They tell a joke in Georgia: it is actually two states, Atlanta and everything else. This was my last day in the unique area outside of Atlanta, and I started it in Pine Mountain, a picturesque town in the western mountains of Georgia. The town felt different from the South because of the elevation, and its history and feeling is more like Appalachia. Tamu and I wandered the town, and I did some antiquing and window shopping in this charming place. The people were also very welcoming and chatty, and I got good advice about my next steps that day.
From Pine Mountain, I drove through the FD Roosevelt State Park, a scenic drive that connects Pine Mountain to Warm Springs, which is the location of Roosevelt’s Little White House State Historic Site. The vistas along the drive were stunning even in February and I am glad I took this route, rather than a cement highway. Tamu and I got out and walked a few times to see the overlooks on a mild, beautiful day.
Then we arrived at the highlight of the day, the Little White House, which features an extensive visitors center with great information about FDR’s experience with the area over his lifetime. Turns out it was more than the spot where he died of a sudden stroke just before the end of World War II. The orientation film begins with his death, and then introduces his life in Warm Springs. He came initially to visit the hot springs to treat his polio and then eventually bought up a downtown hotel and created a convalescent home for children. There were relaxed and happy pictures of him in the spa with the kids, a photo unlike I have ever seen of him. In renovating that place before his presidency, he learned that the cost of getting electricity there was greater than what he paid for his family estate in Hyde Park, NY, and it made him interested in the additional costs of poverty. Providing electricity to rural areas would be a major effort in the New Deal.
After the visitors center, I wandered the grounds on my way over to the cottage. The are decorated with rows of state flags and included a now-vacant Secret Service and Marine post. There was also a display of his car, which had been custom built in Toledo at Willys Parkway. Of course, to accommodate his disability, it operates with hand controls.
Once inside, the site offered information about Eleanor (who had a bedroom there but did not often come) as well as Lucy Mercer, Eleanor’s secretary whom he fell in love with 30 years before. The rooms are arranged as they were when he died while reviewing the text of a forthcoming speech and after sitting for a portrait. It was shocking to realize that he was only 63 when he died. His life had so many experiences, I would have assumed he was at least a decade older by the time it ended. Of course, the house included a small model of Fala, his Scotty companion. The house belonged to his family and he came to it 41 times. His only property there was the convalescent home for kids. A cook lived at the house full time, although she was was able to work in other houses when he was not in residence and there was also room for the valet and his wife. There was a separate guest house for heads of state and cabinet ministers to stay when he was in residence.
The whole site was wonderful to visit. I learned a lot and it was a charming house. They display the partially finished portrait and the moving Ed Clark photo of Graham W. Jackson playing “Going Home” at the Warm Springs train station as FDR’s body was loaded in. His death sparked a massive effort to eradicate polio. The Little White House was a memorable stop.
From there, I headed up toward Atlanta where I was staying with a friend for the rest of the trip. The route took me through Scarlett O’Hara territory, as the plantation portions of the book are set in Clayton County. I stopped in Jonesboro to visit the Road to Tara Museum. The displays were extensive, but I did not take any pictures or film of the place. I had considered a stop at nearby Stately Oaks Plantation, which looks like the O’Hara house in the movie, but I have no memory or pictures, so I must have pushed on into Atlanta’s infamous traffic to meet my friend. I do remember sharing dinner with her near her home and her warm welcome of me and Tamu, who was delighted to have another person’s company.