Recently I visited New York's Hyde Park. I was there for a reunion of several years of alumni of UCLA's Project India (PI). I have written before about a prior reunion, and I won't belabor the essence of that column, which was that seeing people who shared a railway car with me in the middle of India in the late 50s, way back before anyone we knew had ever traveled that far from home, was intensely positive. I learned more this time about my fellow adventurers. We all knew that illness was a risk of travel to India, so we took precautions such as daily quinine tablets and avoiding many foods. But in the project's first year, one of the young volunteers spent several months recuperating from polio he contracted while in India. Each group over the next few years suffered significant illness, such as amoebic dysentery, typhoid fever and hepatitis.
The true joy of our long weekend together in October was that we rekindled the original spirit of PI, which was that as young idealists we believed that we could each "make a difference." Certainly our own lives were changed forever: We acquired a world view, and many participants eventually pursued diplomatic careers. I would probably not have thought about joining the Peace Corps at the age of 53 without the sense of adventure PI nurtured.
This time our reunion was infused with the spirit of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the wonderful hosting by fellow PIer Chris Breiseth, formerly president of Williams College and now the president of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. We toured the homes of the Roosevelts overlooking the Hudson River, where I was particularly moved by their modest graves in the rose garden near their beloved dog Fala. We shared the space once occupied by FDR and Winston Churchill on the porch of Top Cabin, high above Hyde Park and the Hudson River, as they pondered the prospect of an atomic bomb.
Most of all, though, certain details stood out, representing the delights of being there and also the Roosevelts' amazing contributions.
For example, we learned that the word "summit," as it is used to denote high-powered gatherings, was first used by someone directing a notable to a gathering being held inconveniently at the Top Cabin retreat. (The effort of transporting food and other amenities up the steep road was often daunting). Oh, said the employee, "They're up at the summit."
Eleanor's spirit was barely evident in Springwood, the large family home occupied by her dominant mother-in-law, even though she and FDR raised their family there. Eleanor's room is small and simple. Unlike the Vanderbilt Mansion we also toured, with its "royal fence" around the matriarch's bed, all the Roosevelt homes were relatively modest, even the rooms in which the king and queen of England dined are smaller than many of those in our valley. However, at Val Kill, the cottage where Eleanor initiated industries of local crafts work during the Depression, her character shines through. The mélange of framed photos on the walls, whether of royalty or servants, family or friends, the famous or the humble, are all mixed together without hierarchy. Most telling, Eleanor's desk holds a plaque misspelling her name as Elanor Roosevelt. Given to her by a young friend, the sign remains in spite of its absent "e" because Eleanor didn't want to hurt her feelings.
Val Kill is infused with the sense of the existence of a real family. One can imagine the play of loads of grandchildren on the rolling summer fields around the cottage and in a doll house brought over and reinstalled from Springwood.
More details speak of the human quality of Hyde Park's inhabitants—Franklin's childhood efforts to capture and understand the birds of the Hudson reside in a treasured entry hall cabinet; his bedroom closet contains his compact wheelchair and a famous gray fedora hat; the table at Val-Kill is set as it was when Eleanor lived there, everyday dime store glasses left on the table so children wouldn't feel bad if they broke one. All these things made me yearn for a less pompous time, for the grace, energy and intelligence of the Roosevelts. Where are they when we need them most?
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A footnote: Thank you to my readers who asked about Oscar, my doggie whose exploits have been well recorded here. Sadly, he died last week. May he frolic somewhere in a heavenly Corral Creek.
JoEllen Collins
