The Nerds Do President's Day

Scott and I, being raised by education professionals, have a thing for tracking down historical markers, historical places, and random bits of trivia relating to the area in which we live. We just can't help it. So, for President's Day, the girls were out of school and we headed to Warm Springs, GA. We toured Roosevelt's Little White House and explored the area. The girls had to come along, of course, but they were indulgent of us, anyway.

The town of Warm Springs became known in the late 1920s because Franklin D. Roosevelt went there in search of treatment for polio. He had be stricken with the disease three years prior to hearing about Warm Springs, GA. He loved the place so much, and he felt so much better after his visits, that he spent 2/3 of his fortune purchasing the springs and surrounding land. FDR came here before he was in politics and before he was President. Because of his contact with this part of the country, he became an advocate for poor and rural people, for children forced to work because of a terrible economy, and he started the March of Dimes. Within 10 years of its founding, a vaccine for polio was discovered and people did not have to live in fear of the horrible disease.

The place is perfectly preserved and very moving. They never changed anything - there is still toilet paper from the 1940s in his house. You get a sense of the type of man Roosevelt was and how a wealthy New York Yankee could start so many programs to pull the country out of a horrible depression. I never knew how scary polio was until seeing everything yesterday. We were impressed with all the detail and all the history. All the old stuff was great to look at. He had a stroke while an artist was painting his portrait in his living room, and he died from it. The portrait hangs here and is still unfinished.

I thought some things were kind of funny. Because his electric bills were four times higher in Georgia than they were in NY, he started a program to get electric service to rural areas at reasonable rates. He helped out poor farmers, starting all sorts of New Deal programs, and Social Security - because of his contact with ordinary folk in Georgia.