Sunday Six: Week 24 (Little White House Edition)

This week's Sunday Six includes a history lesson! This past week work took me South of Atlanta to the Pine Mountain/Warm Springs area of the state. I'd never been there before, but remembered this is where the "Little White House" is located.


The "Little White House" was a small cabin built by FDR when he was governor of New York. After he became President it was used as a Presidential retreat.

FDR came to Warm Springs to explore hydrotherapy in the town's 88-degree warm springs. He ended up buying the town's resort and surrounding farm land. The former resort is now the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation.


For himself, he built a small cabin out of Georgia pine known as the "Little White House." The entire area consists of the main cabin (center), servant's quarters (right), and a guesthouse (left).


Daisy Bonner was FDR's cook. After his death in 1945, she inscribed a kitchen wall with the words, "Daisy Bonner cook the 1st meal and the last one in this cottage for the President Roosevelt." Daisy's cookbook, with some of her notes, is on display in the kitchen.


This is the living room area of the cabin. The leather chair on the left is where FDR often sat working. It was this chair he was sitting in, during a portrait session, when he suffered a fatal stroke. The furniture and books are original to the "Little White House" and it is left nearly the way it was at the time of FDR's death in 1945.


This is the "Unfinished Portrait" of FDR which was being painted by Elizabeth Shoumatoff. Shoumatoff painted a second watercolor from memory several years after FDR's death. The two paintings are identical, save for the color of the tie. Both paintings are on display in the museum area of the "Little White House."


Finally, I had to bring some levity into this Sunday Six. How often will you see a sign pointing you in this direction?!

Until next week . . .