The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-04-16

Mrs. Roosevelt and Washington
officials left Hyde Park by special
train for Washington, little more
than three hours after they ar.
rived here.
The Rev. Mr.. Anthony went to
the tiny Church of St. James,
where the President had been
senior warden. There 300 sor-
rowing villagers paid tribute to
their neighbor at memorial SER
vice.
The church was crowded. Men
and women knelt in the aisles.
But the one pew was empty-tne
one in which Mr.. Roosevelt used to
sit.
ALI about the old UNCOVERED
church were memories. There was
his pew; there the graveyard
where his mother and father ne
beside son of the President who
died in infancy; there the stained
glass window dedicated to the
memory of James Roosevelt, the
| President fatner.
Many shed tears as they sang
the words of one f-his favorite
hymns: 20 Master, Help Me Bear
the Strain Of Toll. The Fret OF
Care"
Others wept when the congrega-
ton stood in tribute to the flag
and sang the National Anthem.
The Rev. Mr.. Anthony read
from Mr.. Rooseyelt's favorite
Biblical passage: and now
abideth faith, hope, and charity,
but the greatest of these is chart
ty."
81 know of no other man among
the worlds leaders who would be
so universally lamented," the
white-bearded minister said in his
sermon, broadcast over N. B. c.
He is as truly a casually OF the
war as any member of the armed
forces He was a great lover
of mankind.
'Now he is at rest in the COM
munity which he loved.
HE has come back home.
A special train, rolling north
ward from Washington through the
night brought the late Chief Elk
ecutive's body to Hyde Park.
Thousands of plain people OF the
towns and cities through which
it passed stood for hours in the
night to bid reverent, sad fare
well.
Aboard the train were the high
est officials of a nation which
Franklin Roosevelt had served
through trying years Of peace and
war.
The man who picked up the
reins Of Government which Mr..
Roosevelt dropped SO suddenly,
President Harry S. Truman, was
there. So were the Cabinet, the
Supreme Court, the family and
dozens of friends.
Shortly before 9 a. m. (EWIo,
the train came to stop beside
the Hudson river. AS lad, Mr..
ROOSEVELT had sailed its waters
in summer and skinned its ice
in winter.
The casket, still covered by the
flag it wore at State funeral ser
vices at the White House yester-
day, was lifted from the rear car
of the train by men in uniform.
Slowly it was taken up the steep,
twisting road leading from the
river to the wooded slope at the
rear of the Roosevelt estate.
Plaintively, Mr.. Roosevelt had
spoken many times of yearning
to return to the ancestral lands he
loved. Every inch of+that had been
delight to him. Every neighbor
for miles he knew by first name.
But retirement to the life of 1
country squire had been denied
him. He had died Thursday of a
cerebral hemorrhage at his 9th
er home" at Warm Springs, Ga.
Even as he accepted nomination
for third term in 1910, Mr.. Roose-
welt had declared it would have
been his personal preference to
leave public life. Again last year,
in agreeing to run for a fourth
term, he had voiced longing to
go back to Hyde Park as private
citizen.
He had seen war coming and
then had watched it break in all its
fury. If America felt it needed his
services, he felt it his duty to give
them.
Today there were services OF
another kind, for him alone-Epis-
lcopal burial services, read by
the elderly rector of the ivy-clad
village church of which he was SEN
ior warden.
The casket was borne to Wash
ington's Union Station late last
night in a plain black hearse. Thou
sands of residents of a still stun
ned Capital stood bare-headed
along the route.
AS it was placed aboard the
train, an Army band played the
National Anthem. And, as a guard
of honor of four men from the
armed forces took their places, the
music Of a well-loved hymn, Rock
OF Ages" spread through the
warm night. ~
Stiffly braced against the lurch-
ing of the train, the honor detail
stood guard for two hours. Then
four other men took over, for two
more hours.
The shades were upon every VIM
dow at the rear of the train so the
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