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

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NEW YORK—I have returned to New York after having been away several days this week.

On Tuesday I flew to Detroit, where I was met and taken to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. My trip there was made pleasant by having Mrs. Robert Magidoff travel with me. Her husband is teaching at the university and at the same time studying for his PhD.

As we rode together out to the airport in New York, Mrs. Magidoff, who was returning from a lecture trip, was much amused by the driver as he reminisced the whole way about my husband and various incidents that had affected his life and mine.

In Ann Arbor, I had the pleasure of staying with the university president, Harlan H. Hatcher, and Mrs. Hatcher, and it seemed like returning to old friends, for this was my second visit with them.

They have two delightful children, but I had only a chance to see them briefly at breakfast Tuesday morning. Like all other school children, that meal was a hurried one for them.

Soon after my arrival I held a press conference. I spoke in the evening, after which there was a short reception for groups of students This was arranged for honor students, giving them a chance to ask questions.

I certainly found this a pleasant kind of a reception, for I just sat and answered questions, which I always find interesting because they give me much information as to what our young people are thinking about.

At the end I asked them if they thought that students as a whole have been aroused to an understanding of world problems or whether, as it has been said, they are apathetic.

I got a variety of answers. One was that students in our competetive system have to work so hard that they have no time to think of anything but their studies. On the other hand, one serious young girl said that she was so frightened by world conditions, and felt so completely at a loss to do anything about them, that she has a sense of hopelessness.

On Wednesday morning, after an interview at the university radio station, I took a plane for Buffalo. There I had several hours of peace and quiet in the hotel, except for a few telephone interruptions, until a 6 p.m. dinner at which I spoke.

I took a night train back to New York, where on Thursday morning I was met by a kind gentleman, John J. McDonnell, the builder of the F.D.R. Junior High School in Levittown, Pa. We drove to Levittown for the laying of the school cornerstone, and Mr. McDonnell kindly accompanied me during the entire day.

He drove me into Philadelphia, where we lunched with officials of the American Foods Service Association, at whose convention I later spoke. Then we returned to Levittown where, after a short rest in the home economics department of the well-planned and attractive new school, I attended a banquet attended by members of the community responsible for construction of the school. Then we went to the gymnasium for a community-wide meeting in the evening.

I got away a little before 10 p.m. and was home in New York by 11:30 p.m. where Mr. McDonnell sighed gently and said: "This has been a long day. Fifteen hours of work." I didn't really count the hours to see if he was correct, but I certainly felt it had been a long day—however, an interesting and pleasant one.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1958, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Hatcher, Anne Gregory Vance, 1911-2001 [ index ]
         [ Other source ]
  • Hatcher, Harlan, 1898-1998 [ index ]
         American educator; 8th President of the University of Michigan from 1951 to 1967
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | NYT ]
  • Magidoff, Nila Ivanovna Shevko, 1905- [ index ]
         Russian writer
         [ ISNI | VIAF | SNAC ]
  • Magidoff, Robert, 1905-1970 [ index ]
         Russian academic
         [ LC | VIAF | SNAC ]
  • McDonnell, John J. [ index ]
Organizations
  • Michigan Radio (WUOM-FM) [ index ]
  • University of Michigan [ index ]
         [ LC ]
Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 22, 1958

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | WorldCat | DPLA | Wikidata | SNAC ]

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)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ISNI ]
  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]

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 UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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