The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1946-05-17

This week we mace All q
bile trip up the beautiful Hud-
son river valley to President
Roosevelt's home in HYDE Park,
which has been turned into anu
seum-and one of the most inter
esting museums, in III opinion,
to be found in this country. A
friend of ours named Ernest
Pragst with whom we spent our
schooldays and who ncw lives in
Sehnec ndyi New York, came
down with an automobile and we
all tcok a day off to drive up the
valley for a visit to the museum.
IKE Presidents home is about
seventy miles from New York
City, and the drive is through
some of the most beautiful coun-
tryside in America-rolling, rocky
hills. covered with dogwood which
is just now blooming; lakes and
racky streams, and a handicapped
roadway which has been devel-
oped like a fine park for a hun
dred yards on either side. They
tell me the road is very much
like THIS all the way into Canada,
or about three hundred miles. The
fine state of the roadways up
here is evidence of the great
amount of taxable wealth that is
concentrated in this part of the
country.
About twenty miles before
reaching the museum, the road
turns out of the little hills to
the edge of the Hudson river
itself, and the valley lies in a
magnificent purplish haze as far
as the eve can reach. The banks
of the Hudson are tremendous
walls of stone several hundred
feet nigh, called the Palisades.
They are covered of course with
a carpet of top soil and with
woods and grass, and here on the
sloping shoulders of these hills
are so ne of the most magnificent
mansions in the country. The pres.
ident's home was not one of the
largest or richest, abut is was
certainly one of the most beau
tiful. 1t was an older, stucco
building onto which two wings
of grey field stone had been add
ed in about 1915. The architec-
ture Is graceful and the building
blends with the contours of the
hillock on which ii stands. Inside
the rooms are spacious and COM
Portable, and they have that look
of being slightly worn and
threadbare for all their richness
of rugs, book cases, and hearth
stones, which gives a home a
character and air of age that
spanking new housings and furn-
ishings never achieve. The home
has been left exactly "a it was
at tie time of the Presidents
death. The visitor can stand in
|, the doorway of his great bedroom
and look out through the two
rows of windws upon the beauti-
full river valley far below-just
as the President had done so many
times in his life. His clothes have
been left in the dressing closet
just as they were when he died,
and his familiar straw hat-which
one saw many times in the news
reels when he was pictured Mt
home in the summer time-is in
it's place on the shelf. The chair
for his Seottie dog Fala is in its
place, with the leash thrown over
the arm.
The president is buried not far
from the home in a rose garden
surrounded by a sturdy hedge
of hemlock trees over 100 years
old. A plain white stone, very
massive, resting on a larger mar
bic base. is his only monument.
Not far away is the one story
rectangular building of field stone
which was built to house the his
torie papers of his administration
plus a thousand or more valua-
BILE or simply interesting gifts and
momentos of his earlier life, of the
Roosevelt family, and of his years
+, as president. In the basement.
for example, are quaint carriages
used ov the family during the
| last $50 years, also the odd look
ing iee-boats which We're popular
, with the old Hudson valley aris-
; tocratS who sailed on the frozen
5 river exactly as we sail sloops and
cat boats on the sound. These ice
, boats developed terrific speed,
however. some going sixty and
: seventy miles an hour. There is
a silver loving cup in the museum
which the President won in an
> iceboat regatta in 1905.
. There are also hundreds of
very expensive gifts. many of
them wholly of ceremonial ma
ture-sueh as golden handled
dasgers and swords. given by
{ the king of Saudi Arabia and
other Moslem countries. and
many other gifts representative
OF the culture and the nations
from which they come. These
gifts must be accepted for dip.