Check archive relating to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, containing his last check register book and numerous signed checks from FDR's personal checking account with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, dating from the final six months of his life, from October 5, 1944, to the Estate of Franklin D. Roosevelt following his death on April 12, 1945. The collection is highlighted by a total of 34 canceled checks, all filled out in the hand of FDR's personal secretary, Grace G. Tully, and all signed by President Roosevelt, “Franklin D. Roosevelt.” The checks are numbered—38, 41-43, 46-56, 59-62, 75, 79-80, 83-85, 87-90, 92-93, 95-96, and 167—with dates ranging between September 30, 1944 and March 16, 1945, twenty-seven days before his death.
The checks from FDR's personal bank account during the last six months of his life detail both his professional as well as personal contributions. Most notably, the President signs two checks on December 7, 1944, the third anniversary of Pearl Harbor: one to Father Flanagan of Boys Town (not endorsed by Flanagan), and another for $1,000 to his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, for her Christmas present in 1944, which is endorsed on the reverse by the first lady as "Anna Eleanor Roosevelt." Other notable payees include the Democratic National Committee, the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Foundation, the Dutchess County Historical Society, the Community War Fund, the U.S. Naval Institute, and Anna Curtenius Roosevelt, the great-granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt.
Included is FDR’s black leather Guaranty Trust Company of New York check register book, which begins with check number 44 and ends with check number 189 (with two blank checks following). All of the checks before number 178 (dated April 9, 1945) have been removed from the register as they were tendered, cashed, canceled, and returned to FDR. Check numbers 178 through 189, a total of 12 checks, are filled out but are unsigned and remain attached to the register, as do the two unnumbered checks. Register bears a few notations in Roosevelt's hand.
Also present are a set of six Guaranty Trust Company of New York bank statement pages dated October 31, 1944, December 30, 1944, January 31, 1945, February 28, 1945, March 31, 1945, and June 30, 1945, five of which are headed “Honorable Franklin D. Roosevelt, The White House, Washington, D.C.,” and the last example, dated two-and-a-months after his death, “Honorable Franklin D. Roosevelt, Deceased, Statements and Cancelled Vouchers to Auditing Dept., Fifth Avenue Office.” In overall fine condition.
