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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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he couldn't be seen by the crowd outside, but he could be seen by the people on the porch - they could see that he sat right down in a wheelchair and was wheeled off, I guess. to the Red Room, while the rest of us tried to make conversation and keep the people who were on the porch from feeling alarmed and shocked and so forth. Just trying to make everything go smoothly and you know - pleasantly.

We'd all been invited to a buffet luncheon, as had been done in other years, and we went into the dining room to get something to eat, and a few people were taken in, one by one, to see the President, into the Red Room where he had gone. He'd been taken there.

Well, Belle Roosevelt, who's a great friend of mine - I can't think whether she was staying with me that time or not, she often did, I can't recall it - anyhow, she was a great friend of his, and she hadn't seen him recently, and so Mrs. Roosevelt asked her to go in. Mrs. Roosevelt also asked me if I didn't want to go in. I said, “No, I've seen him - saw him yesterday and saw him this morning, and I won't take one ounce of his strength.”

I remember Mrs. Roosevelt nodded. That was humane. But a number of people went in very briefly. Now, I can't tell you now who they were except Belle. I mean, I remember Belle, because she said to me afterwards that she was simply horrified at the way he looked, he looked so badly.





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