FDR enthusiastically supported Val-Kill from the moment he, ER, Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook discussed the possibility of building a retreat by Fallkill Creek. In fact, FDR suggested building a cottage by the stream when he sat next to ER and their friends as they mourned the coming of winter and the end of picnicking season. With typical FDR exuberance, he drafted the lease, collaborated with the architect, and carefully monitored construction. The project, as historian Geoffrey Ward noted, "also gave him an interesting project to oversee at a time when he had little else to occupy him other than his struggle to come back from infantile paralysis." ⁽¹⁾

FDR liked to swim in the pond and in the swimming pool, often inviting close friends and trusted aides to join him. A lover of picnics, he also invited colleagues, neighbors, and political leaders to Val-Kill for relaxed discussion and informal meals. He supported Val-Kill Industries because he worried that the absence of jobs in rural communities encouraged young men and women to move to the city to find work and he saw the project as a way to help young people stay at home while learning new marketable skills. Perhaps equally as important, FDR also understood ER's need to have a place of her own, where she could relax away from his mother and the public eye.
 

Notes:

1. Geoffrey C. Ward, "Eleanor Roosevelt Drew Her Strength from a Place Called Val-Kill," Smithsonian1984 15(7), 65.