FDR's Deathbed at the Little White House | History Traveler Episode 91

[Music] everybody needs a little bit of rest and relaxation from their job from time to time that's especially true if you are the president of the united states and it's even more true if you are the president during the worst economic crisis that the world has ever seen and during a world war well franklin delano roosevelt that place where he got rest and relaxation was right here in warm springs georgia now as the name of the town implies this is the site of some natural warm springs that come out of the ground at about 88 degrees and roosevelt who had been afflicted with polio earlier in his life found the the warm springs to be therapeutic established an organization here where other people afflicted with polio could could come and kind of bathe in what he considered to be the healing waters uh here in warm springs and he also liked it so much that he established a little cottage here that became known as the little white house and we are going to go to the little white house today and see what we can learn [Music] all right so we just got here to the grounds of the little white house we're going to uh go in here to admissions get our ticket and uh yeah see see what we can learn today okay so uh before you get to the little white house they have a museum here so we're going to kind of take a look around and uh see what we can learn about fdr so this is really really cool they have franklin roosevelt's wheelchair here that he used while at warm springs and anytime you see video of franklin roosevelt like giving a speech and he's standing well that's because he's using these leg braces wow this is really cool this is a 1940 willys roadster and this was roosevelt's car that he drove now of course he didn't have the use of his legs so they had to modify it to where he could steer and and drive completely with his hands very cool that they have this here man they just have tons of artifacts from fdr in here one of which is this patio furniture that he used uh here at the at the little white house uh this was a gift from his mother in 1932 just as he was beginning his bid for the presidency now to all of the australian viewers you might like this this is a gift to roosevelt from australia and if you look here you can see there's this wood inlay of the australian continent and this was all made of different australian woods this is kind of neat one of the things that attracted roosevelt to warm springs was of course the the warm spring water that he could swim in to ease his polio ended up having you know a lot of people who had been stricken with polio come down and uh and stay at the resort and kind of recuperate and just kind of work with each other well here's roosevelt's uh swimsuit a little bit different than the swimsuits that men wear now here's a closer look at one of fdr's braces now i think that the ones he used in public like right here he would have those painted black so that they wouldn't stand out and uh you know people wouldn't see that there was a brace there here's another vehicle that belonged to fdr uh here at warm springs and you can see not a license plate there it says fdr-1 and uh as a matter of fact that that tag was made special for him by the georgia state prison um anyway if you move over here we can get a pretty good look at the workings of roosevelt's vehicle so you can see you know everything is set up to where you know he could reach down and do the steering acceleration breaking everything by hand gosh that is so cool that they have this here here's some different items from the depression era the little stove remington typewriter fan and uh right there old zenith radio which is a tool that was modern to the time that roosevelt made use of with his fireside chats to communicate to the nation during the depression now roosevelt was of course a distant cousin to theodore roosevelt who was well known for something called big stick diplomacy and they have some campaign items here i guess from the 30s and here this says teddy's big stick then roosevelt's big stick so making the point that uh this roosevelt was was a little more serious i guess than the than the first one so franklin was a much beloved figure and a lot of people sent him gifts including all of these canes holy smokes these little items here are always interesting to me these are just like personal pieces that belong to roosevelt including this um like a desk set and these monogrammed suspenders so you can see where it says you know fdr there on the suspenders and his shaving kit [Music] [Laughter] so this is something kind of cool we're on our way to the little white house and they have this walkway with all of the different states and each state has its own like either piece of wood or uh stone from their state to represent them so for example this is a chunk of iron stone from louisiana some of the states got a little bit more creative than others such as maine with this gray granite [Music] interesting yeah massachusetts went all out got a big old hunk of granite here with their state carved in it any guesses which state this stone represents well if you said delaware you're absolutely wrong it's a piece of basalt lava from hawaii arizona skipping out on the stone and going with petrified wood nice touch and from missouri we have a piece of marble in the shape of a triangle i don't know why that's kind of a nice touch here i kind of like that they did that have representation from all of the different states all right so we're within sight now of the little white house and oh my gosh whenever roosevelt called this the little white house uh it was appropriately named all right but before we get to the little white house well even though it is a little vacation home we still have to have security so here's a marine corps century post and then over here is a secret service sentry post and right down here is the little white [Music] house [Music] okay now whenever you come here to the little white house they have you coming in from the side door and into the kitchen so this is where all of um fdr's meals would have been prepared have a little bit of ice water here for the secret service agents yeah love seeing all of this old stuff this right here is the butler's pantry so of course you'd have that right next to the kitchen here in the front parlor room they have another one of roosevelt's wheelchairs and he had several of them this one is a little bit smaller looks to have been made out of like a kitchen chair so yeah it seems like it would have been difficult for him to kind of fit in that but yeah that's another one of his wheelchairs what we're looking at here is eleanor roosevelt's bedroom so this is just adjacent to fdr's bedroom towards the front of the house fdr's is at the the back and there's a second bed in here because sometimes their their kids would accompany them here's something that's that's really pretty interesting about the the little white house roosevelt was terrified of the idea of fire so all of the windows in this house you'll notice go all the way to the floor that way somebody that might be on the floor could open it up and have an easy escape that is kind of an interesting little tidbit here [Music] what we're looking at right here is the living room here at the little white house and fdr he was kind of a navy guy so this is a model ship that he had put together with the help of i think a secret service agent if i'm not mistaken or one of his bodyguards and then you can see you know some books from his library and things like that really the the piece in here that grabs the most attention is this one this is the chair that on april 12 1945 fdr was setting in having his painting done whenever he suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage [Music] wow [Music] so after fdr uh suffered this cerebral hemorrhage he was brought into this room right here this is fdr's bedroom and again april 12 1945 the 32nd president of the united states passed away right here in this bed in this very room probably one of the most beloved presidents that the country had ever known for a lot of people it was the you know he'd been president for 12 years and just sent a shockwave through the nation but wow pretty amazing to to be here in in this room where he passed away so [Music] that was legitimately cool to see the place where really one of the great men of history not not just one of the great men of the united states one of the great men of history uh breathed his final breath pretty amazing we got one more thing that we're going to look at here uh before we leave the little white house so we're in the legacy exhibit right now and this is the 48 star flag that flew over the little white house the day that roosevelt died well this right here is the unfinished portrait this is the portrait of franklin roosevelt that was being painted at the moment that he suffered his cerebral hemorrhage so you can see it was only part way done and and then just left that way wow [Applause] and here we're looking at the finished portrait so this is what the portrait of roosevelt would have looked like had he not suffered the cerebral hemorrhage uh one change though if you look at the tie in the unfinished portrait it's red but in the finished portrait it's blue and that was to kind of help bring out the color in his eyes very interesting [Music] all right well that was the little white house right here in warm springs georgia that place was legitimately cool that might have been one of my favorite stops so far on our trip uh but yeah if you ever get a chance come to this place thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot today [Music] one more quick thing whenever you come to warm springs be sure to stop and eat at chad's oh my gosh best catfish and sweet tea that i've had in a long time [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 112,607

Rating: 4.9654427 out of 5

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Id: a_W27dBNKn4

Length: 16min 14sec (974 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020