Visiting SPRINGWOOD HOUSE in Hyde Park

August 14, 2019

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Here in Hyde Park, New York, there is a very important house worth taking a tour if you find yourself in the area. As is the case with most historic residences and mansions, they are not doggie friendly OR stroller friendly! Mummy and Daddy went to see Springwood House, which was the lifelong home of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and they said not only was it very interesting, but they learned quite a bit about our 32nd President.

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1. Built in 1826, SPRINGWOOD HOUSE sits on 700 acres and remains almost exactly as it was at the time of President Roosevelt’s death in 1945. Roosevelt’s home was actually owned by his mother Sara, and she lived there with him and his family until her death in 1941. Franklin and Eleanor married in 1905 but she never really liked it there at Springwood House, and regarded it  as the domain of her mother-in-law. He contracted polio in 1921 at the age of 39 and was paralyzed from the waist down. He always held out hope for a cure but was never able to walk again unaided. When Franklin wanted to enlarge the home to accommodate his growing family, he had to ask permission of his mother! Being her only child, of course she agreed-but still-he couldn’t do anything without her permission because the house belonged to her!!! VERY INTERESTING ?? Eleanor and Franklin built “Val-Kill” in 1926, as a retreat for Eleanor, in the eastern section of the Roosevelt estate, and she would remain there and pursue her interests in world peace and human rights after the President’s death.

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2. This was called “The Chintz Room” and was used by Franklin and Eleanor until the south wing was added in 1915. It was later used as a guest room. Queen Elizabeth was one of many celebrated guests to use this room.

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3. Sara Delano Roosevelt called this room “The Snuggery” and had her breakfast served here every morning, then gave the orders for the day to the servants. She was often found at her desk paying bills, keeping the estate accounts and corresponding with friends. Most of the furniture in this room has been in the house since the turn of the 19th century.

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4. This was the huge living room that had stairs leading down to this level. A fold-up ramp was made to accommodate Franklin’s wheelchair, but as soon as he entered the room, he would be moved into a regular chair and the ramp would be folded up and stored out of sight!!! By looking at the house, you  would NEVER KNOW that a handicapped person lived here. His bedroom was on the second floor and he used a large luggage lift to HAND PULL his own weight up to the second floor several times a day!!! FDR went to great lengths to live as normal a life as possible and keep his disability from the public. Many people never even knew that he could not walk until AFTER HIS DEATH! When reporters came to the house for interviews, he would be placed in a chair in this room, his legs would be crossed for him by an aide, his shoes would be scuffed up and grass and sand would be would be scattered around the cuff of his pants to make it look as if he had been walking around his property!!! He would sit… casually posed… until the reporter left, and then his aide would reposition him to his liking. All photographs were shown of him professionally posed in seated positions or standing… but he was always standing next to 2-3 people so you never really noticed that the people were actually holding him up! No reporters were allowed to photograph him getting in or out of his car… it was a “gentleman’s agreement!” LOLOLOLOLOL THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN NOW!!!! If by some chance a photograph WAS TAKEN… FDR’s aides would approach the photographer and demand his film! ???

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5. This was the actual bedroom and THE BED where FDR was born on Monday, January 30, 1882. He is said to have weighed “10 pounds… without clothes.” The birth was very difficult and almost killed Sara. Franklin was her only child and the two of them were very close their entire lives.

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6. This was FDR’s bedroom and he chose this location in the new wing because of the sweeping views of the Hudson River and the mountains. He and Eleanor shared the room until his attack of infantile paralysis. The telephone on the wall was a secretly coded telephone with a direct line to the White House during WWII.

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7. FDR and Eleanor are both buried here at Springwood House in the Rose Garden. The President died from a stroke at Warm Springs, Georgia on April 12, 1945. President Roosevelt was our only President to be elected to 4 terms before it was changed to a 2-term maximum. While in office he established many programs that helped to improve the lives of Americans, like: Social Security, the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the establishment of minimum wage and unemployment insurance.

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Now here is something interesting that our parents did not know. When at a summer resort at the age of 39, FDR had been swimming and hiking and enjoying the outdoors. He began to feel tired and develop muscle aches over several days… but he thought that he had just over-done things. He walked upstairs one day and found himself paralyzed the next morning… never to walk again. As it turned out, 5 other boy scouts who were also on vacation that week, at the same location, also developed polio!!!

FDR refused to just succumb to the disease and always felt that he would walk again. He did develop a shuffling, twisting-type movement that could be accomplished with help from supporters at his side, but he never walked alone again.

He heard about a clinic in Warm Springs, Georgia that had warm, healing waters that were supposed to be therapeutic… so he headed down to the clinic. Once he got there he was SHOCKED at the deplorable condition of the establishment, but saw there were so many people from all socio-economic levels there who were searching for a miracle cure… so he spent 3/4 of his trust fund and BOUGHT THE PLACE! He immediately began refurbishing it into a state of the art facility. There were donation boxes set up at the spa asking for “dimes,” and people from far and wide would bring their “dimes” to deposit in these donation boxes to help pay for therapies for those unable to pay. People started calling this parade of people bringing in their dimes as “the march of dimes” and that is how THE MARCH OF DIMES got started! But to take it one step further, when the USA redesigned the “dime,” they replaced the Liberty Head face with the face of Franklin Delano Roosevelt… who to this day remains as the face on the dime because of his work to help with polio!!! WOW… just WOW! ???❤️❤️❤️❤️

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NOTE: Please check our post from yesterday because the email notifications are not working properly and we have posted it twice without results. Just scroll back through previous posts to check for any you might have missed.