A highly significant, one-of-a-kind collection relating to Franklin D. Roosevelt: The President’s handwritten final check register from the Guaranty Trust Company of New York from the final six months of his life, plus many checks covering the same period, from September 30, 1944, to March 16, 1945. The collection includes 34 checks signed by Roosevelt (some with further notations), in addition to 12 unsigned checks made out in the last two days before his death.
The checks FDR wrote during this period document both his professional contributions (Democratic National Committee, Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Foundation, and Dutchess County Historical Society) and his personal expenditures, from monthly allowance checks to John Aspinwall (issued to his wife, Anne Lindsay Clark Roosevelt), a World War II naval officer, to payment of bills for utilities, the Odd Fellow’s Park Lodge, Western Union, and the US Naval Institute.
A sampling of notable checks:
•To Father Flanagan of Boy’s Town, December 7, 1944, the three-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor;
•To his wife, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, December 7, 1944, as a $1000 Christmas gift, and endorsed by her;
•To the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Fund, December 12, 1944, a $100 contribution
•To the Community War Fund, October 11, 1944, a $125 contribution
The archive also includes the black leather-bound Guaranty Trust Company register, measuring 7 x 8.5. The register includes descriptions of the checks from Roosevelt’s personal bank account, some written in his hand, and some in the hands of others, most notably Tully. In addition to a calendar covering 1943 to 1945, the register also includes 50 pages of entries from which 136 checks were detached (some of which are included). Twelve checks, filled out but unsigned, remain in the register, the last two checks in the register are blank. The last of these is a check made out to the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, for payment of 1942-1944 taxes, dated April 11, 1945. Roosevelt himself wrote out the register entry for check number 94, a $35.00 payment for three weeks’ salary to Daisy Bonner, his cook at the “Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia, dated December 18, 1944.
The major portion of this grouping is summarized thus: 30 cancelled checks that originated from the register book, all signed by Roosevelt; four cancelled checks from the month before the register began, all signed by Roosevelt; 12 checks dated April 11, 1945, filled out but unsigned; two checks that were not filled out at all; and six original Guaranty Trust Company statements for the period covered in the register, addressed to FDR at the White House.
The register begins with check number 44 and ends with check number 189; in addition, there are two blank checks that would have been check numbers 190 and 191. All checks prior to number 178 (April 9, 1945) have been removed from the register, as they were tendered, cashed, cancelled, and returned to Roosevelt. Check numbers 178-189, a total of 12 checks, are filled out but are unsigned and remain attached to the register, as do the two unnumbered checks.
The archive originated from the astoundingly comprehensive collection of noted Roosevelt enthusiast Dr. Joseph J. Plaude and was displayed at the FDR American Heritage Center in Worcester, Massachusetts.
In fine condition overall, with expected stamps and cancellation holes to checks affecting just a few of the many Roosevelt signatures. In addition to the evident historical importance of the collection, the checks provide a detailed, unusual, uninterrupted signature study. RRAuction COA.
