“I'm Eleanor Roosevelt"

1949. I was on the New York Central train that traveled up and down the Hudson Valley. I was on my way to Bard College - a seventeen year old freshman attending a tiny progressive college. The train was filling up and I was about to pick up my book bag beside me and place it on my lap when a middle aged woman asked if she might take the seat. To my astonishment it was Eleanor Roosevelt on her way to Hyde Park. For my family she was the epitome of decency, the goddess of justice in a cruel world; WW2 had ended a few years before exposing all the horror that mankind was capable of inflicting on the innocent.

She was about to open a book to read, but I knew this was my chance in a lifetime, so I introduced myself, if you could be nervy and nervous at the same time, I managed it, and to my amazement she replied, "I'm Eleanor Roosevelt" in that fruity voice that we had all come to love, as if I could not possibly recognize her. She told me she was on her way to the family home, and I told her I was going to Bard. She asked me what I was studying, and when I replied "literature" I was digging my way through Dostoyevski at the time, having completed the reading of every Dickens novel, and she replied, "literature - a wise choice - it will prepare you for politics should you ever wish to go there. " I asked her how she saw the connection. She replied, "if you begin to appreciate the humanity of others - you can find that in most great books, it is a lesson in empathy (although I think she said sympathy - empathy was not in common use then) and that leads you towards wanting a better world for those whose lives are not as fortunate as yours." We talked books and she suggested that I read Edith Wharton and Steinbeck, an odd combo if ever, and after an hour of wonderful talk the conductor announced the Hyde Park station and it was goodbye. I would never see her in person again - but I had fallen ini love for a lifetime.

courtesy of Sherman Yellen