COMPASSION
One of the greatest private letters in American history
The letter is evidence of a hard-won compassion for others
Frank was active.
Frank played football in high school. He rose horses, he played polo, as young active men may do when they belong to the highest wealthy class. Frank’s family was into shipbuilding.
Frank knew sailboats and he sailed. His father owned a 51-foot yacht, the Half Moon. At the age of 16 Frank bought his own sailboat, a 21-foot sailboat, naming it Half Moon II. Ice on the water didn’t stop Frank from sailing. He also owned a 28-foot ice sailboat on skates. Frank had a more aggressive name for it, Hawk.
Frank also loved to canoe off the coast of New Brunkswick where his family owned a 15-room summer cottage. His canoe was a genine birch-bark canoe, a good 12 footer, built by a capable canoe builder of the Passamaquoddy First Nation. Frank would single-hand it, paddling expertly from the stern, observing wildlife along the shore.
After Frank married he bought a larger sailboat, a 24-foot single masted sloop, the Vireo.
He took his family out sailing on it one busy August day that changed Frank’s life.
They found a fire had started in the bush along the shore. They went ashore and extinguished it. Back at the New Brunswick cottage, Frank went for a long run and a swim. He felt unusually tired and went to bed.
He caught a chill. His temperature rose to 102.
In the morning Frank felt one leg lag a little. His right leg felt weak at the knee. By the evening his right leg was unable to support his weight. The next day he felt his left knee begin to weaken. The next morning he found his thumbs had weakened, making it impossible to write.
Frank became bed-ridden.
The chill seemed more serious. He had trouble controlling his bowels. His legs didn’t support him. He was confined to bed. He was massaged regularly. He lost the ability to move his lower extremities.
A doctor gave the grim news. Frank had somehow contracted polio.
After a month, into September, Frank was carried down the stairs of the summer home and carried into a boat for a passage to New York.
Three years and two months after Frank had contracted polio a medical doctor wrote Frank a letter. The doctor had a young patient he was very concerned about. She had also contracted polio.
Dr. William Egleston had learned Frank had been dealing with a severe case of polio and had been managing it well with determination.
Did Frank have any advice he could give for his patient?
Frank wrote back an 1,100 word letter, first apologizing for a late reply as he had been busy.
Frank wrote: gentle massage works well as does exercise in water. Frank also wrote he discovered he was able to stand in water up to his armpits but on land his legs would not support him. Exercise in water helps.
The most important ingredients of recovery is to believe, Frank wrote.
Believe.
Hope.
“Belief on the patient’s part that the muscles are coming back and will eventually regain recovery of the affected parts,” are important, Frank wrote Dr. Egleston. “There are cases known in Norway where adults have taken the disease and not been able to walk until after a lapse of 10 or even 12 years.”
Frank added, “I hope that your patient has not got a very severe case. They all differ, of course, in the degree in which the parts are affected.”
Frank closed his letter with his best wishes for the patient the good doctor had such great concern for.
“I trust that your own daughter is wholly well again,” Frank wrote, concluding, “Very truly yours,”
He then he signed his name.
“Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
