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

[Original version of the column. Text in red are tagged with <sic> (needs correction); text in purple are tagged with <orig> (needs regularization); and text in blue are tagged names of persons or organizations. View emended version]

      

New York City, Friday—Thursday morning it looked as though we would have a pleasant day, but before long the grey clouds gathered and I began to wonder if snow was going to impede our progress. However the day remained more or less fair and quite warm. We left Amherst, Mass., at 10:30 to drive to Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges.

At MT. Holyoke, they had arranged for an assembly which was to be a question and answer period. The questions had all been sent in ahead and they had been classified and duplicates eliminated. For that reason, I was able to cover in an hour all those they had prepared. I found them very well thought-out questions covering a wide field of interests. I lunched at Meade Hall with a selected group representing different activities. We had time for a little more talk before leaving for Northampton about three.

There I put in a busy few hours! Dropping my bags at Mrs. Werner Josten's house, I hurried to Miss Dodd's bookshop and signed some of my own books for her. Then she took me over to the alumnae meeting in the Alumnae House. They said they regretted not having their most illustrious member present, and I was equally sorry not to have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Coolidge.

She sent me a sweet note and some lovely flowers and I would have liked to tell her what a trail of admiration and affection she has left in Washington. Everyone who knew her still speaks of her graciousness and kindness. I think it is a satisfaction when you have returned to live in your own home, to know that an interim spent in some other place has left such pleasant memories.

The meeting at the Alumnae House was in the interest of a scholarship for a refugee student. I was glad to have an opportunity to hear of the work which Smith College has done along this line. I only hope that I was able to add something to their interest in refugees.

Miss Mary Jackson was waiting for me at the close of the meeting and I went with her to meet some members of the Democratic Club and of the Political Forum. Then we had a half hour to dress and went back to the old Wiggins Tavern for a small dinner, attended about equallybetween faculty and students. From there we went to the joint meeting of the Political Forum and the Democratic Club. The hall was filled and the questions again showed awareness of what is going on in the world today and a desire to prepare for the future.

After that meeting, we went back to Mrs. Josten's house and she had a delightful reception, but I will confess that I was not sorry when I finally found myself in bed. The morning seemed to come remarkably soon.

Torrents of rain accompanied us on our journey back to New York City today and we crawled down one very long slippery hill. On the whole, we made good time, lunched at my cottage at Hyde Park and arrived at my apartment just ahead of Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who came to tea.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1940, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Coolidge, Grace Goodhue, 1879-1957 [ index ]
         spouse of US President Calvin Coolidge
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]
  • Fairbanks, Mary Lee Epling, 1912-1988 [ index ]
         Spouse of American actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
         [ NYT ]
  • Jackson, Mary [ index ]
  • Josten, Margaret Fatman, 1888-1976 [ index ]
         American art patron; sister of Elinor Morgenthau
         [ NYT ]
Organizations
Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 8, 1941

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.
TMs, AERP, FDRL