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Eleanor and Franklin
Roosevelt loved picnics. One of their favorite sites was
two miles from Springwood on the banks of Fallkill Creek.
Late in 1924, as ER and her friends and political associates,
Marion Dickerman,
and Nancy Cook, picnicked
with FDR beside the stream, the women noted sadly that this
would be their last outing of the year. FDR suggested that
they build a cottage on the property that could be used as
a year round retreat. He drew up a lease giving all three
of them a life interest in the property, hired an architect,
Henry Tombs, and appointed himself general contractor. The
three women shared the $12,000 construction cost and Stone
Cottage was completed in 1925.
What began as a longing for an informal place to enjoy the
company of friends and family, grew into a vibrant center
of ER's complex public and private life. Val-Kill served as
a permanent residence for Dickerman and Cook, a retreat for
ER, and a place to relax and entertain guests for the entire
Roosevelt family. When FDR was not in residence at Springwood,
ER stayed at the Val-Kill cottage with her friends. Over time,
Val-Kill's facilities for relaxing and socializing were extended
to include a pond for boating, a pool, tennis court, stables,
outdoor fireplace, and flower gardens, as well as the surrounding
meadows and forests owned by FDR.
One afternoon ER told her friends that she and FDR had "often
wondered if it would be possible to establish some small industries
in the local areas that would provide income for men who could
not make a living, or all of their living, from agriculture,
and that would also provide interests for rural women."
Cook jumped at the idea and suggested that they start a "small
factory and copy early American furniture." In 1926, the women
built a larger building near the stone cottage in which they
established Val-Kill
Industries. The simple, well-made furniture, pewter and
weaving produced at Val-Kill is highly valued by collectors
today. Like FDR's experiments with tree farming on his Hyde
Park estate, which influenced the Civilian Conservation Corps
(CCC) and other forestry programs he initiated as governor
of New York and president, ER's experience with Val-Kill Industries
helped shape her interest in Arthurdale
and other New Deal efforts to create self-supporting rural
communities.
When the factory closed in 1936 during the Great
Depression and after a rift developed in her relationship
with Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman, ER remodeled the building
as a residence. The rambling structure, made up of about twenty
rooms of various sizes, provided living quarters for herself
and her secretary, Malvina
("Tommy") Thompson, and guest rooms for the many children,
grandchildren, and guests who would visit her there during
the years that followed. Now she no longer had to share the
stone cottage with her friends and was fully in charge of
her own domain. She took pleasure in selecting and arranging
the furniture and books as she liked and decorating her house
with photographs of family and friends. ER relished her time
there and loved to sleep on her second-floor sleeping porch
overlooking the pond, especially "the still nights . . . with
only the stars to look at, just because it gives one a feeling
of taking in." After FDR's death on April 12, 1945, ER made
Val-Kill her home and when she was not traveling or staying
at her apartment in New York City, lived there simply, often
surrounded by family, friends, and other guests.
ER considered Val-Kill to be her first real home, the place
where she "emerged as an individual," the place she "used
to find myself and grow." She had spent much of her childhood
in her grandmother's homes and much of her adulthood in homes
provided by, and ruled over, by Sara
Delano Roosevelt, her mother-in-law. The cottage gave
her a place of her own to which she could invite her friends
and where she could exercise her growing independence from
Sara and from FDR. Val-Kill served as a peaceful place where
ER could write and restore her energy and a relaxed gathering
place for family and friends, but it was also her base of
operations. She wrote many of her books and columns at Val-Kill.
As she later told friends, "Val-Kill is something of my own."
Val-Kill expressed the way ER's private and public lives
were closely interwoven. Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook were
her business and political partners, as well as her friends.
Val-Kill often functioned as an informal, ongoing conference
center where ER's friends, political associates, children
(who sometimes violently disagreed about politics), and other
guests debated the issues of the day or planned political
activities. She even invited her students from Todhunter
School for picnics and canoe rides and her graduate students
form Brandeis University down for weekend retreats. Guests
remembered ER's warm hospitality, the flowers she cut in her
garden and placed in her guests' bedrooms, and the lively
debates at meal time when often up to a dozen people would
gather around the table. Gustav Ranis, a student who spent
a weekend at Val-Kill the summer after his graduation from
Brandeis, wrote to say how much he enjoyed his visit: "The
discussion of Saturday night, for instance, when we all sat
around in a big circle and even the very capable chairman
had a hard time keeping order, was an extremely stimulating
and memorable experience for me."
ER hosted groups of young people, students from the Wiltwyck
School (a school for delinquent youth for which she also
labored to raise funds), civil rights and labor activists,
members of foreign delegations to the United
Nations, dignitaries such as Nikita
Krushchev and John F. Kennedy, and other visitors. She
made Val-Kill available in the summer for youth training institutes
for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the United
Nations, the Encampment
for Citizenship, and other social justice organizations.
Sometimes ER arranged for people whom she thought ought to
meet each other to come together at Val-Kill even when she
wasn't there. "Is there a chance that you would be free to
dine at my cottage on July 12th?" she wrote to
Gore Vidal on July 6, 1960. "I will not be at home but Congressman
and Mrs. Richard Bolling of Missouri will be visiting me,
and I know they would enjoy a chance to chat with you."
ER continued to spend as much time as possible until September
1962 when illness forced her to return to New York City. Her
son John lived
at Val-Kill until 1970 when he sold it to two physicians who,
in 1973, tried to rezone the property so that they could build
health clinics, housing, and a nursing home on the grounds.
Several local women opposed the destruction of ER's home and,
working with Curtis Roosevelt and New York political leaders,
in 1977, they led a successful effort to pass legislation
creating The Eleanor
Roosevelt National Historic Site.
Today, ER's home is operated by the National Park Service
and the stone cottage houses the Eleanor
Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill. Since 1984, when Val-Kill
was opened to the public, it has served as a conference center
where people gather to discuss some of the issues with which
ER was concerned.
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