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

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NEW YORK, Tuesday—On Monday I went up to Hamilton College at Clinton, New York. To my surprise I was met at the train in Utica by a young man named Phil Rogers, who reminded me that he had been a classmate of my son James at Groton School. He and his wife drove me over to the college. That area is really the snow belt of New York State, and the snow was fairly deep all around us.

Hamilton is a very charming old college. The administration building is in the house in which Elihu Root was born. It is a lovely old place and faculty and students are justly proud of their distinguished citizen and graduate.

The portraits in this building are unusually interesting. There are many pictures of the men who were connected with the college as presidents since the very early days. As a memorial to the men who died in the war, the school has renovated its chapel, which is a charming building. Hamilton College lost 50 men out of its very small number of alumni, for it was a college of only 450 students. Just now, because of the war, they are up to 600 students and probably will retain that number of students in the future.

I also visited the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, which is the parent fraternity, even older than the Harvard society to which my husband belonged.

Just before going back to the president's house, we stopped to see an old friend of mine from the Albany days, Edward Root. He and his wife are living in the house which Mr. and Mrs. Elihu Root renovated and lived in. It was originally the old inn and the four rooms downstairs are full of charm. Upstairs the whole front of the house was a ballroom, which left them only two bedrooms. It made me wonder how they took care of their overnight guests.

After a small tea and reception and an early dinner, I spoke in the armory on the Commission of Human Rights. Then President and Mrs. Robert W. McEwen and their daughter, who were my very thoughtful and kind hosts, drove me all the way to Syracuse so I could get on the sleeper.

It was a very pleasant visit and I enjoyed seeing the young men who are students and chatting with a few of them. But I can't say I enjoy travel on the New York Central railroad these days. Instead of getting in at 6:50 a.m., as scheduled, we got in at 10:20 a.m. And there was no diner or buffet car on the train to give us even a cup of coffee.

I felt deeply resentful when our train was side-tracked and faster trains whizzed by, and I saw people sitting in comfortable dining cars eating breakfast. They probably were as late as we were, but at least they had something to eat. I suppose there are explanations for these delays, and one should not blame the railroad without hearing its side. But one cannot help at times being a little annoyed. It means missed appointments that one has made on the theory that travel by train is reliable.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 1, 1950

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

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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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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