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

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HYDE PARK, Monday—We had a most amusing picnic supper last night at my cottage, but certain members of the party were rather hurried. James had come up for a vestry meeting and I foolishly supposed that he was staying several days. When I told him we were having supper at the cottage, he announced that he had to make an eight o'clock train and be in Washington this morning. Luckily Sunday evening supper doesn't take very long. We started scrambling eggs as we saw the lights of the car coming around the house, and by the time we got them all seated, the eggs were ready!

There is endless occupation here for any one who is interested in forestry. My husband went over the whole place a few days ago with Professor Brown from Syracuse University, looking at all the little plantations of sundry vanieties of trees and finally he took him to the sheltered spot where he is planting a few little Sequoias. I think my husband hoped that the species would not be recognized by the forestry expert and he planned to play a joke on him by asking him what the trees were, but some one in the car spoiled his little joke by saying: "Oh, is this the place you are going to try putting out the little Sequoias?"

This is a most beautiful day and three or four of us are going to take a long automobile ride, partly to acquire some Christmas presents and partly to look at the work being done in one of the Transient Camps under the National Park Service. It is most interesting to see how these men learn to do all kinds of work. Sometimes it is a type of work they have never done before. In this particular camp men who have never done masonry work are building outside fire-places and picnic tables and making it a very attractive camping spot. The foremen in charge of many of these camps are quite young and it interests me very much to see how well they adjust to their multitudinous duties. Some of them know less about the outdoor work, and some of them know less about the clerical work of the office both of which a good camp foreman should be able to supervise. The interesting thing to me is watching young men put their hearts and souls into the work and this seems characteristic of the Park Service everywhere.

In Transient Camps the job is two-fold. The projects undertaken must be well carried out, but in doing them they must try to give a helping hand to the men who for one reason or another, have had a hard time during these past years and have no fixed place as yet in our society.

As usual before leaving any place, both my husband and I are discovering that we have a number of things we want to do which are not done. He may stay over a day or two because he will not have an opportunity of coming back again soon. I hope I can be here at least for a few days in early December. Do other people find as I do that there are always things left to the last minute which they could have done long before?

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 2, 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 November 1, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 1 November 1937, AERP, FDRL