummy won't it be, Grandmere?" I saw that through his little mind was running the thought of the long time it would be before he himself would go. I told him that it really was only a short time before January would be here and they would all be together again.

Finally with about a dozen bags we got off to the station and I think all of us felt that Seattle was a long ways off. I could cheerfully have slain a young reporter who tried to ask me questions on my way out of the station as to what I thought my son-in-law was going to be able to do!

Bright and early this morning I was up and off on a plane for Washington. I was greeted by many letters to sign and Mrs. Helm had a basket full of social questions, but I am really going to try to be busy primarily on Christmas preparation this week so I am going through everything else as rapidly as possible.

E.R.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 1, 1936

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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  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
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  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text 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 May 2, 2022.

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 November 30, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 30 November 1936, AERP, FDRL