The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
NOVEMBER 26, 1949
NEW YORK, Friday—Wednesday afternoon just as I was getting ready to go to Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt's for a buffet supper, the last of a series of three parties given by Mr. and Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Flynn and Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt for members of Committee Three, I was called to the telephone to be told that certain items on Committee Three's agenda would come up in the plenary session on Thursday evening. I had asked a long while ago whether we would have a holiday and I knew that Committee Three would not meet.
Of course, it is entirely understandable that the United Nations cannot observe the particular holidays of any one country, whether it is the United States or any other. I had, therefore, been saying little prayers that we would be free, particularly as the Shah of Iran had been kind enough to say he would come up on Thursday to lay a wreath on my husband's grave and to lunch with my son, Elliott, and myself afterwards. So, I was more than grateful when the Committee Three items were transferred to Friday and, after all, I had Thursday free in Hyde Park.
There is so much for all of us to be thankful for in the United States. I went to the 10 o'clock service in our Episcopalian Church with a sense of deep personal as well as national gratitude.
At 12 o'clock I met His Majesty, the Shah of Iran. He is a charming person, deeply interested in everything that can help develop his country and very hopeful for its future. He told me that when he visited my husband in Teheran at the time that Premier Stalin, Prime Minister Churchill and my husband met there, he had talked to my husband for 45 minutes. Elliott was there at the time and the Shah's memories of the conversation were similar to Elliott's, though he remembered most vividly the fact that my husband had said to him that when he was through as President he would like to come over and act as adviser in the development of the Near East area. He felt that so much could be done there, and of course, anything creative always appealed to Franklin.
Franklin, himself, had told me on his return that he would like to do this, and I greeted his suggestion with the jesting remark that I thought we had met enough problems and it was time to go home and live peacefully. I never realized, however, that he had gone so far as actually to tell the Shah of Iran that this was something he would like to do.
His Majesty seemed to have very happy memories of their talk together. When I said that probably my husband had discussed forestry and agriculture and the development of power, he nodded affirmatively. The Shah may not see the Tennessee Valley Authority while he is here, and this grieves me because I think for all foreign visitors that is usually the most interesting development we have and suggestive of many things that can be done in their countries.
E.R.
(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC., REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)
Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced
Persons
- Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965 [ index ]
British politician; UK Prime Minister, 1940-1945 and 1951-1955
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | NPG-UK ] - Flynn, Edward J. (Edward Joseph), 1891-1953 [ index ]
American lawyer and politician
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives ] - Flynn, Helen Margaret Jones, 1894- [ index ]
American, wife of Edward J Flynn, Alternate delegate to DNC - Lasker, Albert Davis, 1880-1952 [ index ]
Americna businessman
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ] - Lasker, Mary [ index ]
American health activist; President of Birth Control for America
[ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC ] - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 1919-1980 [ index ]
Iranian monarch
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | Brittanica ] - Roosevelt, Belle, 1892-1968 [ index ]
American socialite; spouse of Kermit Roosevelt
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | SNAC | FAST ] - Roosevelt, Elliott, 1910-1990 [ index ]
American aviation executive; ER's and FDR's son
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ] - Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 [ index ]
American politician; 32nd President of the United States
[ ERPP bio | LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ] - Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953 [ index ]
Soviet leader
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives ]
Geographic
- [ index ] New York (N.Y., United States)
About this document
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 26, 1949
Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007
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.
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