OCR Text |
Show 'I'M': Eleanor Roosevelt DEATH OF A COUSIN WASHINGTON. One afternoon the sad news was telephoned to me that my cousin, Mr. Henry Parish, had died very suddenly. When I was young he was always more than kind to me. Mrs. Parish is my godmother god-mother and my mother's double first cousin, so she always took great interest in me and in my younger brothers. My brother Hall and I spent many vacation months with them and Mr. Parish did a great deal to teach us to enjoy the out-of-doors. Later, when I tried to master my own finances, he was patience itself. Though he could never quite teach me the Intricacies of double entry bookkeeping, nor make me keep the kind of accounts which he thought were presentable, still he did a great deal to help me manage my own money. I owe him a debt of gratitude, grati-tude, not only for many good times, but for valuable discipline. In the last years of his life, it must often have been very difficult for him to accept many of the things for which my husband and I stood. Yet he was always sweet to me and ready to offer help if there was anything any-thing he could do of a personal nature. na-ture. I know that none of us has any idea of how many people he has helped and who have depended upon him, both in a business way and in his private life. None of the people who were close to him will know how much he did for them until they miss the little daily things which he did so unobtrusively. I have rarely known a more disciplined or more unselfish character, and I am sure his influence will live long after him. VISIT IN THE SOUTH NEW YORK CITY. I found some friends staying In the house when I reached Washington on return from New York and two of them even joined me at a very early breakfast before I went off to Richmond, Va., by train. Because of some difficulty difficul-ty with a pipe, we were three-quarters of an hour late in leaving Washington, Wash-ington, and by the time we reached Richmond, we were one hour and a half late. I knew that Governor Darden and some of the officers of the Veterans of Foreign Wars were planning to meet me. Luckily, they had discovered discov-ered how late the train was and all we had to do was to hurry through lunch. We reached the hall on time and I was sorry I was not able to stay for the whole meeting. The governor took me on the afternoon aft-ernoon plane, so we had .an opportunity oppor-tunity to talk for a little while. I was impressed by his sincerity and interest in a number of questions which are very important to his own state and to all southern states today. He would like to see his state do on a state scale what the Farm Security Se-curity administration does on a national na-tional scale, in making more productive pro-ductive the poorer farms of the state. If every state would do that, we would cease having soil erosion. We would soon have more intelligent intelli-gent farming which would improve the land for the future and produce more for people to eat and to market mar-ket at the present time. U. S. BOYS IN IRELAND I think you will all be interested In a quotation from "a letter which has just reached me. Lady Reading, Read-ing, who heads the Women's Voluntary Volun-tary services in England, writes: "I have just come back from Northern Ireland, where I met a great number of your people and visited some of your camps. I was immensely struck by the extremely nice type of boy and the freshness of his outlook as well as the sincerity sin-cerity of his beliefs. I do hope they can be mediumly happy on this side of the Atlantic, and that we shall not fail in according to them the measure meas-ure of welcome we wish so earnestly to give them and that we are so characteristically tongue-tied in giving giv-ing " Lady Reading is a fine person and has done extraordinary work in organizing the British women. I hope that in every community which is near a camp where British boys are training as cadets in this country, our Women's Voluntary services will take an interest in their welfare and make them feel at home and try to create a better understanding between them and our own boys. There Is no use thinking that because be-cause the British speak English we shall automatically be friends. We sometimes find their particular brand of English hard to understand and they look upon ours as equally odd. CO-OPERATIVE ARTISTIC GROUP The Yiddish Theater division for the Army and Navy Relief funds is giving a benefit at the National theater in New York City. I hope very much that it will be very successful. suc-cessful. I am much impressed by the way in which the theatrical and other artistic groups throughout the country have actually given, not only of their money, but of their time for these benefit performances. They have brought in a great deal of money throughout the nation and I think all of us are grateful. |