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

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WASHINGTON, Wednesday—Mrs. Grenville Emmet, wife of our Minister to the Netherlands, over here just for a few weeks and our old friends, Helen and Lucius Wilmerding and Mr. and Mrs. John Regis all came down for the last formal dinner of the year. Just before they arrived, my husband telephoned that the doctors had decided that James and Betsy's little girl Sara, must be operated on for appendicitis. She waked in the morning feeling miserable and complaining of a tummy ache and while one hates to have an operation, still it is probably as well to have her appendix out at an early age if it is going to bother her at all. She is apparently fairly comfortable though she doesn't quite understand what happened to her!

I was late in going over to the Women's University Club for tea, and felt very guilty when I saw how many people were crowded down stairs waiting to come up and greet the receiving committee and myself.

After dinner Admiral Byrd and I had to go down to the Diplomatic Reception Room as he and I spoke at the beginning of the "No Foreign War" program which Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick closed from New York City. After the radio speech was over, the Movie-Tone men concentrated on us. I have never been successful in talking naturally for the newsreels so for some time I have insisted that I should be seen and not heard. They made such a point however, of my welcoming Admiral Byrd into this phase of peace work that I finally spoke one little sentence and I only pray that I shall not regret this lapse from my usual procedure. It would not matter so much only I think it hurts any cause to have some one take part in any part of it and do it extremely badly.

I got back to the East Room just in time to see one dance and to hear one song by the members of the Pine Mountain Settlement School of Harlan County, Kentucky and then one group of tricks by Dr. Sydney Ross, a magician. When the young Kentuckians were introduced to my husband he was very much interested to find that one of the boys was named Turner. Years ago when my husband was riding through Harlan County with his Uncle, Mr. Warren Delano they spent the night with a family named Turner who were kind to them.

At ten-thirty this morning I went out with my brother to look over his new railway and was much interested in this type of bus which runs on tracks or can leave the rails when necessary. It opens up possibilities for speed and convenience in travel in the future.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

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


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 8, 1937

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 7, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 7 April 1937, AERP, FDRL