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

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HENDERSON, N.C., Tuesday—We changed trains this morning in Washington. Because our typewriter seemed to go to pieces during the last few days of travel, the White House car came down to the station to bring us another typewriter, and to take back a bag we felt we could dispense with on this trip last night.

It was nice to see the smiling familiar faces and we almost wished that we did not have to get on another train. However, once on board, we enjoyed our breakfast and I must say that the sun shining on the familiar Virginia landscape was very attractive.

We worked all the way down to Lynchburg, Virginia. It seemed curious after so many cold days to find the sun almost too warm as it shone through the windows. At Lynchburg, we were met by the Mayor of Henderson, N. C., and several ladies from the Business And Professional Women's Club of Henderson. They took us to lunch in a very attractive hotel and we found ourselves sharing the dining room with the Rotary Club. The club members offered to sing any song I wished, but, unfortunately, I had to leave before they fulfilled their promise.

The most beautiful looking Smithfield ham was presented to me in the lobby of the hotel. I hated to part with it, even to have it mailed back to Washington, but I realized that I had no place pack a ham done up in cellophane. They promised to mail it special delivery today, so we could take it to Hyde Park for my mother-in-law to use at her Thanksgiving dinner.

The drive from Lynchburg to Henderson is through country which reminds me very much of what one sees around Warm Springs, Georgia. The pines are everywhere. There is a reddish tinge to the earth and cotton and tobacco seem to be the main crops.

The genuine Southern atmosphere exists here. A feeling of leisure and kindliness and contentment envelops one. There is no rushing to catch a subway train here and knocking down anyone in your path, there is always time to remember your manners.

We are now in a little hotel in Henderson writing this column, signing mail and resting before the evening lecture. The hotel proprietor's little daughter, who looks like Little Lord Fauntleroy, a story I used to love in my childhood, led us to our room. She never spoke a word, but was sweetly solemn and completely self-possessed. At 1:40 a.m. we shall take a train back to Washington and this trip will be a thing of the past.

The only thing I have not told you about is the dinner we attended last night in Chicago, which was given for the benefit of the American ORT Federation. They are doing such a wonderful work giving young people a chance for vocational training and are still functioning in Europe, where many other organizations have had to cease doing any work.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1940, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Henderson (Vance County, N.C., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 20, 1940

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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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate 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.

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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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