Last week, I went on a road trip to New Brunswick, Canada. My traveling companions and I are all celebrating landmark birthdays this year – my sister Trish just turned 60; our friend Michele turned 65 (and retired); and for me, the big 7-0 is just around the corner – and we wanted to do something to mark the occasion. Our initial quasi-plan was Iceland, but we couldn’t quite agree on the plot. But we’re all Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt fans, and Campobello (where they summered) was a close second to Iceland anyway. So Campobello it was.
We stayed in the charming seaside town of St. Andrews, where we treated ourselves to rooms at The Algonquin, one of those grande dame resort hotels from the late 1800’s. The actual building we stayed in is massive Tudor-style pile which replaced the original, which burned down in 1912. We think that our rooms, which had smaller windows and were on the top floor, were originally used as servants quarters. Seemed fitting, as any of our ancestors who would have made it to The Algonquin would definitely have bunked in the servants’ rooms.
Anyway, the hotel was just lovely, and walking distance to St. Andrews downtown. Quaint enough, but not much for shopping. We did have a very enjoyable dinner at the Niger Reef Tea House, where we were able to eat out overlooking the water.
St. Andrews to Campobello is a straightforward – sorta – jaunt. You drive to the town of George and take a regular old ferry to Deer Island. You then drive the length of Deer Island on one of the two roads that runs down its sides, and stop when you see a line of cars pulled over to the side of a dead end road. There are no signs, but some of those in line had a bit of info to share: trips on the hour, cash only, no toilet on board. (Porta-potty in the weeds on the side of the boat.)
There was no infrastructure, no pier, no boat ramp. Eventually, a barge being herded along by some sort of half-tugboat/half-swivel chair hoved into the inlet, and let down its ramp right there in the muck.
Half and hour later we pulled into an even less impressive and even more poorly marked inlet.
Campobello. We had arrived on the island.
The Roosevelt home, part of a national park jointly administered by the US and Canada (and FREE!) is close by.
The setting for Franklin and Eleanor’s “cottage” is just spectacular. Pine trees, craggy cliffs, water. The best of Maine/the Maritimes. (Campobello is in New Brunswick, but looks across the water to the States.) The day was gorgeous – sunny, cloudless skies, mid-sixties – and the tour of the Roosevelt cottage was (mostly) excellent.
I just loved this house. If a 34 room cottage (18 BR, 6 baths) can be described as modest and simple, this one is. All the rooms are light and airy, and most of the bedrooms have twin beds (which look pretty swayback, after all these years, and were probably not all that comfortable – horsehair – to being with), including the guest rooms. And – get this – some of the rooms on the bedroom floor were used by the servants. So FDR and Eleanor were just down the hall from their cook and maids.
Wanting to put a stamp on this house (in a way that she wasn’t able to with her New York City home, which was pretty much dictated by her harridan of a mother-in-law), Eleanor used a lot of floral wallpaper throughout the house. I’m not all that much of a wallpaper person, but I loved some of the patterns, especially the hydrangea and forget-me-not patterns.
The furniture was simple and comfortable. (The antithesis of Mar-a-Lago, for sure.)
The house definitely looked lived in. (Although FDR wasn’t able to get there after 1939, since the island couldn’t be properly secured during wartime, the family spent summers there regularly throughout their marriage. FDR had spent his childhood summers there, as well. Eleanor visited Campobello up until her death.)
There are some personal items scattered throughout. Nowhere near as much as is on display at the Roosevelt home in Hyde Park, but we did get to see a Franklin hat and ashtray, and Eleanor’s knitting.
My one complaint was with the tour narrator, who didn’t appear to think much of Eleanor, going out of his way to criticize her capabilities as a mother – and going out of his way to build up her MIL, Sara Delano Roosevelt.
Eleanor was admittedly not mother-of-the-year, had difficulty relating to her children, and spent much of their childhoods doing community good and ignoring her brood. Eleanor had suffered a difficult childhood herself. She was orphaned by the age of 10 and was shipped off to a European boarding school as an early teen. (Not an altogether bad thing, as it was there that she blossomed.)
Anyway, her parenting upshot (and let’s not leave Franklin out here; he may have been the emotional parent, but he had his flaws, too) was that her children all ended up with somewhat dysfunctional lives – the five who survived to adulthood had 19 marriages under their collective belts. But given everything she accomplished in her life, I’ll give Eleanor – a woman ahead of her time, chafing under the constrictions of an oppressive family life, however privileged hers may have been – a pass here.
The read on Eleanor was more positive when we went to “Tea with Eleanor,” held at a nearby (more modest) cottage on the park grounds.
I was expecting a costumed Eleanor, but as it turns out, Eleanor’s grandchildren – a number of them actively involved in Campobello on an ongoing basis – didn’t want an Eleanor impersonator. No, the requirements for the presenters at tea with Eleanor is that they develop an expertise in some aspect of Eleanor’s life. Ours focused on Eleanor’s humanitarian work.
I knew some of the stories – the DAR’s refusal to allow Marian Anderson perform at Constitution Hall; her Civil Rights work; her meeting with the Tuskegee Airmen; her other visits with the troops throughout the War – but hadn’t heard the one about getting a gun license to protect herself from the Ku Klux Klan who had threatened her life. (I’d seen her gun license on display at Hyde Park, but didn’t know the story behind it.)
The narrator also got in a bit of a dig (deserved, IMO) at Sara.
Anyway, as an admirer of the Roosevelts, I was very moved to see their summer place.
Sure, I know they weren’t perfect. FDR authorized internment for Japanese-Americans; FDR let the State Department refuse Jewish refugees into the country. But he was the right man for the time and the job. He helped the country (and democracy) survive the Great Depression, and led the country well during World War II.
Wouldn’t it be nice…Sigh…
As for Eleanor, whatever her failures as a parent, she was a brilliant and accomplished humanitarian. I was thrilled to walk in her footsteps, and look out the windows that she had.
I suppose I should include a picture of the Roosevelts at Campobello. Or the “cottage.” Or the gorgeous view.
But this picture of Eleanor, aged 70, schlepping her own bag at La Guardia Airport is pretty much my favorite.
Wouldn’t it be nice… Sigh…
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Some readers haven’t been able to see the pictures I embed. I haven’t tracked down the problem yet. Here’s the link to the ER picture.
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