Lathrop Brown – Page 8 – The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Foundation

Of Arms and a Man, and a Foundation

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

The family crest of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; FDR modified the design from TR's, changing the rose bush of the former to three cut roses.

The family crest of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; the three ostrich feathers are very similiar to those born by the English heir-apparent.

For over a year now, we been searching for some sort of logo for the Foundation. We’ve thought of many different options, only to discard them one by one: too impractical, too difficult to reproduce, to expensive to commission… etc. etc. Then, the other day, I came across a mention of a Roosevelt family crest, which I hadn’t even known existed. It seems my ignorance of Rooseveltian heraldry was not for lack of trying on FDR’s part: our 32nd President was hugely proud of his family heritage, and it turns out he took every opportunity of plastering the Roosevelt arms everywhere he could: escutcheons over the fireplaces in the library at Hyde Park, on personal bookplates, on the White House china, on official presents to visitors (including the Queen of England) even on the very first gift he ever gave to Eleanor: a ring, with family crest, when they were engaged. I became intrigued. What did this mysterious crest look like? A bit of research pulled it up, thanks to the American Heraldry Society. You see it here on the left in all its gaudy glory.

These rather regal arms are descended from a much simpler set, those of FDR’s presumed Dutch burgher descendants, the Van Rosevelts, of Oud-Vossemeer, Netherlands, which originally featured three heraldic roses in a field of green, over a rampant lion in brilliant crimson. (There is some on-going debate as to whether or not this particular coat of arms rightly belonged to the American branch of the Roosevelt clan. See the next link, below.)

The original Van Rosevelt crest, which may, or may not, have actually belonged to FDR's line. It was in any case adopted by the Roosevelts in New Amsterdam.

In any event, once arrived in the colony of New Amsterdam, the Roosevelts proudly assumed heraldic arms, and somewhere along the line, this symbology was modified: the lion disappeared, and the three roses became a rose bush in a greensward. In addition, the Latin motto, “He who has planted will preserve” was adopted. (The translation is a little awkward, but makes sense in the original. The word curare has a general meaning of “to save for the future” in Latin, and combines elements of both our English “cure” (as in sausage or paint) “cure” (as in heal the patient) and preserve (as in protect.) The crest is what’s known is a canting, or visual pun: the name van Rosevelt means “from the rose field” in Dutch. This crest with the rose bush is the one Theodore Roosevelt and his family used, and FDR could have done the same. Unlike the English, who insist the second and subsequent sons of the family make small changes to their personal crests to acknowledge primacy of the eldest’s line, the Dutch allow male lineal descendants to adopt the same crest without alteration. But no: always interested in setting himself apart, FDR modified his family arms to show three cut roses instead of the pattern TR had used.

(You can see both crests side-by-side, as well as the complete article on the Roosevelt family arms, by clicking HERE.)

This fascinating foray into heraldry got me to thinking. As our famous president-resident was so fond of his arms, perhaps, I thought, something similar might be appropriate for the Foundation…

Foundation crest version 6 Hmmm. A bit of playing around with various designs, and two days of holiday time and about 40 iterations later, may I introduce to you the new FDR Suite Foundation crest!

The design (which eliminates the more, shall we say, ostentatious elements of Roosevelt’s arms – I thought we might get laughed off the block if I tried to include those royal feathers) takes its divisions from the original van Rosevelt family crest, and combines the three red roses from FDR’s arms (flowers here have symbolic thorns to replace stems), along with the famous acorn and oak leaf of Adams House (itself derived from John Adams’ seal ring.) The gold recalls our Gold Coast history, and the Crimson, Harvard’s. The brown chevron is another canting, reminding us of the other half of the FDR Suite equation: Lathrop Brown, FDR’s roommate at Groton and Harvard & lifelong friend. In heraldic language, the description reads: (if I got this right) – party per fess or and gules a chevron brunatre between three roses proper barbed of the field above an acorn and oak leaf of the first, which hopefully means “a blazon divided into upper and low halves, gold on top, crimson on bottom, separated with three roses in their natural color (proper) separated by a brown chevron above, and a golden oak leaf and acorn below.” Whew!

Finally (and here as a classics major I am on much more solid ground) the Latin motto has been changed slightly to reflect our mission. It now reads: He who has restored, preserves.

There are still a few tweaks & refinements to be made to the design, but I’m thinking this is going to work out just fine: a fascinating blend of Roosevelt and Harvard history, crafted and reshaped to benefit the future of both.

FDR’s Secret Code

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

How’s this for an elliptical tale: I was sitting last evening in FDR Suite, attending a small get-together hosted by Claire Mays, ’81, who’s our first guest since the Suite was sufficiently completed to lose its air of camping. There were nine of us, and we were sitting around in an odd allotment of chairs – our comfy Morris chairs, of course, plus the new settee, but also a clustering of small wooden period chairs to accommodate the extra company, It struck me as I looked from smiling face to face that this is very much how the room must have appeared when Lathrop and Frank had a few friends over to sit around the fire sharing a couple of beers. (We on the other hand were sipping a rye-based period cocktail that Claire had discovered somewhere and kindly attempted to resurrect. If the general reaction of my fellow drinkers was any indication, this is one revival that probably won’t gain steam any time soon. No matter; it’s the thought that counts.) But to return to my story: there we were with the gaslights aglow, cozily ensconced against the wind and wet of a rare August Nor-easter, when one of the guests asked me if any of the items in the room actually belonged to FDR. The answer, I replied, was no – while every item in the Suite is either attested from documentation, or presumed from similar period rooms, the sad fact is that we don’t have anything from FDR himself. We come close – personal items from his classmates, publications from the period, etc, but nothing we know that FDR actually possessed. In fact, there’s remarkably little surviving from that period that can be absolutely known to have been in the Suite: letters home certainly, but not much else, except one very interesting book: FDR’s line-a-day diary.

This intriguing item, now at the FDR Presidential Museum in Hyde Park, was kept intermittently by FDR for years. It’s a handy little system, really – you just dotted down a note or two each day in a pocket-sized book, and soon you could look back and see what had been going on in your life that same date, one, two three, four years back. The interesting thing about FDR’s volume is that several of the pages were written in a private code, as you can see for the entry of 1903:

The text reads: “To Groton at 9 & get there just in time for Church. Lunch with Aunt K’s [Aunt Kassie, Mrs Price Collier] party.” Then comes the code, followed by: “Supper with all relatives at Whitney’s. Chapel in the evening” and then another coded sentence. The coded parts were not deciphered until the 1970s, when a researcher at the Archives, Nona Ferndon, first noticed them. It was eventually discovered that the code that FDR used substituted numbers for the first five vowels (1 for a; 2 for e; 3 for i, 4 for o, 5 for u, and distinctive portions of consonant letters for the the letter itself ( ^¬ for T, – for H, etc.). The sentences can now be read as: “After lunch I have a never to be forgotten walk with my darling.” & “And I am going to New York next Sunday.”

So why all the mystery? La romance, toujours la romance: this was the day that FDR proposed to Eleanor at Groton, and surely expecting maternal opposition, our president-resident decided for the moment to keep his thoughts secret. (Does this imply FDR feared Mama reading his diary? We know not, but Sara was not told until the week following, and made her opposition perfectly plain when informed.) The other, earlier coded entries also deal with a love interest; this time though, it was directed at Alice Sohier, who had turned down FDR the year previous, and who in sailing off to Europe, eventually sailed into the arms of another beau as his first lady, albeit of a far less famous kind.

OK Michael, I hear you say, all this cyclic narrative is most engaging, but what’s this got to do with the Suite? How are you so sure that this particular book was there? Well, look at the first entry for 1901. You may think that’s some kind of code as well, but what you’re really seeing is bleed-through from the next page. Flip the paper, and it says: “Sat. November 23 1901. HARVARD 22 – YALE 0. Wonderful game. Wonderful day for Harvard. Wonderful evening.”

Can’t you just picture our sophomore FDR at his desk in the Suite, penning that little note?

Well, I can assure you it’s certainly much easier now, with the renovations 3/4 completed, sitting around the hearth with a few new friends…

Yes, a wonderful day for Harvard indeed – and a wonderful evening.

All the King’s Horses…

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

Who said you couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together again? Several day’s worth of hard work later, the Suite has emerged with its new coat of paper, remarkably transformed, looking for the first time in over a century very nearly like a Victorian room:

The study looking south

Our piano, festooned with period tunes. That's Johnny the bobcat, by the way, our mascot; beneath his sharp claws poor old Eli is down for the count

Our piano, festooned with period tunes. That's Johnny the bobcat, by the way, our mascot; beneath his sharp claws poor old Eli the quail is down for the count

The study looking north; FDR's bedroom on the left, Lathrop's center. You can just glimpse "George" Lathrop's 8 point buck through the door frame

The study looking north; FDR's bedroom on the left, Lathrop's center. You can just glimpse "George," Lathrop's eight-point buck through the door, named by Judith Palfrey, our master, after our Foundation's dear Father George. "The white collar says it all." Amen to that.

FDR slept here...

Lest we forgot: the Suite this past February, and this afternoon, August 6, 2010.

Lest we forget: the Suite this past February, and the same view this afternoon, August 6, 2010.

What’s next? Window treatments, and – hopefully – more generous contributions from our friends and supporters, as our coffers are again growing bare…

Wallpaper At Last!

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Michael Weishan in FDR Suite

An epic campaign ended today as the first rolls of historic wallpaper were applied to the walls of the FDR Suite study. You may remember all the trials and tribulations we had in piecing together the pattern from fragments I discovered last summer behind the large radiator. Then Kari Pei, Head of Design at Wolf-Gordon in NYC (and wife to Li-Chung Pei. Adams, ’72) who had generously offered to recreate the paper, began an almost year-long process of back and forth design and redesign, trying to replicate a period look and feel using the latest digital techniques. A thousand problems along the way – wrong color palettes, wiggly lines, fuzzy digitals – were eventually overcome, and today, thanks to the Peis’ marvelous generosity in donating both the design labor plus the cost of the paper, we at last have a good estimation of the pattern that graced the walls during FDR’s tenure at Westmorly Court.

Here are two very quick progress shots, taken this afternoon as the workman prepared paste and paper. (Keep in mind these are snaps, taken with flash, and the actual colors are considerably deeper in real life.) The first shows all the furniture crowded into the center of the room, and the newly papered walls. The effect of the narrow pattern is surprisingly cloth-like, and quite masculine in feel. Note too how the ornate period radiator (recently restored) and new light fixtures suddenly come to life against the patterned background.

wallpaper11

And here’s another shot, showing a section of wall we had temporarily painted, and the newly papered wall in comparison. It’s amazing how much richer the papered surface appears than the flat paint. We’re finally getting the feel of a real Victorian room!

wallpaper10

Now all we have to do is put everything back in place! Updated higher quality photos to follow…

Once again, we at the Foundation and everyone at Adams House would like to express our heartiest thanks to the Pei’s for the extremely generous donation of time, effort and funds to complete this project!

Time Machine

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

Our latest find

One of the things that amazes me most about this project is that every now and then, a piece of the puzzle drops mysteriously from the sky, as if by preordained writ. I noted in a previous post how a strange and unlikely attraction to a tiny spot in Big Sur led me to Lathrop Brown’s descendants in the persons of Pam and Elmer Grossman, and how since then, so many aspects of Lathrop’s life, previously almost a perfect void, have now come together, including the wonderful family photo archives Dan L’Engle Davis shared with us last month. Thanks to these folks, Lathrop’s room will be as replete with personal memorabilia as Franklin’s (there thanks to the FDR Library), just as if ol’ “Lapes” had left the Suite moments before.

Last week another fascinating bit of FDR history descended from the heavens, this time from a far more prosaic source: EBay. As is my occasional wont, I was scanning one day for period Harvard memorabilia, and I noticed a little tome entitled Harvard University Songs. It had a delightful cover, and I was intrigued. There was very little detail supplied, except that it was an illustrated songbook, and that the publication date was 1902 – right in our range. So without giving it much thought, I bid on the item, maximum price, $20, thinking it might make an interesting addition to the period music already in our collection. It was mine later that day for a grand total of $18.12, including shipping.

The book arrived today, and turned out to be a small treasure.

True to description, it was a charmingly illustrated volume, much akin to the caricature book of Harvard Personalities I discovered earlier this year (also on EBay, and the subject of a future post). Even more appropriately, the drawings were done by FDR classmate (and fellow Newell Junior Crew Member freshman year) S.A. Welldon ’04, and dedicated, interestingly, to the Harvard Union. (The Union’s appeal is hard for us to appreciate today, but in 1902, it was hugely important in Harvard student life.) All very intriguing. But what really got me going was the short introduction:

The compiler has tried to make a collection of the songs that are actually sung at Harvard, by the Glee Club, by the crowds at football games, and by the undergraduates and graduates. Many of the songs and versions of songs have been passed down to the present classes by ear alone, and are printed here for the first time.

WOW!

Think about it: what sits beside me on my desk as I write is a veritable miniature window back in time, capturing from that pre-recording age, the actual songs, and versions of songs, that FDR knew and sang at Harvard, exactly as he sang them. (And sang our president-resident did: the reason we have a piano in the Suite is that FDR and Lathrop both belonged to the Freshman Glee Club.) And these songs were sung not only by the class of 1904, but by generations of Harvardians before them. You can tell by just reading the melody and lyrics that some of these songs are truly old:

Now I can’t claim this volume as a first-ever discovery; once I had this dear little book in my hands and realized what exactly it was, I soon able to backtrack and find another copy buried away in the Harvard University archives, and later, was even able to track down a scanned version of the entire book (at UCLA Berkeley, of all places. You can, and should, view it here). But what fascinates me, and what I hope fascinates you, is the FDR Project’s unique ability to pluck otherwise dead and dry material like this thin neglected volume and place it once again in a living, breathing historical context of immense interest to scholars and historians worldwide, so that you and I and they, – and eventually, hopefully, everyone with a computer through the virtual museum we’re planning – can hop-skip an entire century, and for a brief instant, experience what it was like to be alive at Harvard with FDR in his sophomore year. It’s one thing for me to simply tell you that FDR and Lathrop sat in Morris chairs and sang some ditty called “The Winter Song” over a glass of Piper with chums by the fire: it’s entirely another for me to give you the opportunity to sink into the soft cushions of those very same chairs, feel the heat of that same crackling fire, hand you a glass of sibilant bubbly, and teach you to sing this almost forgotten song in precisely the manner, in precisely the same spot, on precisely the same instrument as FDR heard it eleven decades ago.

Time travel is what this is, really – rudimentary perhaps, but time travel none-the-less, and frankly, it’s enthralling.

What’s next from the heavens? I know not, but surely something. For the moment, we’ll just take our cue from another FDR contemporary, and head towards “the second star to the right and straight on ’til morning…”

Thanks to all you who’ve made this incredible journey possible. We continue to welcome, and need, your support.

Project Lathrop Brown

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

I was sitting in the Suite a few weeks ago, looking around, and I must admit to being quite impressed. With furniture mostly in place, pictures on the walls, mementos scattered everywhere, the place is really starting to become a real Victorian room with personality. This last is truly the key, because our quest is not so much to create a period interior (although that’s interesting in itself) but rather to create a period interior that reflects two very specific men: FDR and Lathrop Brown. Fortunately for FDR’s posterity, our president’s past is extremely well documented. The FDR Library and Museum at Hyde Park in the person of Bob Clark, chief archivist, has been extremely helpful in providing us with images that make FDR’s personal space come alive: pictures of the family at play, views of Springwood, images of the Half Moon at full sail. Not so for Lathrop Brown – his early life was mostly a blank to us beyond the wonderful later-life pics Pam Grossman, Lathrop’s granddaughter, and her husband Elmer dug up for us – at least until last month. Exactly as I was lamenting the lack of detailed information and photos of Lathrop’s family, I received an email from Teresa Izzo, friend and fellow history detective to Dan L’Engle Davis, who turned out to be Lathrop’s sister Lucy’s grandson. (Got that?) Teresa had found us through the website, and wanted to let me know that Dan had “quite a collection” of Brown family memorabilia.

Was I interested?

Is the Pope Catholic? How soon can you get here?!!

“Quite a collection” turned out to be a tremendous understatement: an unbelievable collection of numerous photo albums, stuffed with over a century of Brown family history from the 1860’s to about 1910. Here at last were the insights into Lathrop and his family we had lacked: their travels, their childhood pictures, their homes, all in a remarkable state of preservation. Some examples:

Lathrop’s mother, the former Lucy Nevins Barnes, about 1878, just before she married Charles Stelle Brown, who was then in the process of building a real estate empire in New York City. (Brown’s firm sold the land to build the Brooklyn Bridge, as just one example.) Later in life, Lucy Barnes Brown would go on to become the first ever woman’s amateur golf champion.

Here she is, ready for the links in 1895:

Lathrop’s Father, Charles Stelle Brown: (this pic courtesy the Grossman’s)

And the children:

Lathrop’s siblings in 1893. From left to right: Charles S Brown Jr, ’08, Lathrop Brown ’04, Lucy Brown, and Archibald Manning Brown ’03. Charlie, as he was known, went on to head the family’s real estate firm in Manhattan, which still exists today, by the way – Brown, Harris Stevens; Lathrop (Lapes, (or Lapie) to his family, as we now know thanks to the albums, would soon be congressman and presidential confidante); Lucy, who married artist William L’Engle, became a famous painter; and Archie, who became a well known architect.

The pictures run the gamut from formal portraits to Brownie shots. Below is Lathrop and Miss Lydia Jones, Long Island Sound, summer, 1903. (Lathrop, already with sufficient credits to graduate, would return to Cambridge that fall, his only duty to manage the Varsity Football Squad. FDR, also unofficially matriculated, would occupy himself with his two loves, one old – The Crimson, and one new – Eleanor.) The two hand-held Brownie shots, here restored, are humorously labeled “Before the Sail”:

and “After the Sail.”

I could go on and on, but you get the general idea: from the clear blue sky has dropped an invaluable collection of close to 1000 pictures that documents the lives of not one, but three distinguished Harvard alums, and that allows us to fill out the Lathrop Brown side of the FDR Suite equation in a way we never thought possible.(Not to mention fulfilling the Foundation’s charter “to preserve and document Harvard student life at the turn of the 20th century.”)

So, short story: we’ve launched Project Lathrop Brown. With the help of our summer intern Justin Roshak, and while we have the kind loan of this material from Dan and Teresa for the summer, it’s our intention to scan and catalog a large percentage of these photos, both for our own eventual use in the Suite, as well to share with the Harvard University Archives and FDR Presidential Library.

And that’s where you come in: after some heady months of donations earlier this year, funding has slowed to a trickle, and we could use your help! Project Lathrop Brown will cost about $2500, mostly in new digital equipment suitable for this kind of intensive photographic preservation and reproduction; in addition, we’re still about 30K out from finishing the Suite. If you haven’t donated before, or if you can find your way to helping us again, now’s the hour!

Of Arms and a Man, and a Foundation

Wallpaper At Last!

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