Franklin D. Roosevelt: Typed Letter Signed....

Description

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A very rare and historic letter written by FDR, dated November 5, 1921, less than three months after being afflicted with poliomyelitis, written during the critical period in the immediate time period in which FDR was receiving medical and family attention for the affliction that would forever change his life, a political letter from FDR written for political damage control in the immediate aftermath of FDR's paralysis from poliomyelitis. Written on FDR's Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland stationery to Mr. L. Etienne O'Brian of New York City: "Dear Mr. O'Brian:/ It is very good of you to send me the pictures of the Oyster Roast, and delightful to see the faces of so many of my friends. I am only sorry that I could not have been with you, but things are going very well, and at my present rate of progress it will not be many weeks before I am down at the office again./ Very sincerely yours/ Franklin D. Roosevelt." The rarest of letters from FDR's in the immediate aftermath of FDR's attack of poliomyelitis, seeking to downplay the seriousness of his paralysis and keep up political connections in New York. It was less than three months prior that FDR left New York to join his family at his cottage at Campobello where he suffered his attack of poliomyelitis in August, 1921. FDR left Campobello by train bound for New York City, in great pain and immobility on September 13, 1921, and once he reached New York City FDR was admitted to New York's Presbyterian Hospital on Park Avenue, discharged on October 28, 1921. FDR was taken by ambulance to his 47 East Sixty-fifth Street home, where he was installed in the quietest part of the house, a back bedroom on the third floor. He remained in his New York City home, when in January, 1922, he suffered a horrible medical complication. As the nerve-and blood-starved muscles of his legs atrophied, the tendons behind his knees contracted, and FDR's right leg almost jackknifed under him, and his left leg was also bent backward. It became necessary to put both legs in thick plaster casts and then, every day, drive a wedge a bit farther into these casts behind the knees, forcibly stretching the tendons. The process was agonizingly painful, almost as if the sick man were being stretched on a rack in a medieval torture chamber, and it continued for two full weeks before his legs were straight again. All during this terrible period in January, 1922 FDR never complained about anything. Clearly FDR knew when he wrote to Mr. O'Brian on November 5, 1921, that his attack of poliomyelitis was anything but supportive of the conclusion that "things are going very well." FDR was safeguarding information about his health, and perhaps conducting political damage control in the immediate aftermath of his serious affliction, which he knew at the time he wrote Mr. O'Brian was grave. This letter, written by FDR to L. Etienne O'Brian while he was still in the acute aftermath of dealing with his attack of poliomyelitis in 1921, given its content in responding to a colleague to reassure him that "things are going very well" and "at my present rate of progress it will not be many weeks before I am down at the office again," is the rarest and most valuable of treasures from this critical time in FDR's life.