Remembering FDR
On this day 66 years ago, on April 12th. 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Georgia at the age of 63.
Roosevelt had attended the Yalta Conference two months earlier, where he was reported to be in poor health. Lord Moran, Winston Churchill's physician, said of Roosevelt's health: "He is a very sick man. He has all the symptoms of hardening of the arteries of the brain in an advanced stage, so that I give him only a few months to live". Lord Moran was spot on in his prediction.
On March 29, 1945, Roosevelt went to Warm Springs, Georgia, a community famous for its spas. Roosevelt had a home there which was referred to as his "Little White House". He went there to rest before his anticipated appearance at the founding conference of the United Nations. It was rumoured that he was considering resigning from the presidency to become the first Secretary General of the United Nations.
On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed a massive cerebral hemorrhage (stroke) and Roosevelt at 3:35 pm that day, Roosevelt died.
At the time he died, Roosevelt had been sitting for a portrait painting by the artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff. That portrait is now famously known as the "Unfinished Portrait of FDR".
In his later years at the White House, Roosevelt was increasingly overworked and his daughter
FRD's daughter Anna Roosevelt Boettiger had moved into the White House to provide her father support and she had been at Warm Springs with him when he died, Anna had also arranged for her father to meet with his former mistress, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. The artist Shoumatoff, who maintained close friendships with both Roosevelt and Mercer, rushed Mercer away to avoid negative publicity and implications of infidelity.
On the morning of April 13, Roosevelt's body was placed in a flag-draped coffin and loaded onto the presidential train. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt was transported back to Hyde Park by train, guarded by four servicemen from the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. According to his wishesd, Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of the Springwood estate, the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park on April 15. Eleanor, who died in November 1962, was buried next to him.
Roosevelt had attended the Yalta Conference two months earlier, where he was reported to be in poor health. Lord Moran, Winston Churchill's physician, said of Roosevelt's health: "He is a very sick man. He has all the symptoms of hardening of the arteries of the brain in an advanced stage, so that I give him only a few months to live". Lord Moran was spot on in his prediction.
On March 29, 1945, Roosevelt went to Warm Springs, Georgia, a community famous for its spas. Roosevelt had a home there which was referred to as his "Little White House". He went there to rest before his anticipated appearance at the founding conference of the United Nations. It was rumoured that he was considering resigning from the presidency to become the first Secretary General of the United Nations.
On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed a massive cerebral hemorrhage (stroke) and Roosevelt at 3:35 pm that day, Roosevelt died.
At the time he died, Roosevelt had been sitting for a portrait painting by the artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff. That portrait is now famously known as the "Unfinished Portrait of FDR".
In his later years at the White House, Roosevelt was increasingly overworked and his daughter
FRD's daughter Anna Roosevelt Boettiger had moved into the White House to provide her father support and she had been at Warm Springs with him when he died, Anna had also arranged for her father to meet with his former mistress, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. The artist Shoumatoff, who maintained close friendships with both Roosevelt and Mercer, rushed Mercer away to avoid negative publicity and implications of infidelity.
On the morning of April 13, Roosevelt's body was placed in a flag-draped coffin and loaded onto the presidential train. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt was transported back to Hyde Park by train, guarded by four servicemen from the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. According to his wishesd, Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of the Springwood estate, the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park on April 15. Eleanor, who died in November 1962, was buried next to him.