Historically interesting diary kept by White House employee Mabel Bachelder, mother of FDR secretary Toi Bachelder, a member of FDR’s inner circle, consisting primarily of typed entries and affixed newspaper clippings, 33 pages, dated July 1938 through July 1939. The first entry, dated July 28, 1938, in part: “On June 1st of last year I was given a position in the office of the President, this was brought about by the resignation of Mrs. John Edward Lewis who left to make her home in New York,” continuing on to elaborate on her first impressions of the appearance of the White House. An entry on October 3, [1938], in part: “Since writing last the world has been fairly torn apart and put together again. The war was averted largely through the efforts of our own President he sent a personal message to Adolf Hitler and Premier [Prime Minister] Chamberlain, advocating arbitration, and later sent a personal message to Mussolini requesting him to use his influence with Hitler to persuade him to hold his troops out of Czechoslovakia.” On January 30, [1939], she writes, in part: “To-day is the President’s birthday and in addition to the ball last night…Mrs. Roosevelt entertained visiting folk from Hollywood…I stood close enough as the line passed by to touch each one, had I cared to do so. Headed by James R— came Bruce Cabot, Errol Flynn, Jean Hersholt, Ralph Bellamy, their wives, Mitzi Green, Eleanor Powell, and several others.” A tremendously interesting firsthand view of the daily goings-on in President Roosevelt’s White House during his second term.
