Monday, Apr. 23, 1945
Afternoon on Pine Mountain
Bad weather had held up the plane which brought the President's daily mail from Washington, so it was late that morning before Mr. Roosevelt got down to work. His secretary suggested that he might want to have lunch first, but the President said no; he had a busy afternoon ahead, he would start right in.
He sat beside the fireplace in the cozy, cluttered living room of the cottage at Warm Springs--the Little White House--while his secretary, stooped, lanky William Hassett, helped him sort through the mail. At one end of the room his cousins Laura Delano and Margaret Suckley sat chatting. The warm Georgia sun climbed over Pine Mountain. It was April 12.
There were a lot of things to sign--several State Department nominations, some postmasters' appointments, some citations for the Legion of Merit, the bill to extend the life of the Commodity Credit Corp. When he got to the bill, Franklin Roosevelt grinned at Bill Hassett, spoke the words that always made his secretary smile back: ".Here's where I make a law."
Mrs. Elizabeth Shoumatoff, a portrait painter, came in. She had once done a portrait of Franklin Roosevelt and now was anxious to do another. She had driven down from her Long Island home several days before and had been making sketches. Hassett gingerly collected the papers, letting the President's signatures dry.
"Don't mind me," Hassett remarked. "I'm waiting for my laundry to dry."
The President laughed. Mrs. Shoumatoff remembered afterwards: "He was so gay."
Mr. Hassett left, leaving a stack of state papers within easy reach of the President's chair. The artist sketched while Miss Suckley crocheted. The President unconcernedly shuffled his papers.
Good Brunswick Stew. He felt better. Utter weariness had kept him close to the cottage ever since he had arrived in Warm Springs, a little less than two weeks ago. He had seen few people. A week before, he had received President Sergio Osmena of the Philippines, and had told Osmena that he hoped the Commonwealth might soon achieve its independence. He had looked drawn beneath his tan then.
But this afternoon he was going to a barbecue. He had told his friend Jess Long, Georgia peach grower, to "make some of that good Brunswick stew of yours." In the evening, the polio patients at his beloved Warm Springs Foundation were going to give a minstrel show for him. He was looking forward to both affairs.
Miss Suckley glanced his way. He had suddenly slumped sideways in his chair and, alarmed, she ran across the room to him. She heard him mutter: "I have a terrific headache." The women stood aghast at what they saw. The President fainted.
They called his Negro valet. Big Arthur Prettyman, veteran of 20 years in the Navy, was accustomed to helping the crippled President around. With the help of "Joe," a Filipino mess boy, he lifted the unconscious man in his arms and carried him into the bedroom.
The Fiddlers Wait. There, in the small, plain room with its paneled walls and scatter rugs and the picture of a ship and a ticking brass chronometer, doctors found the stricken President. They untied his tie, took off his grey suit and put pajamas on him. They were Commander Howard Bruenn, a heart specialist of the Navy Surgeon General's staff, who had been detailed to the President 15 months ago, Lieut. Commander George Fox, White House medical aide, Dr. James Paullin of Atlanta, who had been called in. But there was little they or anyone else could do. He had suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage (see MEDICINE). They could only wait and pray. It would not be long.
Up at the hilltop home of Mayor Fred Allcorn, half a hundred other people also waited--for the President to come to the barbecue. Jess Long had made the Brunswick stew. Fiddlers from the neighborhood tuned their violins.
At the foot of Pine Mountain, in the Foundation's playhouse, children in wheelchairs were busily rehearsing the show which they were going to put on that evening for their devoted "Rosy." Excitement was high. Rosy himself had suggested "The Polio Minstrel Show."
The shadows of the pines grew longer. In the bedroom of the Little White House one of the physicians looked at the time. It was 3:35 (C.W.T.). Death, at that moment, had come to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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