Stamps Like Champs: Let the Ranger Do Their Job

Today we toured Franklin's and Eleanor's houses in Hyde Park, NY. We started at Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site and had about 15 minutes to kill before our tour started. We used that time wisely and went into the FDR Museum and Presidential Library which is a great museum full of info and exhibits throughout FDR's life. The tour was even better! I always recommend a ranger-led tour whenever you can at any park because they are always chock-full of information! Even better if you can pull him or her aside at some point to ask a question - sometimes you get really cool information you would never expect to get. This happened today with Ranger John Foraker. We were talking about how many parks we have been to so far and he was telling us he needs to get to Alaska before the end of next year. There is a mountain out there named after one of his distant relatives that will likely be renamed to the original name of the mountain (along the lines of Mt. McKinley being renamed to Denali). Then he told us about why his relative was important other than some sort of government job along the way - Joe Foraker is the only person to ever have punched Teddy Roosevelt in the nose. This got a good laugh out of us especially since the squabble was over a football game!

Ranger Foraker was incredibly knowledgeable of all things Roosevelt and Steve and I learned a whole bunch of new tidbits of information today. I knew Teddy and Franklin were distant cousins, but I never knew that Teddy was actually Eleanor's uncle and he walked her down the aisle at her wedding to Franklin while Teddy was president! Eleanor's maiden name was Roosevelt already, so she didn't even need to change her name. When Franklin was born he was 10 pounds, and all six of his children with Eleanor were 10+ pounds as well!

During the tour the ranger spoke about how Franklin emulated a lot of his life after Teddy (literally followed every one of his footsteps throughout life and his career). One of the many things they shared in common was that they were both the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The first keel FDR commissioned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy was the USS Arizona. As soon as the ranger mentioned this I had chills and goosebumps down my arms. If you don't know why I had this reaction let me remind you that December 7, 1941, is "a day that will live in infamy" when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and sank the USS Arizona during FDR's presidency. Pretty strange how that all came full circle.

The house itself was beautiful and it was the house FDR was born in, he grew up there, and then spent his married life there and raised children at that house all with his mother right down the hall. Mama's boy, much?? Eleanor never owned a house of her own until Val-Kill was built, but I'll talk more about that later. One of the rooms in FDR's house was where he met with Winston Churchill while they reviewed a letter from Albert Einstein about the atomic bomb. Also, King George VI and the Queen Mother visited this home. The ranger told us a funny story about that visit - FDR had several political cartoons hanging in the foyer right outside the dining room that were from the Revolution and the War of 1812, so they weren't favorable to the British. Sara, FDR's mother (who owned the house), asked him to take the cartoons down before the royals arrived. Long story short, they ended up arriving sooner than anticipated and he didn't take the cartoons down. King George did see them and read each one for about 10 minutes and it was dead silent in the room while he did it. Afterwards, he says with a smile to FDR in front of Eleanor and Sara that it looks an awful lot like his collection at home. Turns out FDR and King George bonded quite a bit and that could have been partially due to both of them having disabilities (FDR was paralyzed by this time and King George VI was a stutterer).

One last story to share about Fala, FDR's beloved scottie. Fala and Franklin bonded instantly and were inseparable as soon as they bonded. Because of this, Fala became a celebrity too. Before Fala came along, you would have no idea where the president was unless you were secret service or in the "need-to-know" circle. Once Fala acquired his own fame, and people recognized his name being said by secret service, people would just follow the dog to see the president. This created a security issue, so they gave Fala a code name: The Informer.

Dining Room

Study

Political Cartoons

Wheelchair lift

FDR's bedroom - the chair at the foot of the bed is where Fala would sleep

FDR's house, called Springhill

The final resting places of Franklin and Eleanor

Fala's final resting place

Sorry the FDR blog is so long, but it really was a cool house and rangers always have a way of making a site more interesting especially when they are as passionate as Ranger Foraker was!

After FDR's site we had lunch at Hyde Park Brewing Company. The food was great, the beer was mediocre.

After lunch, we headed over to Val-Kill (Valley + Kill means "Stream" in Dutch), which is the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site. We hopped on to a tour here where we learned that the home Eleanor built was the old factory for the Val-Kill Furniture company. We also learned that Eleanor was Val-Kill's number one customer and many of the furniture pieces in her house were from the factory. Her house was so cozy and had such a warm, "homey" feeling to it - so different from the home she shared with Franklin and his mother that seemed to spare no expense.

Here's where the title of the blog post comes up. This tour drove Steve and I bonkers! We take ranger-led tours to hear what the ranger has to say, not what the know-it-all people have to say. Additionally, a tour is not a chance to play "Stump the Ranger." I exercised so much patience on this tour for the people that were on it even though I would have taken much pleasure taking duct tape to their mouths. To give you an idea of how bad this was, remember, we are at a site dedicated to Eleanor. The minute the tour started, four people on the tour immediately asked questions about FDR and his political career. This ranger didn't know everything about it, nor did I expect her to since this was a site for ELEANOR! The FDR site is two miles down the road people, go learn about him there! I get that there might be some side questions about FDR at this site, but this monopolized quite a bit of the tour. When we got into the house, the questions continued. At least this time they were about Eleanor. "Did she write her books in long hand?" "Oh, she typed her books? Was she a touch typist?" "Was that where she would have stored the silver pieces when she lived here?" "How did Sara treat her?" "Was that the chair she read in?" OH MY GOD! Yes, she probably did read in that chair. Yes, she and Sara got along. Yes, she typed her books, who the heck cares if she could touch type?! I'm not exaggerating, those were actual questions asked on this tour. I love ranger-led tours, but I think my favorites are the ones where it is just Steve and me. :-)