Warm Springs

FDR's Little White House

The day Franklin Delano Roosevelt died there was an outpouring of grief from every corner of America.  FDR was the only president my parents could remember from their childhood.   They were born near the beginning of his unprecedented four terms in office and young adults when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia.  They talked of how Roosevelt rescued America after the Great Depression and how he led the United States to the brink of victory in World War II.  Both of them could remember the shock of the nation at his passing.

So when I discovered that Warm Springs was only an hour away from where we were volunteering in Americus, Georgia, I persuaded Tim that we needed to visit there to pay our respects to one of the greatest leaders in American history.

The chair where FDR was sitting when he suffered his fatal stroke.

Roosevelt's Little White House in Warm Springs is now a State Historic Site maintained by the Georgia State Park system.  Roosevelt built the modest, six-room, single-story home in 1932 several years after learning that the warm springs nearby were reputed to have a salutary effect on polio patients.

FDR's wheelchair and leg braces are on display at the park's museum.

Roosevelt himself was stricken with polio in 1921 as a young man and his legs were paralyzed.

Swimming in the 88-degree spring waters did not bring a miracle cure, but he believed it brought improvement.

Roosevelt made 41 trips to the west Georgia town from 1924 until he died there.

FDR's custom built 1940 Willys Roadster is on display in the Warm Springs State Park Museum.

During his stays, Roosevelt loved to drive the county back roads in a succession of automobiles especially equipped with hand controls.  Along the way, he would often pull over to speak to townspeople and farmers alike.

Hearing the plight of the farmers, some say, directly influenced Roosevelt's New Deal programs.  In fact, the president called Warm Springs the birthplace of the Rural Electrification Administration.  Georgia farmers were especially hard-hit by the Depression and the lack of electricity slowed their recovery.  Electric companies were reluctant to string wire to widely dispersed farms, but by banding together, along with federal funding, farmers joined in electric cooperatives.  My grandfather, a staunch Democrat who enthusiastically voted for FDR each election, canvased neighboring farmers in southern Stafford County, Kansas to sign them up for the REA.

Elizabeth Shoumatoff, Unfinished Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1945 [Watercolor], Warm Springs State Park Museum, Warm Springs, Georgia

The day FDR died, Elizabeth A. Shoumatoff was painting his portrait while he pored over documents at his desk.  An exhibit at the Warm Springs museum recounts that she lured his gaze from his work by asking questions about his stamp collecting hobby.  As the butler prepared the table for lunch, FDR prophetically said to her, "We have fifteen more minutes to work."  Elizabeth described in her memoir that soon after he suddenly "raised his right hand and passed it over his forehead several times, without emitting a sound, his head bending slightly forward."  She immediately rushed to tell the Secret Security guard that something was wrong.  She never finished the portrait.

After his collapse, FDR was carried by his staff to his bed in the next room where at 3:35 p.m. after tremendous medical effort, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, age 63, was pronounced dead.

Scandalously, it was Roosevelt's mistress, Lucy Mercer Rutherford--and not his wife--who was present with him when he died.  She, along with Shoumatoff, quickly left the Little White House in expectation of the arrival of his wife Eleanor.  Although shocked and angered by the renewal of his extramarital affair first begun in 1916, Eleanor set aside her feelings to notify her daughter Anna, her four sons who were scattered around the world while serving in the military and Vice President--now President--Harry Truman.  Then she made funeral arrangements.

Thousands like the man pictured above lined the rails to bid farewell as FDR's casket was taken by train to Washington.

Orson Welles encapsulated the nation's grief when he wrote the New York Post's eulogy for President Franklin D. Roosevelt beginning with these simple words: "He's gone.  We can't believe it, but he's gone.  The dark words throw their shadow on the human race; Franklin Roosevelt is dead."