Let me tell you a joke. Now this is fact. They had a little town hall up
there at Warm Springs—Warm Springs about five, or six, seven stores
there, and Southern Railroad—they had a little old town hall. She told
me a joke. That was after Roosevelt was President. He used to come down there at Warm Springs every
Thanksgiving. He'd come down there before World War II. He'd come down
every Thanksgiving. My daddy, he belonged to the Masonic Order, and the
Masons detailed Papa and Will Reed, and Al Person—they had some bird
dogs—to go out and kill … they going to give President Roosevelt a big
bird supper there at the town hall in Warm Springs. Sure enough they
did. They went out there and hunted about a week, and I think they
killed around three hundred birds, partridges. The Ladies Aid Society,
they cleaned and dressed those, and fixed them up so when they come down
there Thanksgiving Day—Roosevelt, and I believe James, his oldest boy
was with them, and Eleanor—they come up there at the town hall. Mrs.
Roosevelt had an old gingham dress on and an old run in her stocking.
That's the way they done! They'd make you feel warm and comfortable.
Whenever you approached and went up to see him, he'd shake your hand, "I
was thinking about you this morning." Now the President of the United
States telling some old country boy, "I was thinking about … you know. I
had sense enough to know that that's the way he had of going about
making you feel warm and comfortable. You just melt like a piece of
butter every time you went up to talk to the man. That's how he made you
feel so welcome and comfortable. He'd get right on your level.
What I was trying to tell you, Mrs. Roosevelt pulled a joke on herself.
Mrs. Roosevelt really did like the colored people. Out there in
Merriweather County, she had a lot of colored friends all around out
there in Merriweather County. During the time, she got up on the stage
and give a little talk, and she told a joke on herself. She telling
about there's a Nan Briggs that lived over at Chipley, Georgia, a
colored woman, her friend. She'd get in—she had an old car. I believe it
was some kind of old Hudson car—she'd drive all around out in the
country, visit among those colored people. She went out there one Sunday
afternoon to see Nan. She drove up there and got
out. She begin to holler, "Nan," hollered "Nan" to call her. Nobody
answered at all. She says, "Well, they ain't here. Their front door is
standing wide open." She called her two, three more times, and nobody
answered, so she decided maybe they gone on off over here in the field
somewhere. She'd just get up and go in there and sit down in the front
room and sit down in a chair in the front room. She did, she went and
sit down in the front room, and in a little bit, here come a little
girl. She was about a six, seven year old little colored girl. She had
her thumb inside of her mouth, just looking all around. Mrs. Roosevelt
could see that she didn't know who she was. She says, "Where's Nan?"
Say, "I don't know. She's over in the field somewhere, I don't know."
Mrs. Roosevelt realized that she didn't know who she was, and she looked
up there over the mantlepiece, they had a great big life size picture of
Mrs. Roosevelt hanging on the mantle. So she asked the little girl,
says, "You don't know who I am?" Says, "No, I don't know who you are."
Mrs. Roosevelt says, "Do you know who that is on that picture?" She
says, "Yes, ma'am, that's Mrs. Roosevelt. Ma says if I didn't quit
sucking my thumb, I's going to have a mouth just like her." She told
that at that meeting there at Warm Springs. She did, she had a mouth …
she'd laugh, you could hear her for a mile. She got down there in that
country, she's right around with those people, those old country people,
people farming, they got right down on their level. But smart, he could
talk to you and me, and then he could talk to the King of England; it
didn't make any difference. Extremely smart man, wonderful man.