National Watermelon Day
FDR on the “Half Moon” eating watermelon with friends, 1906.
📷: NPx 80-163(7)
World Watercolor Month
This painting was a wedding gift to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. It is part of a small set of Venetian scenes presented to the newlyweds in 1905 by Charles Forbes. Forbes was a student and, later, close friend and colleague of John Singer Sargent. He was also a cousin of Sara Delano Roosevelt.
Forbes may have known that the young couple planned to spend part of their honeymoon in Venice. During their time there, Franklin took a photo of Eleanor at a location that resembles the one in the painting.
Eleanor was very fond of the Forbes watercolors. After FDR’s death she displayed them in her New York City apartment. They remained with her until her death in 1962.
Learn more on our Digital Artifact Database: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/30594
📷: NPx 47-96 4927( 8 )
Stuck in the house today? Celebrate FDR’s birthday with us by exploring the lifetime of travels of Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt. Follow this link to explore our online exhibit “Around the World with the Roosevelts”:
http://ow.ly/DSWO50DkLb5
Happy Birthday Teddy!
On this day in 1858, Eleanor Roosevelt’s “Uncle Ted” was born in New York City.
Learn more about TR’s influence on FDR: http://fdrlibraryvirtualtour.org/page04-09.asp
Badge: MO 1947.93.183
Photo: NPx 91-17, 5/4/1915, FDR, vanBenschoten, & TR, Syracuse NY
R is for Ring
Franklin Roosevelt gave Eleanor this engagement ring on her 20th birthday, October 11, 1904. This ring is one of the earliest known examples of the Tiffany Setting which revolutionized jewelry design by raising the diamond above the ring band to allow light to hit the stone from all angles.
Learn more: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/30685/engagement-ring-worn-by-eleanor-roosevelt
National Sports Day
Franklin Roosevelt playing golf at Campobello, 1904.
📷: NPx 47-96:183
L is for Locket
Eleanor Roosevelt wore this gold locket and chain during the early years of her marriage. It bears teeth marks from her young children. The locket’s inscription, “E.F. 1903,” commemorates the Roosevelts’ engagement. The source of the hair in the locket is unknown. Learn more: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/16595/gold-locket-and-chain
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harvard University class of 1903. #CollegeColorsDay
Today is National Golf Day!
Golf was one of FDR’s favorite sports. He was an excellent golfer and won a number of trophies, including those seen above, which he won between 1895 and 1904 at Campobello.
His follow through, shown in the 1904 photograph, is good form for that time, considering the whip of the hickory-shafted clubs.
FDR’s clubs were made by several makers, again characteristic of the time. Shown here are irons and woods made by Robert White, Tom Morris, Robert Simpson, F&A Carrick, Slazenger, D & W Auchterlonie, Hutchison, and Spalding.
After his attack of polio in 1921, FDR clung to the hope that he would again play golf. He retained his active membership in the Dutchess County Gold Club for more than two years after his illness and wrote old golfing partners that he would soon be taking them on. The realization came to him only gradually that he would never again play golf.
Long afterwards, Mrs. Roosevelt said, “The only thing that stands out as evidence of how he suffered when he finally knew that he would never walk again was the fact that I never heard him mention golf from the day he was taken ill. That game epitomized to him the ability to be out of doors and to enjoy the use of his body.”
He never lost his interest in golf, however. When his sons, Franklin, Jr., and John, began playing at courses around Washington in the 1930s, FDR would question them exhaustively about their games, recalling with clarity the layout of courses he had not seen for nearly 20 years.
