THE TINY HAMLET OF WARM SPRINGS, GEORGIA—WITH A POPULATION of just over six hundred people—was certainly an unusual destination for the president of the United States. Yet thanks to FDR’s long association with the community, and with Georgia, where Theodore Roosevelt’s mother, Martha Stewart Bulloch, spent her childhood and married the father of the future president, FDR always regarded Warm Springs as his second home. It was late on the afternoon of March 30, 1945, when FDR’s train finally pulled into the small railway station at the center of the village. There, the “usual crowd” of people from the surrounding area had gathered to welcome him. It fell to Secret Service agent Michael Reilly to help transfer FDR to his waiting car. He usually accomplished this task without too much exertion, as the president, after “walking” or being wheeled to his vehicle, would turn his back to the car, grip both sides of the rear door, and, as Reilly remembered, “surge out of your arms and into the jump seat.” Then “he’d reach back, and pull himself into the rear seat… with such speed and grace” that the thousands of people who had seen the president accomplish this maneuver “at ball games, rallies and inaugurations, never suspected his condition.”1
On this occasion, however, it took all of the strength that Reilly could muster to make the transfer. The president “was absolutely dead weight,” as the tall, strong Reilly struggled to move him into position. Reilly was worried; he could recall experiencing this on only one previous occasion, when the president became so ill with a dental infection while fishing off the coast of Florida that he had to be rushed back to Washington for treatment. Reilly immediately reported his findings to Dr. Bruenn and the rest of FDR’s security detail, notifying them that the president “was heavy.”
With FDR safely in the vehicle, the small party made its way out of the village and up the hill toward the “Little White House.” On the way they slowly passed Georgia Hall, the building that FDR had had constructed in 1933 to serve as the headquarters of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, which, as he noted in the dedication address he made later that year, FDR had founded to help restore “the confidence, self-reliance and cheerfulness” of the many disabled children and adults who had traveled to Warm Springs “seeking to walk again.”2
As was the case at the village train station that Good Friday afternoon, another crowd greeted the president in front of Georgia Hall. But here, most of the people happily waving and smiling at FDR, while he warmly returned their gesture, sat in a row of wheelchairs. It was a scene that had been repeated every time FDR made his way to what he called his beloved “other home.” But it was always deeply moving to this man who, for all his fame, remained a fellow patient and understood, as perhaps no other, their passionate desire “to lead a normal life.”3
Waiting for the president in the doorway of the modest six-room cottage was Daisy Bonner, the African American cook who had worked for the president at Warm Springs for more than twenty years. Like the rest of the staff at his Georgia retreat, Daisy always looked forward to the arrival of “President Roosevelt,” and had already made sure that she had what she needed to prepare some of the president’s favorites: Brunswick Stew, Black Nut Cake, and, of course, Country Captain, the dish of southern fried chicken that the president seemed to relish above all else.4
Happy to have finally arrived, and having greeted Daisy warmly, FDR took to his favorite chair in the small living room–dining room. It wasn’t long before cousins Daisy and Laura began to unpack a set of glasses and tumblers and other items that had been given to FDR for his birthday two months before, doing their best to add “a woman’s touch” to the humble abode, while FDR sat quietly reading a book and the “other Daisy” set about preparing a simple evening meal.
As had so often been the case when FDR took time away from Washington, what all of his aides, relatives, and friends in both the White House and Warm Springs most hoped for was that he would get enough rest to somehow “bounce back.” Warm Springs seemed particularly well suited for this task, in large part because its isolation rendered the arrival of unexpected visitors much less likely.