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

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WASHINGTON, Monday—Flying from Washington to Richmond, Va., yesterday morning was very pleasant. It gave me time before I left to see my grandbaby for a little while, and to have a very leisurely breakfast all by myself for the first time that I can remember this winter in Washington.

The baby is at the stage where everything goes straight into his mouth. Whether it is the beads around my neck, the spoons of the table, or the newspaper which he grabs out of my hand. I discovered when little Johnny Boetigger was his age, that newsprint was evidently harmless, so I do not worry any more when I see it being chewed to a pulp.

The car met me in Richmond and it took only three quarters of an hour to reach Virginia State College. The plant has been greatly improved in the last few years through the use of various government set-ups. I ate a very delicious lunch cooked and served by the home economics girls and can vouch for the fact that this course is well given. The head of the department told me that when they are through it, the girls are prepared for seventeen vocations.

Most of these young Negro people, however, take teaching positions. I feel sure that they are gradually raising the standard of living among their own people in the State of Virginia. There was no convenient return plane, so I drove back in three hours and twenty minutes and arrived here in time for supper. Our house guests, Mr. Alexander Woollcott and his secretary, Mr. Hennessey, arrived in the afternoon and were settled in their rooms, prepared to meet all the rigors of daily acting in "The Man Who Came To Dinner."

Mrs. Florence Kerr of the WPA, came to supper and also my old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Grosvenor Allen of Oneida, N. Y., and their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Kerr, whom they are visiting down here. Mrs. Allen broke a knee last year and has had a lot of trouble with them, and so she is on her way to Tucson, Ariz., to convalesce. However, she has lost none of her old spirit and remarked to me in parting that she is coming back to take up all the things she has been longing to do during her period of inactivity.

I did not know that I was bringing together two Oneida County (New York) people, but Mr. Woollcott and Mrs. Allen have an equal interest in Hamilton College and entertained us with stories about their mutual acquaintances. Mr. Woollcott showed two reels of colored picture in the evening, one taken in Marineland, Fla., and one in the autumn and winter showing his island and Veromont. The colors were the most beautiful I have ever seen and I only wish that all colored movies could be as beautiful.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 25, 1941

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

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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.

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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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