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

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WASHINGTON—We were twenty for dinner last night of every age from debutantes to white-haired grandmothers who had attended the post graduate class at Todhunter School this winter. They were very much interested in the time they spent in the Senate Gallery where they had heard a discussion in which Senator Robinson and Senator Copeland participated and they visited Mrs. Caroline O'Day's office and had a talk with her. I think these opportunities for close contact with their government are very stimulating experiences.

I read them a letter which had come to me from a farm woman in the southwest practically telling me her whole life history. Of the many letters which have come to me, this is perhaps the most dramatic and touching from the point of view of courage and unselfishness preserved through many difficulties and disasters. I was interested to see how it affected this varied group. The coincidences in life are often extraordinary, for when I finished, one of those present said: "I was in high school at that place for two years and know the country well."

Miss Dickerman had asked to have the film of the "Life of Louis Pastuer ", and so I saw it for a second time but it is a film that one can see twice and find more things to think about the second time than one was able to take in at the first showing. What a remarkable picture of a scientist's life and what unselfishness not only in the individual, but in all those around him it required to make possible the advancement of human knowledge.

I listened with some trepidation all night to the wind, and read with sorrow this morning of the havoc wrought in some of our southern states. The elements do seem to be dealing us many blows at the present time. Perhaps they are trying to show us that our only strength lies in the realms of mind and spirit.

It has been a fairly busy morning and I am about to swim with my grandchildren. The Todhunter group comes for a buffet luncheon. and then Mrs. Martin Vogel with some young people is coming to see the White House. I hope to have a chat with her before we start for Newport News.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Washington (D.C., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 4, 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: June 9, 2017.

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 April 3, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 3 April 1936, AERP, FDRL