Hyde Park visit
In honor of my new Franklin Roosevelt trading card, I recently took a quick visit to Hyde Park with my friend Randy. We need to return with more time (and get into FDR’s house!). Until then, keep scrolling for a few photos, trivia, and doodles.
FDR was conceived in Paris, France.
(And his mother had no more “physical relations” for the remainder of her marriage. Nearly two decades.)At 5 years old, President Grover Cleveland told him that he hoped FDR would never become president.
FDR’s grandfather, Warren Delano, imported medicinal opium from China.
He studied in Germany … and learned some unsettling topics.
In 1933, an assassination attempt in Miami left an anti-Roosevelt mayor dead instead.
The trivia above is from one of the first books I doodled — FDR: A Biography by Ted Morgan …
Compare it with the more recent doodles (below) from The Daughters of Yalta by Catherine Grace Katz. More doodles can be here, but honestly — just read the book. You won’t be disappointed.
Cardiology wasn’t really a thing until 1934. By the time FDR was diagnosed with acute congestive heart failure a decade later, it was still a pretty new profession.
Following his diagnosis, his doctor advised that he only work four hours a day.
(Leader of the free world during a world war: part time gig…?)His daughter Anna traveled with him to the Yalta Conference, as did the daughters of Winston Churchill and Averell Harriman.
Stalin hired secret undercover doctors to meet the Allies and see if FDR was sick as he’d heard. They did. He was.
He’s the first POTUS buried where he was born.
(Is this shocking to anyone else? I would have thought maybe the last, not the first.)
Inspired by The President Is Dead! The Extraordinary Stories of the Presidential Deaths, Final Days, Burials, and Beyond by Louis Picone
Until next time…
More photos to come when I make it back to Hyde Park with more time to explore. Plus, I have Roosevelt Sweeps Nation by David Pietruisza waiting patiently for me to read and doodle. (Comment below and let me know what you think, if you’ve read it.)
Visit my full bibliography for more sources.
Eventually, I plan to have my trading cards available for purchase in an online store. If you can’t wait to get your hands on a set, let me know.
