President
Franklin Delano Franklin
Compiled by D. A.
Sharpe
Franklin Delano Franklin was born
January 30, 1882 at Hyde Park, New York.
His education was an AB degree from Harvard University and a JD law
degree from Columbia Law School.
He married Eleanor Roosevelt March
17, 1905 in New York. They gave
issue to six children: Anna
Eleanor (1906 - 1975), James II (1907 - 1991), Franklin (1909 - 1909), Elliott
(1910-1990), Franklin Delano, Jr. (1914-1988), and John Aspinwall
II (1916-1981).
President Roosevelt is my half eighth cousin. The
ancestor in common is our seventh great grandmother, Alice Carpenter, who
immigrated from England to Plymouth Colony in 1623. Roosevelt is descended through Alice
and her first husband, Englishman Edward
Southworth. I am descended
through Alice and her second husband, William Bradford, born in England, but
known most notably as the Mayflower passenger who become Governor of Plymouth
Colony. Roosevelt is the 18th
cousin, four times removed to my son-in-law, Steve O. Westmoreland, through his
mother's line.
Roosevelt is the eleventh cousin,
once removed from England's Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. The ancestor in common to President
Roosevelt and Sir Churchill is Viscount Anthony Browne III. Viscount Browne is the tenth great
grandfather of President Roosevelt and is the
eleventh great grandfather of Sir Churchill.
President Roosevelt is the half 13th
cousin, eight times removed to our first President, General George Washington.
While the Roosevelts were vacationing
at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada in August 1921,
Roosevelt fell ill. His main symptoms were fever; symmetric, ascending
paralysis; facial paralysis; bowel and bladder dysfunction; numbness and
hyperesthesia; and a descending pattern of recovery. Roosevelt was left permanently
paralyzed from the waist down. He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis at the time,
but his symptoms are more consistent with GuillainÐBarrŽ
syndrome Ð an
autoimmune neuropathy which Roosevelt's doctors failed to consider as a
diagnostic possibility. In 1926, his belief in the benefits of hydrotherapy led him to found a rehabilitation
center at Warm Springs, Georgia. In 1938, he founded the National Foundation
for Infantile Paralysis, leading to the development of polio vaccines.
This resulted in
his confinement to a wheel chair the remainder of his life.
"(Roosevelt) served as the 32nd
President of the United States and was elected to an unprecedented four terms
in office. He served from
1933-1945, and is the only President to serve more than two terms. [The adoption of the 22nd Amendment
to the United States Constitution on February 27, 1951 limited anyone serving
as President more than two terms, so Roosevelt's accomplishment may never be
repeated.] As a central figure
of the 20th century, scholarly surveys rank Franklin Delano Roosevelt among the
three greatest U.S. Presidents. [Of
course, the political bent of citizens from the field of the scholarly tend to
reflect policies championed by FDR! Such view is not universal.]
"During the Great Depression of
the 1930s, Roosevelt created the New Deal to provide relief for the unemployed,
recovery of the economy, and reform of the economic system. His most famous
legacies include the Social Security system [which he envisioned to be somewhat
temporary and to be discontinued when no longer needed] and the regulation of
Wall Street [the economic world of investments in stock and financial
instruments.] His aggressive use
of an active federal government re-energized the Democratic party. Roosevelt
built the New Deal coalition that dominated politics into the 1960s. He and his
wife Eleanor Roosevelt remain touchstones for American liberalism. The
conservatives fought back, but Roosevelt consistently prevailed, until he tried
to pack the Supreme Court in 1937. The
Conservative coalition formed to stop New Deal expansion.
"On February 15, 1933,
President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in
Miami, Florida that claimed the life of Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak.
On March 12, 1933, he addressed the
nation for the first time nationally by radio broadcast. It was the first of the series he did
called the ÒFireside Chats.Ó These were broadcasts that
lasted from 13 to 44 minutes, averaging about 30 minutes.
"After 1938, Roosevelt championed rearmament and
led the nation away from isolationism as the world headed into World War II. He
provided extensive support to Winston Churchill and the British war effort
before the attack on Pearl Harbor pulled the U.S. into the fighting. During the war, Roosevelt and the
United States provided decisive leadership against Nazi Germany and made the
United States the principal arms supplier and financier of the Allies who
defeated Germany, Italy and Japan. Roosevelt
led the United States as it became the Arsenal of Democracy, putting 16 million
American men and women into uniform.
"On the home front his term saw
the end of unemployment, restoration of prosperity, significant new taxes and
controls, 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans sent to relocation camps, and
new opportunities opened for African Americans and women. As the Allies neared victory,
Roosevelt played a critical role in shaping the post-war world, particularly
through the Yalta Conference and the creation of the United Nations. Roosevelt
died [April 12, 1945] on the eve of victory in World War II and was succeeded
in office by Vice President Harry S. Truman.
"Roosevelt's administration
redefined liberalism for subsequent generations and realigned the Democratic
Party. It based his New Deal
coalition on labor, ethnic and racial minorities, the South, big city machines,
and the poor."
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt
On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein
signed a letter to President Roosevelt, urging the creation of an atomic
weapons research program. On
October 11, 1939, A letter from Albert Einstein was delivered to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt about Einstein's concern of the possibility of atomic
weapons. This must have been a
somber communication for Roosevelt to receive on this, the 55th birthday of his
wife, Eleanor.
Source:http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20080802.html?th&emc=th
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
On January 24, 1943, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded a
wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco.
I doubt that either statesman realized they were related to each other
as eleventh cousins, once removed. On
November 28, 1943, Franklin and Winston met again. This time, it was at Tehran
where they met with Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin. So, it may be said that we had our
biggest guns of our family dealing with Stalin, and it took a while to rid the
earth of his murderous rampage.
Roosevelt was a man with a faith and
who revered the Holy Scriptures.
Here are some thoughts he said of the Bible:
ÒIn the formative days of the
Republic, the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the
nation is conspicuously evident É This Book continues to hold its unchallenged
place as the most loved, the most quoted, and the most universally read and
pondered of all the volumes which our libraries contain É We cannot read the
history of our rise and development as a nation without reckoning with the
place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. I suggest a nation-wide reading of the
Holy Scriptures É. For a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal
truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of the
greatness as this nation has achieved.Ó
Source: ÒStatement on the Four Hundredth
Anniversary of the Printing of the English Bible.Ó American Presidency Project,
October 6, 1935, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/we/?pid-14960 and ÒProclamationÑThanksgiving Day, American
Presidency Project, November 1, 1944, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws?pid=72460
On April 12, 1945, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, died of a cerebral hemorrhage while at his family's retreat home in
Warm Springs, Georgia. He was
age 63.
Compiled by
Dwight Albert (D. A.) Sharpe
805 Derting Road East
Aurora, TX 76078-3712
817-504-6508