My father stood at the door watching her get out of the car (which had been FDRs and still had the special equipment in it so he could drive it) and opened the door for her and her housekeeper. The first thing I heard as he opened the door was WHY DONALD IT'S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU!! HOW ARE YOU? HOW'S YOUR MOTHER/? YOUR SISTER? YOUR BROTHER?!
They stood there talking for quite a while Mrs. Roosevelt was a VERY nice, very REAL person.
I remember being introduced to her and her bending down to my level to speak to me. My father said SHE'S SHY... and Mrs. Roosevelt bent down and as we looked at each other she said, THAT'S OK. I WAS VERY SHY WHEN I WAS YOUNG TOO.. and she smiled and asked me a few things and I answered and smiled back. I knew about Presidents and First Ladies even at that young age, and I was thinking of how other people not even as important as she was were more stiffly formal than she was and most wouldn't have bent down to speak directly to me to hold a little conversation. She was very personable and treated me like a PERSON. I looked her in the eyes and knew she was someone who had a real heart and she had mine from that day on
As I got older and learned more about her life, and after reading her life story, I realized how shy she HAD been, and all the things she had delt with, and learning about how she overcame it, along with remembering what she said to me and how she was that day, is one way I conquered my shyness. I thought IF SHE CAN DO ALL SHE'S DONE, AND BE SO FORTHRIGHT, SO CAN I.
If you go to Roosevelt Cinemas in Hyde Park, (located directly across from SPRINGWOOD) you'll see Eagles hanging on the walls in a couple of the threatres. My father designed and made them out of plywood and bolted them together, at her request, that day at Luckey's.
I remember him cutting them out and painting them... Asking for opinions on what color to paint them... and being concerned about how he would assemble the various parts and hang them. Then he had the Eureka moment and smiled and got bolts and long screws and a drill and did the assembly and painted them in the sign shop/barn behind our house. They are hung with strong wire attached to hooks in the walls. The evening of the day he hung them on the walls, we were her guests for whatever movie was playing. I wish I could remember what it was!
He also designed the lettering and painted the sign on the front that says ROOSEVELT ... It has been repainted since then, but it is still the same exact sign. I remember when he finished that, taking us in the car to see it one evening. That was all in 1954 and 55.
As I recall, her son, Elliot, had the theatre built for her and she used to go there and sit in "The Cry Room" (now one of the projection rooms) which was a room with glass front, overlooking the theatre, which was only one in those days.It was quite simple but very comfortable... with reclining seats and etched glass and grass on the half-wall that divided the actual theatre from the hall and doors, to the rear. The doors on the front of the lobby are the same ones I remember being there when I was a child. (I remember marveling at them... Metal doors with all glass in them!...In those days all doors were made of WOOD) My mother said that they were a new metal called Aluminum) But as with Luckey's, it's basically a shell of what it used to be.
My gandparents knew the Roosevelts, and used to go to Sunday Dinner at Springwood. My father and his sister and brother also went but ate in the kitchen with the Roosvelt children... and played in their playroom (the big room with all the windows, in the front, on the north end) when they were finished so the adults could retire to the livingroom to talk. This was before he became President, but also, afterward, when he came home to visit
Somewhere among the family memorabilia, there is a photo from a local newspaper that shows a red-haired freckled faced boy, grinning and standing on the running board of FDR's car, clinging to the side of the car. He had just voted for himself at the Hyde Park Town Hall. The boy is my father, having just turned 10 years old in November
After serving in WWII, and being with the First Infantry Division( He was among those of 2nd wave to land on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day) my father became a National Park Guard for several years and guarded the Roosevelt and Vanderbilt Estates, before going to IBM where he worked as an artist for 45 years.
(Among other things, he was also the announcer (and later alternated weekends with Mike Fisher... who I hear is still there) at Old Rinebeck Aerodrome for over 20 years. Having met Cole Palen in the winter of 1961, he helped to promote the aerodrome and painted all the billboards and signs and the little buildings that were part of the show. He sat at the head table with Cole for the retirement dinner. They both retired from it that same year, and my father died in January 1993 and Cole in December of the same year.)
I have many fond memories thanks to my parents and grandparents, on both sides of the family ... These are only a few of them, inspired by a photograph of that November day when I met Eleanor Roosevelt
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