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May 2018
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boatingonthehudson.com
“Hi, my name is Ralph, and
I’m going to be your tour
guide for the next four days.”
As a life-long resident of the mid-Hudson Valley, I’ve spent a lot of time Boating
on the Hudson (and Beyond...), hiking, biking, canoeing, skiing, cross-country
skiing, and, tour-guiding.
For several happy years I guided Historic Hudson Valley tours, visiting the
FDR and Vanderbilt estates, Innisfree and Wethersfield Gardens, the Millbrook
Vineyards, Uncle Sonny’s in Standfordville (sampling his famous tomato soup
and grilled cheese sandwiches), etc.,etc.
The evening before we set out touring, I’d give my clients a rundown of what
to expect the following day. We were all taught a bit about the Roosevelts, the
Vanderbilts, and, Henry Hudson, probably as far back as grammar school. But,
did anyone ever tell you, for example, that Frederick Vanderbilt married the
divorced wife of one of his sister’s sons???!!! I’ll bet not.
The Roosevelts
The property goes back to the late 1700’s, as a working farm, with absentee
landlords. FDR’s father, James, bought the property in 1876 with his first wife
Rebecca Howland and their son James. They always had property in Manhattan,
and wintered in the city or Europe, and summered on the farm. Rebecca died in
1876 and James married Sara Delano of Newburgh (!!!) in 1880, and Franklin
was born January 30, 1882 in the Hyde Park “house”. His father was 54, his
mother was 28...
Fast forward to March 17, 1905, when then 23-year-old Franklin marries his
cousin (Jerry Lee Lewis was raked over the coals 52 years later for doing pretty
much the same thing, but, then again, Myra was 13 years old) Anna Eleanor
Roosevelt in New York City: uncle Theodore Roosevelt “gave her away”. March
17th was Anna’s (Eleanor’s) mother’s birthday. Her mother died when she was 8,
her father died when she was 11. She was raised by her mother’s mother, in New
York City and their family home in Tivoli.
In 1915 FDR and his mother (a HUGE influence on him all his life) enlarged
the Hyde Park “house” from 17 to 35 rooms to make room for FDR’s growing
family: Eleanor and FDR had six children, five lived to adulthood. The enlarged
house became the relatively modest sea-foam-green-shuttered mansion (think
of the grey looming stone hulks of the Vanderbilt and Mills mansions, right up the
river) that we now know as “Springwood”. Besides Springwood, the Roosevelts
acquired “Campobello”, in New Brunswick, in 1883, and Warm Springs, Georgia,
in 1924.
I think it’s pretty safe to say we all picture FDR as an older man with a grey
suit wearing wire-rimmed glasses, sitting down, smiling, holding a cigarette in
a cigarette holder. There’s a picture of him in Springwood as a young man: tall,
lean, fit, and very good-looking, wearing tennis (or nautical???) whites; he golfed
and he sailed. He always loved the sea, and as President always “had use of
presidential yachts”, and “loved to sail on the big naval ships, all over the world”.
He spoke, and wrote, both German and French.
33-year-old FDR was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910 and re-
elected in 1912. He resigned in 1913, becoming Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
He resigned in 1920 to run for Vice President to Democrat James M. Cox, but they
were slammed, almost 4 to 1, by Republican Warren G. Harding. A polio attack
in 1921 (he was only 39...) then “kept him out of the political spotlight”. He was
elected Governor of New York State in 1928 and 1930, and the 32nd President
by
Ralph J. Ferrusi