The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-12-14
BY PAUL HARRISON
NEA Service Writer

BY PAUL HARRISON
NEA Service Writer
A S it does to most cloSely-knit
IA families, the growing-up pro-
cess brought periodic heartaches
and separations to the RooSe-
velts.
Slim, blond Anna, eldest of the
five children, and James, who was
taller, but eighteen months her
junior, had been constant COM
panions during their years in
Washington.
But in the spring of 1919, when
Anna was IS, she was taken on
her first trip to Europe, and was
to spend the following winter at
the family home in Hyde Park,
N. Y, with a governess.
James was scheduled to go di-
rectly from st. Adams school in
Washington to Groton school in
Groton, Mass, where his father
had been graduated at the turn
Vi OIlG century.
And he was to leave a discon-
solate brother, Elliott, then 9, but
grown husky and active in follow
ing the elder children'S lead in
their games.
Franklin Jr., 5, and john, 3, also
left at home, didn't care so much
about the division of the family.
To them it meant relief from their
unenviable status as babies"
TOWARD the end of the Will
Il son administration, through
which Franklin Roosevelt had
served as assistant secretary OF
the navy, the time came to leave
the R street house which Mrs.
Roosevelt had managed so dill
gently.
According to the recommended
lions of the food administr Ntion
during the war days, it had been
a model type for large households,
and much was written of the way
the capable mother had modified
herself, her husband, their chill
dren, and their ten servants into
an efficient and economical unit.
ONE of the last things Anna
Oremembers about their Wash
ington life was trip to the White
House with her mother for tea
with Mrs. Wilson.
She doesn't recall what they
talked about especially, except
that they sat rather stif1y and
were very polite, and that she felt
sorry for the Presidents wife.
The White House was not a happy
place in those trying days during
Woodrow Wilson's decline.
So the Roosevelts went back to
Hyde Park, on the Hudson. And
Franklin Roosevelt, private cit
izen again, hastily put his old law
practice in order and prepared to
make the race for the vice-presi-
dency, with James M. Cox head
ing the national Democratic ticket.
In the big ancestral home, with
its friendly trees and its 500 roll
ing acres, life was resumed on the
rather hectic schedule which since
has been maintained.
Schools, travel abroad, and
visits to the New York house and
to the summer home in New
Brunswick made it a very uncer-
tain schedule indeed. But Hyde
Park always has been home"
THERE had lived Franklin
4 Roosevelt as a boy, and his
father, James Roosevelt, before
him. And there still lives Mrs.
James Roosevelt, Granny to the
children, who tells of the days
when the next President of the
United States was a rollicking
youngster.
Franklin ST., had dogs of his
own when he was 5, a pony at Z,
a gun when he was II, and his
own little sailboat when he was
in his early teens.
So naturally the children had
to have the same things, except
that Anna was only when she
acquired Shetland pony named
Daisy.
They romped in the same cav
ernous attic of the big house
where Franklin ST., had played;
they swan in the same pond, bur-
rowed in the same haymow,
charged across the same fields.
There are even a few old SER
wants having been scalped by two
generations of Roosevelts.
On rainy days there were hun
dreds of books to read. And they
read voraciously, almost without
preference except for a leaning
toward the older, thumb-smudged
volumes of their parents child
hood.
Sometimes they made up stories,
which were not always entirely
complimentary, about their por-
traited ancestors. Toys never
interested them greatly; it was
more fun to seek treasure in the