345: A COOL MORNING IN WARM SPRINGS, WHERE FDR STOOD FOR THOSE WHO COULDN’T

Tom’s alarm went off at 6:00am on Saturday November 29, 2025 inside our hotel room in Newnan, Georgia. My photographer and I had no trouble getting into high gear that morning because the two of us knew we were headed for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Little White House in Warm Springs. Even though we were only 36 miles North of FDR’s historic digs, Vicki struggled to get moving – and that became a concern for Tom because he planned to be at the entrance gate of the site before it opened at nine o’clock.

My camera guy’s plan was for the three of us to be the first ones at the house so he could capture all of his images of me without other tourists in our way – both outside and inside the historic building. Tom also believed that if we were inside the cottage without other visitors, it would give him the best chance to set me on some of the historic furnishings without getting chastised by one the NPS Rangers or by his wife.

The morning looked beautiful from our room’s window because the Sun was shining and the sky was clear, but the 33-degree temperature told a completely different story. Looking at the positive side of things, however, that was a heat wave compared to the 23 degrees we endured the previous morning in Southern Tennessee.

Even though Vicki had dragged her butt slightly during her prep time, we were still on the road by a couple of minutes past eight o’clock. But when we arrived at the closed gate to the Little White House State Historic Site at 8:57am, we weren’t first in line – and that didn’t make Tom overly giddy. The situation became even funnier, at least to me, when we were finally parked in the lot near the Memorial Museum, and the young, rotund couple in front of us did their best to converse with my photographer about some other Roosevelt sites they had visited in the past. Those two were oblivious to the fact the clock was ticking, and Tom was chomping at the bit to get inside.

Usually, my camera guy loves to talk about Presidential history with anyone who will listen, but that wasn’t the moment, at least in his eyes. Almost in mid-sentence, when he heard a slight break in the conversation, Tom smiled and said, “Well, gotta go; FDR’s a-waitin’!” And in a flash, we were off on a quest to be the first ones at the Little White House.

After Tom paid the $9.75 Senior discount for him and his wife, the three of us bypassed the museum and headed straight for the Little White House. To reach the historic house, Tom faced a one-hundred-yard walk in the brisk morning air, but thankfully the hike was made easier on his weary knees as it was entirely downhill along a paved pathway. Five minutes after we left the museum, I found myself posing in front of FDR’s home-away-from-home, dubbed the Little White House.

Franklin Roosevelt’s connection to Warm Springs began well before the Little White House was built. Three years after he was diagnosed with polio in 1921, which left FDR paralyzed from the waist down, he made his first visit to the small town after he learned a young polio victim had recovered after bathing in the 88-degree buoyant natural spring waters there. While the spring waters also had a small, positive effect on Roosevelt, he never regained full use of his legs – which may have been a blessing in disguise.

In 1926, FDR bought a dilapidated resort and an adjoining 1,700-acre farm from a friend and used his wealth and influence to establish what became known as the non-profit Warm Springs Foundation a year later. For a long time, the Foundation featured the only hospital devoted solely to the treatment of poliomyelitis victims in the world.

Due to his love of the area and his frequent use of the pools, Franklin Roosevelt had a small, six-room cottage built on the property shortly after he won his first Presidential election in 1932. During his Presidency, FDR traditionally stayed at the Little White House twice a year, usually around Thanksgiving and then again in late March or early April, and he stayed for roughly three weeks at a time – balancing work with his therapy. Roosevelt spent time at his cottage every year during his time as President except for 1942 because of the nation’s new involvement in World War II.

Roosevelt’s last visit to the Little White House began upon his arrival on March 30, 1945, which was roughly six weeks after he returned to the U.S. after his famed Yalta Conference when he met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Observers in Warm Springs noted the President appeared “ghastly” and it seemed as though he was frail and had lost weight. At roughly 1:00pm on Thursday April 12, 1945, FDR was seated in his favorite chair next to the cottage’s fireplace as he posed for a portrait being painted by artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff. Suddenly, the President said to the artist, “I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.” When Shoumatoff asked FDR what was wrong, he raised his left hand to the back of his head, then slumped over in his chair. Roosevelt would never speak again. Two servants carried the unconscious President to his bedroom and dressed him in pajamas. At 3:35pm, 63-year-old President Franklin D. Roosevelt was dead from a cerebral hemorrhage.

After I had posed for several photos near the front entrance of the Little White House where Presidents John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter had delivered campaign speeches, Tom carried me towards a side entrance to the small cottage. I nearly laughed out loud during the short walk because I heard Vicki say to her husband, “You better be on your best behavior inside here.”

My photographer shrugged off his wife’s subtle insinuation and said, “I don’t need you to be my conscience!” But I knew exactly what she meant – Vicki didn’t want Tom to embarrass the three of us by getting caught placing me on some of the furnishings.

Little did Vicki know, however, she would soon be used as a distraction. While my photographer’s wife was engaged in a conversation in the kitchen with the lone NPS Ranger on duty, Tom quietly carried me into the Living/Dining Room. When my camera guy discovered the two women didn’t follow him into that area, and he heard Vicki was still asking questions in the kitchen, Tom covertly placed me onto FDR’s table the President was using when he suffered his stroke.

It’s hard to describe the feeling I had when I stood on that historic table, knowing it was one of the last things FDR saw before he died. Franklin Roosevelt was one of America’s greatest Presidents, and it was a humbling moment for me to pose on that piece of furniture. As Tom snapped a few photos from different angles, I looked around and envisioned FDR seated behind me during his last conscious moments on Earth.

Suddenly, a thought popped into my hallow, resin head – and it came in the form of FDR’s voice, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself – unless Vicki walks into this room and catches you on this table.”

Please take a moment and enjoy the images Tom captured inside the Little White House. For me, as well as for my dedicated photographer, it was a day that will live in infamy.

It was a humbling experience to walk through Franklin Roosevelt’s retreat home, a place where he couldn’t walk unaided himself. FDR struggled mightily for the last 24 years of his incredible life; but the disease that disabled him also helped enable him to become one of the most compassionate Presidents we’ve ever had. Through his own suffering, Roosevelt had identified himself with the needs of his fellow men, women, and children in this country and used his influential resources to try and eradicate the horrible disease that struck him down in the prime of his life.

Throughout the 1930s and early 40s, FDR was the most famous man on the face of the planet and felt he had to put on a persona of strength and power. To him, being confined to a wheelchair or being seen wearing leg braces could be construed as a sign of weakness, and FDR wasn’t about to let that happen. During his entire 12-plus years in office, hardly anyone outside his close circle of friends knew he was paralyzed from the waist down.

But when Roosevelt was in Warm Springs, he was able to let down his guard – he was just like one of the hundreds of other people who had come to his rehabilitation center for therapeutic help. He swam, exercised, and played with them in the 88-degree natural spring water pools; he organized and attended picnics for polio-stricken children; and he loved hosting Thanksgiving dinner with polio patients in the dining room at Georgia Hall.

In 1938, during his second term as President and only three years before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt started the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which became known as the March of Dimes. With the fundraising generated by the March of Dimes, the first successful polio vaccination was researched and created in 1952 by Jonas Salk. After three years of testing, the announcement of successful testing of a polio vaccine was announced on April 12, 1955 – on the tenth anniversary of FDR’s death.

When it was time for the three of us to make the long, uphill hike back to the Vistor Center and Museum, the NPS Ranger at the Little White House asked my photographer if he wanted to use an electric cart to make the trek a bit easier on his knees. Without hesitation, Tom agreed – and the next thing I knew, my photographer was receiving operating instructions for the small, battery-powered vehicle.

Seconds after the two of us began to roll, I heard my photographer say to his wife, “I need to get me one of these carts – I could get used to this. This is called riding in style!”

Vicki scoffed and said, “You don’t need to buy a cart – walking is good for you. You just need to do more of it.”

Tom shook his head in disgust and drove off towards the Legacy Exhibit where the ‘Unfinished Portrait’ was on display. Following our visit to the Legacy Exhibit, we spent about 30 minutes or so in the Memorial Museum where saw numerous artifacts and watched a short documentary about FDR’s time in Warm Springs.

I had been absorbed in the world of Franklin D. Roosevelt for nearly two hours when we left the Memorial Museum shortly before eleven o’clock. But even though we were leaving the Little White House site behind, we weren’t finished with FDR sites in Warm Springs.

Although the historic Roosevelt Pools was where the President swam and exercised in the 88-degree natural spring water during his visits to Warm Springs, they were closed for renovations. But wasn’t a deal breaker to Tom and me, however, for there was another site that we had missed during our 2019 visit to the area. It was a building called Georgia Hall.

Georgia Hall was built in 1932 as the centerpiece of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation and was where FDR was greeted whenever he arrived in town and was where he usually bid farewell whenever he left Warm Springs. The dining area in Georgia Hall was frequented by Roosevelt on many occasions, but especially during Thanksgiving when he hosted the holiday dinner for all the polio patients and staff members at the Institute.

Once we had made the two-mile drive from the Little White House to the place that was near and dear to FDR’s heart, Vicki stayed in the Jeep while Tom and I explored Georgia Hall. After I had posed for several images in front of the historic structure, my photographer carried me inside the building where the two of us spent time in the historic dining room.

Inside the original dining room at Georgia Hall, it was easy to feel the presence of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was there, at least in spirit, and he was still carving turkey to serve to his special guests – guests who arrived in wheelchairs or walked in with the aid of heavy leg braces. This place was part of the rehabilitation center for polio patients, and one of those patients was the President himself.

At roughly 11:45am, our time in Warm Springs was over. Although I was unable to dip myself in the therapeutic spring water on this trip, I was able to be fully emersed in the life and death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR was a man who was born into great wealth and enjoyed every aspect of luxury that life had to offer in the early twentieth century; when suddenly, he was stricken with a horrendous debilitating disease before he turned forty years old. Some might say when Roosevelt contracted polio that it was a tragedy, but in a sense, that disability may have been a blessing as it transformed him into the compassionate and strong leader he became. FDR was a leader who not only held the hands of young children in wheelchairs and swam in the pools with others who couldn’t walk without leg braces, but he was also the one who guided our nation through the Great Depression and then helped end World War II which saved democracy around the world.

Most modern Presidents surround themselves with dignitaries, socialites, celebrities, and wealthy political allies who cough up serious cash to their party’s cause. While Roosevelt did rub elbows with some of the world’s high society folks as well, he also spent a lot of time standing for those who couldn’t stand on their own. FDR dedicated his later life to finding a cure for polio – a cure that came a decade too late for the President.

During my final moments in Warm Springs, as I gazed at the wonderful Georgia Hall from the grounds of the Roosevelt Memorial Church, I wondered what FDR would say if he knew there was a conspiracy nutjob running the Department of Health and Human Services today. In 1953, there were 35,000 cases of polio in the United States. By 1961, thanks to a mass immunization campaign launched by the March of Dimes, only 161 cases of polio were recorded in the U.S. And finally, in 1994, polio was eliminated in the Americas – and that was all thanks, at least in part, to the unselfish efforts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

But today, just over 80 years after FDR’s death, all of those efforts could be jeopardized thanks to the unscientific rhetoric spewed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who has argued against the polio vaccine’s success and has labeled it as “mythology”. When President Donald Trump branded his administration as the “Revolution of Common Sense”, all we can do now is hope and pray the parents in our country have some common sense and continue to vaccinate their children against the debilitating disease known as polio.

When we left FDR’s Warm Springs behind in the rearview mirror and headed South towards Jimmy Carter’s Plains, Georgia, we were going from the sites of one compassionate President to the sites of another. While both Roosevelt and Carter had completely different upbringings and lifestyles, both were willing to stand for those who couldn’t stand for themselves.

It’s been said, “You never stand so tall as when you bend to help a child.” Those words describe two of my favorite Presidents – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter. Now, it’s onward to Plains!