First Lady of the World

Notes from Lynn:

She answered the door herself, a tall woman with a grandmotherly smile familiar to everybody who came of age in the Depression and World War II. Editorial cartoonists had prepared me for the receding chin and prominent teeth of Eleanor Roosevelt, but I was struck instead by the welcoming warmth of the First Lady of the World.

I was 26, a newspaperman for four years, but this wasn’t just another interview. Nobody else in the first half of the 20th century came close to her greatness in regard to human rights,

women's liberation, racial equality and support for peace, and I was lucky enough to get the assignment. We shook hands. She brought me a cup of coffee, sat down on the sofa and said, brightly, “I know you’ve got a lot of questions for me.”

She waited.

I froze.

Questions? If asked, I couldn’t have told her my name, the year (1960), my newspaper (the Champaign-Urbana Courier), her hotel (the Urbana Lincoln) or why she had come to my beat, the University of Illinois (to lecture and support the presidential campaign of Senator John F. Kennedy).

I was speechless.

That (rare) moment of silence came to mind this week as we walked up to the imposing portico of Springwood, the 35-room Dutch Colonial mansion administered by the National Park Service in Hyde Park, N.Y. Kathy Podmaniczky, Margo’s dear friend and basketball teammate 30 years ago at Oberlin College, drove us from her home in Pleasant Valley to the Hudson Valley home of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum (admission $14). In our tour group of 28, I counted 14 gray-haired oldsters who looked to have grown up during FDR’s four terms in the White House. For me, born in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt was the first lady for the first 12 years of my life and powerful advocate thereafter for the disadvantaged, the poor, the oppressed, the United Nations and causes we now take for granted.

The museum’s exhibits cover everything that one might expect in Roosevelt’s life from his privileged youth to his political successes to his polio to his leadership in peace and war, but afterward we talked instead about the little things. We saw the presidential wheelchair

fashioned from a kitchen chair with an ash tray on one arm … the 1936 Ford Phaeton convertible that FDR drove himself with the clutch on a lever … at least 40 paintings of ships-of-war, mostly of the War of 1812, that the onetime assistant secretary of the Navy had collected and hung on the walls … a green quilted presidential bathrobe on a chaise lounge … a handsome cigarette case that must have been shoved into a desk drawer on Dec. 7, 1941, because it came from Japan.

Well, you can see for yourself the museum and the wing devoted to Eleanor Roosevelt, but you won’t find any mention of Lucy Mercer (Rutherfurd), Eleanor’s social secretary from 1913 until the day in 1918 when she found the love letters from her husband. We didn’t hear about that (or other reputed romances of FDR and Eleanor) until well after both were buried in the Rose Garden near the Coach House.

After the president’s death in 1945, his widow gave the mansion to the government but continued living at Val-Kill, a relatively modest house of fieldstone about two miles east of Springwood. There she wrote her daily newspaper column, “My Day.” There she wrote articles and books when she wasn’t in her New York apartment, traveling around the nation for an average of 150 lectures a year and giving hundreds of interviews for newspapers, magazines and radio shows. She had been a frequent visitor to Urbana and the university.

Over the years, many a journalist has noted that not every public proponent of justice and goodness is considerate in private to underlings, including starstruck reporters. When I sat mute in an armchair in her hotel room, a tongue-tied worshipper with a blank notebook, the Great Lady took charge.

“Well, young man,” she said after a moment’s pause, “I just know what you’re going to ask me about.”

She launched into the answer of an unasked question. I took notes furiously, gratefully, and got my tongue untied.

Notes from Margo:

Kathy and I were on the Walkway Across the Hudson, an old railroad bridge that’s been remade into a pedestrian way across the Hudson River. We were high above the river, in an icy wind --walking, talking, laughing. An older gentleman caught our attention with a wave, and a silent come hither gesture with his hands. Then he put his index finger to his lips in the universal sign for “sush!” And then more beckoning gestures. We both went into the urban “Is he a wingnut?” mode and made ready to ignore or hurry past. Then he said, softly, “Can you see the falcon?”

Oh. That changes everything. A peregrine falcon perched on a rusted I-beam about 2 feet outside the railing of the walkway. He was protected from us, and seemed completely comfortable showing off his handsome yellow bill, black and yellow eyes, his white and brown flecked chest and his frighteningly long talons. We admired him openly, with cameras, with binoculars, with joy. People stopped to gawk -- birdwatchers, bicyclists, old people on fitness walks, children on scooters. What a bonus!

We’re staying with Kathy here in Pleasant Valley for a few days, visiting with her, seeing the sights of the Hudson Valley, getting an oil change for The Guppy, and readying ourselves for the dive into New York.

In other news: Our laptop computer seems to be dying, and we are posting today from Kathy’s computer. It may take a while to repair or replace our laptop, so be patient and stay tuned.

Mileage from Boston to Pleasant Valley: 197
Mileage so far: 7,207 (yikes!!)