Main Content

Eleanor Roosevelt's "My Day," 4/11/1939

Easter Egg Rolling on the South Lawn

Copyright © White House Historical Association. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this article may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for reprint permissions should be addressed to books@whha.org

WASHINGTON, Monday—We came down to Washington yesterday evening to find the trees in bud, the fountains playing outside the White House and the daffodils all in bloom along Pennsylvania Avenue and in the little garden on which my window looks down. One magnolia tree is completely out and everything looks as though spring has arrived. Yet, in Hyde Park, we had snow Sunday morning, and they tell me they even had a flurry of it here.

I had everything tidied up and put to rights in my room before I went to bed last night and found it quite exciting to look into the few pacakages containing things which I had bought in San Francisco. It was like discovering something entirely new.

This morning dawned clear and sunny, much to my joy, for it means a much happier time for the children and their parents who are on the South Lawn for the egg rolling. At 9:15 the Easter lilies flown from Bermuda, as a gift from the Governor of Bermuda, were presented to me and they are now making the West Hall on the second floor beautiful.

At 9:30 I went out on the South Portico steps and found a group of children from Friendship House, a small settlement house here in Washington, waiting to be photographed with me. They carried their baskets with eggs to roll on the lawn. One child had a large and substantial cookie out of which she had already taken one bite. Being photographed had very little interest for them, but they submitted to it with good grace. Have you ever noticed how often the undernourished children of the poor seem particularly docile? They do as they are told, they sit wherever you put them, and the paler and frailer they are the more quiet they are. This group was then removed from the steps and taken out on the lawn. Another group, from the House of the Good Samaritans, came up with a large basket of flowers and sat with me on the steps and had their photographs taken.

Little Diana Hopkins1 is still our guest until after the children's party this afternoon, so she went out with me and we made our way through the small early morning crowd down to the bandstand where a group of boys from the Montgomery County High School were playing for the crowd.

I had a press conference at 11:00 o'clock, and everyone went out on the lawn when the President returned from Warm Springs and greeted the crowd from the South Portico. This time it looked as though we were going to break all records for attendance at these egg-rollings.

When the President's greeting was over, I went down to the bandstand again and thanked the Metropolitan Police Boys Band, which had just begun to play after the Loew's Capitol Cadet Band had finished. We had an opportunity, too, to thank Mr. Harry Baker2 and Mr. J. Leonard Reh,3 who provided entertainment for the children. Mr. Reh knew President Theodore Roosevelt,4 so he has been bringing happiness to Easter Monday groups for a long time.

Then the Minister from Finland5 and the representatives for the fund which is being raised for the Olympic Games were photographed with me and the orgy of photographing ended.

E.R.

Copyright, 1939, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

Footnotes & Resources

  1. Diana Hopkins Halsted, 1932-?, Daughter of Harry Hopkins and his second wife, Barbara Duncan who lived in the White House from 1940-1942
  2. Harry Baker, Magician
  3. J. Leonard Reh, Washington, D.C. children’s entertainer
  4. Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919, President of the U.S. (1901-1909); uncle of Eleanor Roosevelt
  5. Hjalmar Johan Fredrik Procopé, 1889-1954, Finnish Ambassador to U.S.

Share

Related

Related
Next U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving…

You Might Also Like

  • Collection

    The Carter White House 1977 - 1981

    On January 20, 1977, Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as the thirty-ninth president of the United States. During his time in the White House (1977–81), President Carter made many decisions guided by his fundamental commitment to peace and democratic values, emphasizing human and civil rights above all else. Putting these ideals into practice, President Carter negotiated the Camp David Accords, secured the release of Am

  • Collection

    The Nixon White House 1969 - 1974

    On January 20, 1969, Richard Nixon was inaugurated as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. During his time in the White House (1969–74), President Nixon sought to unite a divided nation after the social, political, and cultural turbulence of the 1960s. Before becoming president, Nixon served in the U.S. Navy, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and as

  • Collection

    Presidential and First Lady Portraits

    Since 1965, the White House Historical Association has been proud to fund the official portraits of our presidents and first ladies, a long-standing tradition of the White House Collection. Recent presidents and first ladies typically select their respective artists before leaving the White House and approve the portraits before their formal presentation to the public and induction into the collection. The

  • Collection

    The Ford White House 1974 - 1977

    Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., the nation’s only unelected president and vice president, served thirteen terms in Congress before rising to national attention in 1973, when President Richard Nixon nominated him as vice president. Less than a year later, Ford became president, following President Nixon's resignation from office. The Fords made and celebrated history during their time in the White House, fr

  • Collection

    The Johnson White House 1963 - 1969

    On November 22, 1963, about two hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson took the Oath of Office, becoming the thirty-sixth President of the United States. Prior to serving as vice president, Johnson had represented his home state of Texas for more than twenty years in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. As

  • Collection

    The Kennedy Rose Garden

    It is hard to imagine that it was something as casual as a lunch conversation between a newly elected president and an amateur gardener that gave rise to one of our nation's most iconic outdoor spaces. In this collection, Rose Garden designer Rachel Lambert Mellon explains how the grounds were so thoughtfully transformed, while others detail the White House's diverse

  • Collection

    'A Tempest in a Teapot'

    First Lady Lou Hoover's invitation to Jessie L. DePriest to a White House tea party in 1929 created a storm of protest and indignation. This traditional act of hospitality toward the wife of the first black man elected to Congress in the twentieth century created a political crisis for the president and first lady. This collection explores the "tempest" from the

  • Collection

    Eleanor Roosevelt's "My Day"

    The White House Historical Association and the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project present this collaboration in an effort to open a window into the Roosevelt White House. From 1935 to 1962, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a syndicated column entitled "My Day." This project selects representative samples of those columns, focused on the White House years, to display Mrs. Roosevelt’s thoughts on a