"FDR's Funeral Train" by Robert Klara (2010)

Today is the 70^th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt’s passing.  This is a re-post from 2010;

My mother used to tell me about the day that FDR died. She said that the whole sky went black, just like it does on a summer's day before a storm. But this was early April, though it had been unusually balmy for the last week or so. It was late afternoon before she recalled hearing the news on radio that the President had died earlier.

As preparations were being made for his funeral in Washington, DC and, his later internment at his home in Hyde Park, NY, a drama was being played out that would remain largely unwritten about for several decades.

The President had been at his usual retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia when he was fatally stricken with a heart attack. This was not unexpected, as he had been in poor health for many years. Along with his paralysis, his blood pressure at the BEGINNING of the War was 250/140. There were no drugs available for the doctors to counter this pressure, which surely built up over 3 full terms as President. He was literally a ticking time bomb.

Where the drama begins is the fact that The President's long time lady friend, Lucy Mercer Rutherford, was with him at the time he passed. And the drama continues as the First Lady seeks to uncover the truth about who was with her husband at the time of his death. With her detective skills in sharp order due to having served as her husband’s legs and ears on several cross country trips, she soon cracks the mystery. But the story continues on from there.

The President had a specially designed train for protection. The Presidential Pullman Car was named "The Ferdinand Magellan" and Roosevelt made regular trips on it; mostly to his home in Hyde Park, and sometimes out West. The car was 142 tons in weight. There was no precaution too great to take in protecting the President. These things are all well known.

What is less known are the special trips he made to side spurs along the way. There the President would remain for almost 12 hours at a time dallying with Ms. Rutherford. This was all about to become known to Mrs. Roosevelt as the train crossed the country, first from Washington to Warm Springs, then back to Washington for the State Funeral. From there the train would be loaded up again for the final journey to bury the President at Hyde Park, NY.

The trip was filled with even more high drama as the newly sworn President Truman tries to figure out the secret everyone is trying to keep from him. He needed to be told about the A-bomb but no-one wanted to be the one to breach security and tell him first. At the same time there is a suspected Soviet Agent on board, trying to find out what everyone else is whispering about. That all this occurs as the nation mourns the loss of the President while the country is still at war really ups the stakes.

Well researched by the author, Robert Klara has given us a slice of history that has been denied us until now. Using recently released documents and old diaries and letters, he has pieced together a story that would be the envy of any author of fiction. That it is real makes it all the better. It is also reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel, from the setting on the train to the wild cast of characters, who are, in this case real.

"The Hidden White House" by Robert Klara (2013)

Harry Truman didn’t really believe in ghosts. But he needed some way to express his notice of; and concern for; the condition of the White House he had inherited upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt. It’s no secret that President Roosevelt; faced with 2 very critical events in his time in office; had chosen to neglect the residence during the Great Depression and the years of the Second World War. This was on top of the damage caused by an electrical fire in 1925 while Coolidge was President.

During Truman’s hectic first term in office, which he began upon President Roosevelt’s death in 1945, he first noticed what he termed “ghosts” when writing to his wife in Independence, Missouri where she spent most summers. The floors creaked, the walls seemed to moan; and most disturbingly, the floors seemed to sway beneath your feet.

When the President’s daughter Margaret almost fell through the floor; while practicing piano; it became apparent that some of the original beams were cracking under the weight of a White House which had been altered many times over the years to accommodate modern conveniences, with no regard for the structural integrity required to hold the place up.

The site chosen for the construction of the White House was selected at a time when the science of soil bearings was in its infancy. And the modern conveniences of running water and electric lights were only daydreams. By the time that Truman moved in the house was a literal fire trap.

During the campaign for election in his own right in 1948, the condition of the White House was a closely guarded secret. It was feared that the public would somehow blame it on 16 years of Democratic rule and cost Truman the election.

Mr. Klara documents the major changes in the White House, all of which contributed unintentionally to it’s falling apart by the time that Truman arrived. In 1833 Andrew Jackson added running water; in 1848 President Polk added gaslight; in 1850 President Fillmore added a heavy iron bathtub; in 1853 Franklin Pierce added a furnace for hot water; in 1866 a telegraph was added; in 1879 a telephone system; and in 1891 electric lights joined the parade.

While all of these changes seem minor, they were all done with no regard for the structural integrity of the house. Doors were cut beneath lintels supporting load bearing walls, and beams were hacked and shortened where convenient. During the 1902 reconstruction of the house, and during the addition of the West Wing, shortcuts were taken which left rotted wood in place. This was on top of the fact that some of the original beams, which were burnt when the British set fire to the White House in 1814, had never been replaced, just re-used. In short; the White House needed fixing.

Truman was unable to get anyone to take him seriously at first. The Congress authorized a small amount of money to investigate the stability of the house, but seemed unwilling to commit the resources to save it. At first there were even calls to raze the mansion and build something newer and more efficient in its place. This is where Harry Truman drew the line.

Not only would the White House be rebuilt, but it would be done in such a way that it would never need extensive repairs like these again. After much wrangling it was decided that the only way in which to accomplish this was to gut the entire structure, and then brace it from the inside with a skeleton of steel beams.

Through funding problems and delays, Mr. Klara takes the reader on a tour de force of one of the most fantastic building projects ever undertaken. When the election of 1948 is done, and Truman wins a term in his own right, he comes back to the White House in triumph, only to have to move out within a few days. He would spend most of his next term living at Blair House, where he was almost assassinated by Puerto Rican nationalists.

The book is filled with the stories of the contractors who rebuilt the White House. These men; some big businessmen, some small; all did their best to bring structural integrity to the old house which had served as home to all of our Presidents since John Adams. But for the stubbornness of Harry S. Truman; who stood up to the 80^th Congress; we might not have it today.

Mr. Klara has done a wonderful job in telling the story of how the White House was preserved. Along the way he introduces the reader to many colorful characters and some long forgotten history. Incidentally, the souvenir kits which were offered for sale to the public at the time; for as little as 25 cents for an acrylic paperweight containing a nail and some plaster from the old White House; seem to be all gone. I went looking on e-bay for a photograph to post and found none at all. There were only 5,000 or so made and imagine most have been long forgotten, or thrown away.

Some of the old White House mantels are still in use today and the author has done a superb job of chronicling the fate of all 24 mantels which came from the house. Of those 24, only 6 went back in.

This book is a natural follow up to author Robert Klara’s “FDR Funeral Train” which I reviewed here in April of 2010. That review can be viewed here;

http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2010/04/fdrs-funeral-train-by-robert-klara.html

And here is the best monument to Harry Truman; the White House as viewed from inside the fence in the 1990's.  Ask me how I took that picture sometime; I might tell you.

"FDR's Funeral Train" by Robert Klara

Sharing the spotlight in history today with the beginning of the Civil War (see next post down) is the death of FDR in 1945. Like him or not, he was one of the most influential, and controversial, of President's in our nations history.

My mother used to tell me about the day that FDR died. She said that the whole sky went black, just like it does on a summer's day before a storm. But this was early April, though it had been unusually balmy for the last week or so. It was late afternoon before she recalled hearing the news on radio that the President had died earlier.

As preparations were being made for his funeral in Washington, DC and, his later internment at his home in Hyde Park, NY, a drama was being played out that would remain largely unwritten about for several decades.

The President had been at his usual retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia when he was fatally stricken with a heart attack. This was not unexpected, as he had been in poor health for many years. Along with his paralysis, his blood pressure at the BEGINNING of the War was 250/140. There were no drugs available for the doctors to counter this pressure, which surely built up over 3 full terms as President. He was literally a ticking time bomb.

Where the drama begins is the fact that The President's long time lady freind, Lucy Mercer Rutherford, was with him at the time he passed. And the drama continues as the First Lady seeks to uncover the truth about who was with her husband at the time of his death. With her detective skills in sharp order due to having served as her husbands legs and ears on several cross country trips, she soon cracks the mystery. But the story continues on from there.

The President had a specially designed train for protection. The Presidential Pullman Car was named "The Ferdinand Magellan" and Roosevelt made regular trips on it. Mostly to his home in Hyde Park, and sometimes out West. The car was 142 tons in weight. There was no precaution too great to take in protecting the President. These things are all well known.

What is less known are the special trips he made to side spurs along the way. There the President would remain for almost 12 hours at a time dallying with Ms. Rutherford. This was all about to become known to Mrs. Roosevelt as the train crossed the country, first from Washington to Warm Springs, then back to Washington for the State Funeral. From there the train would be loaded up again for the final journey to bury the President at Hyde Park, NY.

The trip was filled with even more high drama as the newly sworn President Truman tries to figure out the secret everyone is trying to keep from him. He needed to be told about the A-bomb but no-one wanted to be the one to breach security and tell him first. At the same time there is a suspected Soviet Agent on board, trying to find out what everyone else is whispering about. That all this occurs as the nation mourns the loss of the President while the country is still at war really ups the stakes.

Well researched by the author, Robert Klara has given us a slice of history that has been denied us until now. Using recently released documents and old diaries and letters, he has pieced together a story that would be the envy of any author of fiction. That it is real makes it all the better. It is also reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel, from the setting on the train to the wild cast of characters, who are, in this case real.