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But it was very nice, couldn't have been nicer.”

I remember thinking, “Isn't that dreadful. This woman has never had her own home.” She never had a chance to go out and buy a rug just because she wanted a rug, a chair, or something. Everything was provided by somebody else and she felt as if she was living in somebody else's house.

Then she said, “Then we moved up here to the Executive Mansion. This doesn't belong to us. This isn't my house. It belongs to the State of New York. It's furnished by the State of New York. It's furnished in the official taste of the State of New York. Even the servants are civil servants hired by the State of New York. Nothing belongs to me except my maid.”

She said, “Of course, for that brief period in Washington we had a furnished house, and then we bought a house. We moved down some furniture that Mrs. Roosevelt let us have. I bought a few things then and that was the nearest I ever got to having a home of my own. I've been living in other people's houses and now I'm living in a public institution. So I don't mind giving up my room. That's nothing.”

She referred to this talk we had once while she was in the White House. We laughed about it, but that was after her book, This is My Story, had come out. I said to her, “Eleanor, I was astonished at your book. I know it's true