FDR PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY EXPEDITION!

 A while back, I attended a week-long Road Scholar (www.roadscholar.org) program, on the life of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The classroom parts of the program were held at the FDR Library, in Hyde Park, New York.  In the photo below, I am the one in pink, sitting between Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt.  

The statue of the Roosevelt couple sits near the entrance to the FDR Library, and probably has a steady stream of visitors using it as a photo opportunity to remember the occasion.  

This banner with a photograph of FDR is on the exterior of the building, and is very unpretentious, compared to the signage at some of the other presidential libraries I have visited.

Likewise, the exterior of the building is not impressive in terms of modernistic, futuristic architecture.  Instead, the stone and roof design are reminiscent of the early settlements of upstate New York, which is where the original Roosevelt family immigrants lived.

 The Roosevelts had a Protestant Christian background, and when FDR was sworn in as President of the United States of America, the Bible that was used was turned to I Corinthians 13, that has the passages on faith, hope, and charity.    Although we were not allowed to photograph it, the actual Bible used, is part of the permanent collection at the Franklin D Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park (www.fdrlibrary.org ).  It is a 1686 Dutch family Bible, printed in Amsterdam.  It is the oldest Bible used in a presidential inauguration and the only one in a foreign language.  The Bible was passed down through the Roosevelt family, and contained records from the early 185h century.  It was also used when FDR was sworn in as Governor of New York in 1928 and 1930.  

God's Word was always important to the president, and the USA President wrote a personal message (dated January 25, 1941), that was placed on the first page of the Servicemen's Bible, given to soldiers involved in World War II.  

The photo below shows Springwood House, which was the lifelong home and birthplace of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Hyde Park, New York.  It is part of a National Historic Site, located on the same grounds as the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.  Our group was able to take a complete tour inside the . , but we were not allowed to take photos.  The thing I remember most about the interior was seeing the stairs to the second floor.  Our guide told us that after FDR contracted polio, an elevator was installed because he had lost the use of his legs.  However, according to the guide, FDR usually refused to use the lift, and instead, used his upper body strength to crawl up the stairs, saying it helped him stay strong.  The other thing I remember about the house is seeing where he worked on his stamp collection.  Although the hobby has lost popularity now, it was the perfect activity for a person with limited mobility and a keen interest in travel and history.  Although my collection of stamps is not organized as was FDR's, I am still fascinated by the designs of postage stamps and have hundreds of them !  Some people collect stickers, and postage stamps are just a type of sticker!  The 300 acre Springwood Estate includes the Rose Garden, where both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt are buried.   

The Roosevelt dime is pictured below:

It is that fighting spirit that FDR had in overcoming polio, that led to his support of the March of Dimes program, and the reason for the FDR likeness on the US ten cent piece.    I told more details about that situation in a blog I published about visiting the FDR Little White House, in Warm Springs, Georgia.  It is available in the archives of this blog, dated April 12, 2018.  

The photo below shows what the folder looked like that I used in elementary school, to collect dimes for the March of Dimes program to fight polio.  

Our group also visited Val-Kil Historic Site, the cottage built for Eleanor Roosevelt.  Its native stone exterior is an example of the vernacular architecture of that area, and possibly the inspiration for the stone exterior used decades later for the FDR Presidential Library.  The same photography rules applied here as did at the Springwood House, so I do not have any photos of the interior of Val-Kil.  (By the way, many places I visited in upstate New York, had a suffix or prefix of "kil".  It was widely used in areas settled by the Dutch in New York.  It is derived from the Dutch word kille, meaning a riverbed, water channel, creek, or tidal inlet.)  The one image I can remember from the interior, however, was a photograph of President John F. Kennedy and Eleanor inside the cottage, when he came to visit the elderly widow, during his presidential era.  

There was a plaque on the exterior of the grounds, with a motto attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, that probably would be helpful for all of us to strive for!

 

In recent years, the US Mint Quarters program, came out with a quarter with a design honoring Eleanor Roosevelt, and it is pictured below:  (It is ironic that her likeness is on a coin worth 25 cents, while her husband's likeness is on a coin worth ten cents!)

There is a hiking trail that goes from the Springwood House, along the Hudson River, up to the Vanderbuilt Historic Site, also above the Hudson River.  However, this warning by the Duchess County Health Department, about ticks made me rethink the possibility of investigating that trail.  Perhaps if I had done what the Eleanor motto recommended, I would have some more photos to show you of the trail!

However, I settle for a photo of the start of the trail, and that was enough to give me "MILES OF SMILES"!  Tricia

1 corinthians 13 passage from swearing in dutch bible--verse i think best exemplified FDR