Since I haven't seen anything else about this on the diary list today, I wanted to spend a few minutes remembering our 32nd (and arguably greatest) President, who died on this date 64 years ago.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's passing threw the nation into mourning and into speculation about whether his successor, a former haberdasher named Harry S. Truman, was up to the job.
But the pain of the nation upon losing its beloved four-term President was both deep and obvious. Let's look at that day and its immediate aftermath.
Take a look below the crease:
Roosevelt's death occurred at "The Little White House" in Warm Springs, GA, a place he frequently visited for treatment of his polio-ravaged legs:
Photo Courtesy delanoye.org
Roosevelt, exhausted and sickly, arrived on March 30 from Washington. He was feeling much better after a week in the Georgia air, and Lucy Rutherford and her friend Elizabeth Shoumatoff arrived on Monday, April 9. Shoumatoff was there to do a portrait of the President.
On April 11, Roosevelt worked on a draft of his upcoming Jefferson Day speech, well-crafted words and sentiments that would mirror his faith in the American spirit: "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow, will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith."
Source
The following day, April 12, Shoumatoff began working on the portrait. Then
At around 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, the butler brought FDR and his party their lunch. At that moment, Roosevelt seemed agitated and flinched in his chair. An assistant asked the President if he needed help. FDR's head went forward. He gripped his head with his left hand and said, "I have a terrific headache." They would be his final words. The President collapsed and lost consciousness.
The President's physician, Dr. Bruenn, who had accompanied him to Warm Springs, was summoned to the President's bedroom, where he had been moved. Roosevelt struggled to survive, but his breathing had stopped. Despite desperate attempts at artificial respiration and a shot of adrenaline into his heart, the President was pronounced dead at 3:35 p.m.
Shoumatoff's unfinished portrait of FDR:
Photo Courtesy delanoye.org
By 5:30pm, Truman arrived at the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt gave him the news. Mrs. Roosevelt then flew to Georgia. With the Cabinet quickly assembled, Truman was sworn in by 7pm:
Photo Courtesy doglegs.net
Thanks to radio, news of the President's death spread quickly. The following day, the headlines looked like this:
Photo Courtesy delanoye.org Photo Courtesy gigabyte.com
Servicemen read of it, and ordinary Americans wept:
Photo Courtesy archives.gov Photo Courtesy howstuffworks.com
FDR's funeral train, with Mrs. Roosevelt aboard, started on its way from Warm Springs to Washington on April 13. Accordionist Graham Jackson reflected a nation's grief as he played "Going Home":
Photo Courtesy Time, Inc. via georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu
Soldiers stood at attention as the train arrived in Atlanta:
Photo Courtesy Georgia State University Special Collections
Also in Atlanta, the President's dog Fala went for a walk beside the train carrying his master's body:
Photo Courtesy Time, Inc.
Mourners, including Clemson College cadets, waited for a glimpse at the Clemson (SC) Station:
Photo Courtesy Pickens County Library System
And as it rolled through Charlottesville, VA at dawn:
Photo Courtesy albermarlehistory.org
On Saturday, funeral services were held in Washington, D.C.:
Photo Courtesy historycentral.com
Roosevelt is interred at his family's Hyde Park, NY estate:
Photo Courtesy bluejeansplace.com
The FDR Memorial now stands in Washington, D.C.:
Photo Courtesy blondechris.com
Upon his death, the New York Times editorialized:
Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. It was his hand, more than that of any other single man, that built the great coalition of the United Nations. It was his leadership which inspired free men in every part of the world to fight with greater hope and courage. Gone is the fresh and spontaneous interest which this man took, as naturally as he breathed air, in the troubles and the hardships and the disappointments and the hopes of little men and humble people.
Photo Courtesy Howard Payne University