10

The Woman with Woman’s Digest

Ma

rumors became more specific, I used
to get just plain mad. I knew my
father had not had heart attacks and
strokes. I had never seen anyone work
harder or give more of himself to
others. Once we were at war, I
watched the slow development of a
philosophy which seemed to me to
say: “I have been given a job to do.
It’s not a pleasant job nor one con-
ducive to rest. But, if it is God’s will
to spare me for it, I will give it all
I’ve got.”

Never once did I hear Father com-
plain. Yes, he would acknowledge to
me from time to time during the last
year and a half of his life that he was
tired. But it wasn’t a complaint. It
was a statement of fact. It would al-
most always be followed up with a
matter-of-fact statement to the effect
that he thought he’d try to get a nap
—either after lunch or before dinner,
or would try to sleep a little later the
next morning.

Actually, I was too busy to get more
than superficially mad at rumors in
those days. I would reason: Who was
I to get mad when the man at whom
the rumors were directed paid no
attention whatsoever to them?

Quite truthfully, it did not occur
to me that anyone but Father’s ene-
mies would take those rumors seri-
ously. It was a real shock to me when,
four or five months after Father died,
I was fishing with some friends in
the mouth of the Columbia River,
and one of them said she had talked
the previous week with a newspaper
man who, she said, had been a sup-

porter of Father. This newspaper mar
told her he knew positively that Fa
ther had two strokes before he died ol
a cerebral hemorrhage.

This friend had visited me at the
White House. She knew that all of u:
who were close to Father did all wc
could to lighten his burden of re
sponsibilities and to force a few hour;
of leisure into his work-crowdec
days. But it seemed impossible, ai
least for me, to believe that anyone
could think that a person as continu
ally in the public eye as a Presidenl
of the United States could “get away
with” having any serious illness that
was not public knowledge.

Father never went anywhere with-
out a contingent of Secret Service
men. He was seen every day by many
people. He never went on a holiday)
without friends, family and members
of his official family. Even if a cole
or an attack of flu confined him to hh
bed for a few days, he was visited
every day, and often several times a
day, by members of his official family
and, of course, by members of his
personal family too.

So, when Dr. Wold’s article ap-
peared in Loo\ Magazine, making
positive and erroneous assertions with
no specifically named authorities to
back them up, I felt there could have
been only one reason for the writing
of this article—a direct attempt to be-
smirch the integrity, historical record
and memory of Franklin D. Roose-
velt.

Dr. Wold’s allegations might be be-
lieved by some for the sole reason that