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

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HYDE PARK, Friday—Yesterday we went to the Dutchess County Fair. Our children, who love horses, had a wonderful time watching the horse show. I particularly enjoyed the class of pony mares with their colts.

Miss Deborah Dows won first prize with a little black colt that had more spirit than any small animal I have seen in a long time. The poor little thing was terrified but it would not be tamed, and it pitted its strength against the strength of those who tried to move it around. It pulled away and backed and reared in a way that would have done credit to a much stronger animal. It was a little beauty and, some day, I am sure it will make a fine pony.

I enjoyed the bareback riding group, too, but Elliott and I left the children and went off to look at the cows. The Guernseys were our particular interest. Then we wandered on to farm machinery and home bureau and grange exhibits. After buying ice cream and peanuts, we finished in the 4-H Club building, where we admired the cattle and chickens and handiwork of these boys and girls who, I think do as good a job as their parents.

Some of you may have been reading Bill Mauldin's comments on the carnival side of country fairs. I think I agree with him that they do not seem to have much real glamour any more. Perhaps that is because I am getting old. Our children, however, discovered a booth where they could buy water pistols—and that was fatal. We banned them from the house, but they used the pistols so successfully out of doors that they were soaked in the short interval between their return home and the time it took us to put supper on the table.

* * *

I have had quite a number of letters from women who are in agreement with the Australian woman whose letter I recently quoted in this column. They all want to do something to ensure peace in the world. The greater part of them want to start some movement, a new organization or a worldwide union of women. In fact, I find there are one or two of these already in embryo.

However, to me this is rather distressing, because it is still practically impossible to reach great numbers of women throughout the world and hardly possible to have them organize so that they can take action together. Such a possibility seems to me a very long way off.

Very few women seem to think, as I do, that at present the most we can do is to convince ourselves and our families and our neighbors that peace has to begin within each individual's heart and has to be lived by each of us every day. Then the quality of citizenship one develops in one's own area, whether it is a village or a city or has wider horizons, will have influence in gradually widening the circle of people who see that peace depends on our daily actions wherever we are.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR PART PROHIBITED.)


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

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, August 30, 1947

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
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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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