Rotary Log: October 24, 2013 (FDR's final journey)

Another wonderful Rotary day at beautiful Portsmouth Country Club.  V.P. Tricia presided and did a great job.

Sandy Tucker introduced our newest member, Susan Burdick.  She is the mother of two children, has authored two books and has worked at Portsmouth Hospital doing her acupuncture.  Her website is restoreaccupressure.com.  Welcome Susan!

Walter was concerned that Susan’s badge had a red dot as he wants to keep all his raffle proceeds and not have any go towards fines!

Marie Brownell is organizing (corralling?) the Christmas Tree Day Captains.  Thanks Marie!

As we know, the Club is taking orders for Christmas Wreaths. These are not the ones, which we sell during our Christmas Tree sales, rather, these are larger and come this year with decoration choices added by our crack design team following much market research (thank you Stella, among others!). The Team is contacting those who purchased wreaths last year and we are hoping you will assist our efforts further by seeing if you can interest others in these wreaths. An order form is on our website. Thank you for your anticipated efforts.

Finemaster Butch fined your editor $10 for something about zip ties and trailer hitches.  (Who says you can’t keep a 4000lb. boat on a trailer hitch with a zip tie??)…Stella paid $2.00 for having a lot of Democrats at her house for Behind the Business event she held at her farm…Ben Wheeler paid up for being the new President of the Chamber of Commerce…Bill Hurley paid a fine for winning the big raffle a few weeks ago….Justin Finn paid for getting himself in the paper jumping off a bridge…Dan Hoefle paid for being Dan Hoefle….a bunch of people paid dearly for not signing new member’s Directories…

We still need many hands for our Thanksgiving dinner – cooks, drivers, prep people, clean up, all sorts of jobs.  I can say from first-hand experience as a driver delivering meals with my kids – there is no better volunteer day!

Our speaker was Carl Lindblade, who told us the story behind President Franklin Roosevelt’s funeral train on his last trip from Warm Springs, Georgia to Washington, D.C. Our speaker’s career has been in the hospitality field and it started, as they say here, “north of the notches” at the Balsams Resort in Dixville Notch and has extended to a variety hotels and resorts since. Currently, Carl serves as a lecturer in the Hospitality and Management Department at our own UNH.

When FDR returned home from Europe, his wife found a trunk full of love letters between FDR and his mistress.  His family found out and threatened to take away his inheritance. They resolved this by entering into an agreement that he could have his affairs and would remain married for public purposes.

The President returned from Yalta in 1945 and boarded the Presidential train.  His blood pressure was out of control. His train had secret escape hatches, a car for his limo, cars for staff and secret service.  As he was having his portrait painted in the train, he had a massive brain hemorrhage.  FDR was taken, after prep at a funeral home, by the Presidential train to Washington from Atlanta.  His funeral lasted 23 minutes and the minister who performed his funeral had polio just as FDR had.  His monument at the cemetery weighs 7 tons (Republicans said they paid for it to make sure FDR never returned).  The ceremony at the cemetery lasted 17 minutes.  Roosevelt had wanted no funeral, so whatever was done was minimal.

Many, many facts.  Too many to report.  Many good books on the funeral and particularly the funeral train.  Excellent historical program.