Photo: Andrew Lucre (slightly higher res image HERE)
(it feels a bit like much photog history [i.e. the famous Dorothea Lange depression pic of mother 'Migrant Mother' and kid when in fact the proof sheet showed she had many many more children- hello depression marketing]. The kid in my pic had a brother or close friend who was just as interested in the photo-board. But it wasn't as good a photo. That's just disclosure no more. Moreover: if I'd stayed to eat birthday cake with David Roosevelt and not gone on my tour of the FDR house I would never have taken the photo. Isn't the unpredictability of life GREAT!
Her birthday date is almost her death (that is Eleanor, not Franklin in the above pic). Something to be said for circumventing any duality celebrity problems of a statesman and keeping affairs of that nature within a month and simple for the 'status quo';) And every year on this day there is a wreath laying ceremony in the rose garden of the FDR House, not commemorating Eleanor's death but rather Eleanor's birth.
A sadder, more problematic story, is that when Elanor Roosevelt died [sic]- that is the spelling of the plaque upon her desk in Vall-Kill- a gift from a local child-she said that if he ever visited she would not want him to be offended. A plaque seen by some of the world’s greatest statesmen/women. The story: that no government department would buy the estate. In fairness it may have been a bureaucratic ‘football’. The National Park Service did not buy real estate only protect what it had been bequeathed (as with the FDR House). But one wonders whether the ‘oversight’ of sharing her legacy with the people wasn’t also tinged with the facts (not shied away from in Mr. William Harris' -Dep Director of the Roosevelt library-speech this afternoon) that Eleanor Roosevelt got on the nerves of a hellava lot of people in her time.
Inventory of the estate that went to public auction are still appearing. Most interesting/importantly a Provincetown watercolor that hung above the fireplace of the very same room that Eleanor humiliated John F. Kennedy when he came begging for her endorsement
(well: gave an informal/cunning grilling through a choreography of seating). The truth is indeed always so much stranger than the fiction. Go on the tour and be wowed.)
The water color was interesting (nay crucial, perhaps to inventory to put it bluntly) because one of the pre-President Roosevelt’s retreats was Campobello. And it wasn’t actually in Campobello that Roosevelt contracted Polio (that was almost probably at a scout camp a week or so before). But he found it hard to ever return to Campobello until much much later. Very much later. The entrance to his family home is beautifully adorned with the ship engravings of his mother’s estate. It reminded me of Ted Kennedy’s funeral in 2009. His love of the sea. And how appropriate that analogy was of struggle. In all realms of life- not just politics.
[If that same watercolor, that the owner picked up for next to nothing second hand with the original auction tag! -go figure it happens all the time still, I know that for a fact, had been presented to the major auction houses- they would have just, probably, ignored it. As maybe, would have I. Though tags beyond internet birth are un-researchable on the the mothership.] I adore Hayley Lever and there is some much WPA waterworks art that never see the light of even a torch..] Great WPA mural show at Vassar Loeb- I know any excuse for a segue. But I don't 'ziggy stardust' to crap;) ! EVER! Artists were paid a great (far more than living) wage by the government during the Great Depression. How god (o) does THAT get!
If you've seen the movie Hyde Park on the Hudson that is just the tip of history (as alas are most films). But don't knock a movie (and that was rather a good one) to garner interest in history. (Some facts in that film are rather more conjecture. But the whole point of archivists is shedding light on/of rather murky, nay circumspect 'facts'). A Parks rep spoke of being totally aghast at the inundation of visitors after that 'plug'. We also spoke of water. And spoke of the fact that Dutchess County has had virtually no rain in the last 3 months (as other parts of America get drowned). It had a WOW typhoon (literally) months ago that felled an 80ft Norway spruce not far from me (the ants had got to it first- but they are the best spies showing almost no visible traces). Until.
Finally ousted by the wind.
Roosevelt planted over 500,000 trees on his Hyde Park estate (Roosevelt Christmas trees were sold in NYC). His CCC programme planted nearly 3 billion trees throughout America. Was photographer Salgado inspired by this when he re-forested his estate? Or did he do it simply out of instinct? There was a visitor on my FDR tour this afternoon who remarked that he'd seen the felling in Nebraska of thousands upon thousands of 'Roosevelt trees' to support farming. Whether that was true? ... It would be true! The VERY mistake that led to the 'dust basins' of barren land that Roosevelt had successfully healed and helped to grow. History repeats and repeats...
It can't be easy be President (well in some cases I guess that's debatable ...). As with being human. In many cases some just 'go with the flow'. Many some, though, feel by instinct impelled that they must stem the tide. In many cases, alas, they fail. FDR may have had a privileged upbringing; Eleanor arguably not quite as so. The tide brings fortune and failure (not necessarily literally ones of wealth). That couple's lesson of never giving up.
I wasn't going to mention this because, well. It does sound like a transcript from a Hollywood movie of self-reliance. Oh..g forbid another one of ...!
President Roosevelt was a 6ft handsome, athletic guy. After contracting Polio (the whole 'dis-guising' of that for public consumption!). Yikes! Reduced to having hard metal -rather than and plus withered legs-and plus not so hardy humans prop him up. Always. Except. He designed his own wheelchairs-one of which is in situ in the luggage elevator in the FDR home. He was offered an electric elevator and declined the offer. His Top Cottage hideaway (where the famous Brit Royalty hot-dog indoctrination occurred- and yet no factual evidence of the Daisy 'bonk') needed no such 'effort'. It was true that Royalty asked whether there was another driver rather than FDR on their way 'home' because he so wanted -and was so good at proving- that he was able-bodied. Even if it was on an accelerator.
What is fascinating to all -even body builders- hello- (no names, two gym examples just up the road from the museum) is that Roosevelt hauled himself in his wheelchair pulling thick ropes in the elevator to the 1st floor and his glorious bedroom view over the Hudson River. And he had dealt with serious Presidential duties all day/night/week/month.....No-one. Ever. Could: deny him that, 'inherited' vista. Could it ever have been the same without 'Elanor' ?!
Margaret Atwood's latest novel Hag-Seed
(The quiet lotus blossom)-Clara Schumann
{}}}}}} As a P.S.
For years you couldn't view the servants kitchen and basement of the Vanderbilt Mansion due to renovations-replacing all the rusting original steel frame. Just now THIS 2016 autumn you can ! Who cares? Well: without the servants there would be no mansion except for edifice. When FDR stayed the secret service lodgings were also in the basement. What is sad/funny/sad/beautiful/tragic is that: as one follower (West Coast..) on the trail of 'something else' today remarked: it is a 'cottage' compared to San Simeon (Randolph Hearst's 'palace' in the sky'). And the Americans go on building. And building.
Frederick Vanderbilt and his wife had no children So the couple left their Hyde Park mansion to Louise's niece, Margaret Louise (Daisy) Van Alen. No relation to 'Daisy' in the Hyde Park on the Hudson film (except in nickname/friendship/confidante to FDR). Van Alen couldn’t sell the estate (even for a rock bottom price compared to the millions it had cost to build) so FDR finally suggested she donate it to the State for $1. And so: there we are. In 1948, Van Alen married yachtsman Louis Bruguiére, who had survived the sinking of the S.S. Arabic.
But will the Dutchman ever rest...
;)(:
The internet is my poor friend but mine own;) It is so way way behind the archives. Somewhat if not totally understandable. Everyone, nowadays, wants something for nothing. But gold dust is gold dust. Diamonds are diamonds. I am sounding Jewish, Mi dispiace....I discovered that you couldn't get an instantaneous translation of Simon Boccanegra yet Traviata, et tu et ti come so easily. How weird and obviously an alien conspiracy that the next President....
Donald Trump will of us all rid !! :) !!!! (
You could do a lot worse in your life and turn off the radio and all its ..!!! and listen to an archive that I never knew existed on the internet (we all wish we could see vid archive of a youngster Visconti directing Arthur Miller in Italy..)-alas I fear never...
The archive: Pace. pace Maestro Abbado...and pace pace pace uccellacci e uccellini..
you know what is interesting listening to this Simon Boccanegra anew in a very very VERY long time is how un manipulative it is of Verdi's score. There is something truly to be said for being simple and true to the 'score'. Does that relate to politics...
[to state the obvious of research: Verdi described his opera as "too sad and desolate." Simon Boccanegra, formally a pirate, was democratically elected the first Doge of Genoa in 1339 against his patrician rival.]
Would Maestro Abbado tweaked in NYC? I guess that's a Juillard conversation...
Abbado (Paris 1978) in a production by the great, great, Giorgio Strehler (interview in The Daily Telegraph, London) (I watched him rehearse Brecht/Weill's Threepenny Opera in Paris (somewhere there is reportage of that: somewhere there is always always something...;) : How good does life ever get..;)(:
“I have tried to write Paradise
Do not move
Let the wind speak
that is paradise.
Let the Gods forgive what I
have made
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.”
Ezra Pound (Notes for Canto CXX)
