THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE: Roosevelt’s Retreat in Warm Springs, GA

52 Places to Go: Week 28

Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Little White House," Warm Springs, GA

Franklin D. Roosevelt first came to Warm Springs Georgia in 1924 in hopes that the warm waters of the natural springs there would help him recover from polio. Over the next twenty one years he came there many times, staying in the small white cottage he built on land he purchased nearby, which, during the years he was President (1932-1945) became known as the “Little White House.” It was there that he died on April 12, 1945, when he suffered a massive heart attack while sitting for a portrait by painter Elizabeth A. Shoumatoff.

Elizabeth A. Shoumatoff's unfinished portrait is on exhibit in the visitor center

Today Roosevelt’s house and a museum with mementos of his life in Warm Springs are open to the public. It is operated by the Georgia State Parks as a State Historic Site. The treatment pools where he swam can also be seen, along with exhibits about the kinds of therapy that was offered to victims of polio like Roosevelt.

Bullock House Restaurant

I visited Warm Springs when Art and I were in Georgia visiting relatives near Atlanta in May 2018. We took a day trip, arriving in time for lunch at Bullock House Restaurant on the town’s historic main street, choosing from a buffet of classic Southern foods including catfish, hush puppies, collard greens, fried chicken.

FDR was an avid stamp collector

After lunch our first stop was the Little White House Visitor Center, where we purchased our tickets and watched a short film before touring the museum. The museum is filled with items from Roosevelt’s personal life such as the 1938 Ford Convertible with hand controls, his stamp collection, his cane collection, and a 1930s kitchen with his “Fireside Chats” playing on the radio.

In a speech given January 6, 1941 Roosevelt insisted that people in all nations of the world shared Americans' entitlement to four freedoms: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

On one wall is a display of the Four Freedoms posters made from paintings by Norman Rockwell. They were used to promote the selling of war bonds during World War II. On another wall is a series of displays honoring Franklin’s wife Eleanor.

Eleanor Roosevelt

From the Visitor Center we went outside for the short walk to Roosevelt’s house, stopping at the guest house and servant’s quarters. Inside Roosevelt’s cottage, a very knowledgeable park ranger answered questions and helped us imagine what it was like when Roosevelt lived there.

Wheelchair fashioned by mounting a kitchen chair on wheels

The rooms inside the cottage are small and cozy and largely unchanged since Roosevelt’s time. A special wheelchair, small enough to fit through the narrow doorways sits in the corner; next to it is a statue of Fala, Roosevelt’s faithful dog.

Photographs of FDR at the Warm Springs Pools

A mile from the museum are the pools where Roosevelt went for therapy. No longer used, they have been drained but photos from the past show them full of people.  A small museum at the pools tell about the springs and the town’s history, including Roosevelt’s founding of the adjacent Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute.

The pools once used by FDR were replaced by an indoor pool closer to the treatment center.

A visit to Warm Springs is a trip back in time. It is one thing to read about FDR in the history books. It is another to walk in his footsteps. As the cover of the park brochure proclaims, a visit to Roosevelt’s Little White House is to experience the inspirational retreat of a man who changed America.
The Little White House is located 70 miles south of Atlanta, Georgia. For more information go to www.GeorgiaStateParks.org .

This article was first published on 7/16/18.

All text and photographs copyright Caroline Arnold.

MARTHA, THE LAST PASSENGER PIGEON, at the Natural History Museum, Washington, DC

Illustration of a Passenger Pigeon by Mark Catesby, The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, 1729-1747

Once there were billions.  Now there are none. One hundred and fifty years ago gigantic flocks of passenger pigeons blackened the skies of North America. However, due to indiscriminate hunting and habitat destruction, the flocks rapidly diminished, and by 1914 only one passenger pigeon remained alive. She was known as “Martha” and lived in the Cincinnati Zoo.  When she died one hundred years ago, the species became extinct.

Passenger Pigeons; Martha, #11, on left

Martha’s body was sent to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, where she was preserved and put in the research collection. She has been off of public view since the 1960's, but in this centenary of her demise, she is once again on view and is the center of a special exhibit, Once There Were Billions: Vanished Birds of North America.

Recently, I had a chance to visit the Natural History Museum and see Martha for myself, along with other now extinct birds including the Carolina Parakeet, Great Auk and the Heath Hen.  Martha is displayed with several other passenger pigeons from the museum collection and with historic illustrations from the archives of the Smithsonian library. Distinctive features of the passenger pigeon are warm pink breast feathers and soft grey feathers on the back and wings. (Passenger pigeons are related to another native American species, the band-tailed pigeon-- not the ubiquitous pigeons that inhabit our towns and cities, a non-native species imported from Europe.)

The passenger pigeon was among the many birds painted by John James Audubon for his book The Birds of America. In 1940, Norman Rockwell painted a picture for Look Magazine depicting a scene of Audubon observing passenger pigeons in flight.

Great Auk with Audubon print above

The Smithsonian’s Great Auk is one of about 80 museum specimens. Living in large colonies along North Atlantic shores, the birds were easily slaughtered for their meat, eggs, feathers, and oil.  They were extinct by the mid-1800's.

Heath Hen

In colonial times, Heath Hens flourished from Maine to Virginia, but they were tasty and easy to kill and their numbers quickly declined. The last heath hen, living in a sanctuary on Martha’s Vineyard, died in 1932.

Carolina Parakeets

Carolina Parakeets, prized as decorations for ladies’ hats, became extinct in the wild by 1904; the last one died in captivity in 1918.

The story of the last Passenger Pigeon and the disappearance of the Great Auk, Carolina Parakeet and Heath Hen, illustrate the fragile connections between species and their environment.  This exhibit reminds us all that we need to pay attention to the natural world and the complex connections of all the living things in it.

Note: Audubon Magazine featured the story of the Passenger Pigeon in its June 2014 issue, which included a pull-out origami Passenger Pigeon and link to a website “Fold the Flock” designed to create awareness of the Passenger Pigeon's plight as the folded birds are added to the virtual flock.  For more, click HERE to see my post at my Caroline Arnold Art and Books blog.