29 March 1962: America may openly deride (to ridicule, laugh at with contempt) its great men during their lifetime but once they are dead a movement gets under way to preserve their birthplaces and their homesOn a hot day in New York City the thing to enact is to engage a boat trip up the Hudson River to Hyde Park and spend a day in the house where on Sunday nights Franklin D. Roosevelt loved to create scrambled eggs for his guests. Hyde Park is now among the stately homes of the States,cared for in the meticulous (extremely careful about details) manner of the Government department concerned. Even Mrs Roosevelt, who lives near by, and is now only a visitor to the house where she was once mistress and is not allowed to move an ornament without official permission. America may openly deride (to ridicule, laugh at with contempt) its great men during their lifetime but once they are dead a movement gets under way to preserve their birthplaces and their homes.
The homes are not all stately by any means. There is Calvin Coolidge’s modest birthplace at Plymouth in Vermont,and down in Virginia at Staunton Woodrow Wilson’s father’s manse does not pretend to be more than it is. I was shown round it in the twilight with candles throwing a studious glow in the minister’s study and on the portrait of his good-looking son.
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Source: theguardian.com