Master of His Fate James Tobin (free e books to read online .txt) 📖

through the tricky, narrow channel that divided the island from the village of Lubec at the easternmost tip of Maine. Campobello, though so close to the American mainland, belonged to Canada. Even in summer, not many people lived there—just a handful of Canadian fishermen, their families, and a scattering of Americans who loved the place for its crisp sea air and long views of the bay.

Roosevelt’s parents—James and Sara Delano Roosevelt—had purchased property there in the 1880s because they thought it would be a healthy summer spot for their only child, who seemed to get sick so often. They had a fine house built, and twenty years later, when FDR married, his mother purchased an even finer house next door and gave it to the bride and groom. It was a broad, comfortable place with a red roof, loads of bedrooms, and wide windows overlooking the water.

A loud houseful of people greeted FDR and the Blacks. There was Eleanor Roosevelt, who was not only FDR’s wife but his distant cousin, the favorite niece of the former president Theodore Roosevelt; FDR and Eleanor’s daughter, Anna, who was fifteen; their four sons, James, thirteen; Elliott, ten; Franklin Jr., about to turn seven; and John, five; the children’s nanny; the nanny’s mother; and the family of Louis Howe, FDR’s close friend and assistant.

For Roosevelt, free time meant time on the move outdoors. He was a sailor, golfer, and tennis player. In Washington, D.C., during the war, he had joined other government executives for daily workouts with a famous football coach. At work he often jogged from one appointment to the next. He took stairs two at a time.

So once he reached Campobello, he wasted no time lounging around. He announced the first order of business: a fishing expedition on Passamaquoddy Bay. The next morning, he and the others boarded Black’s yacht and cruised out across the gray water. Then they got into the vessel’s “tender” boat, a long, narrow craft with two cockpits, one at either end, with the engine taking up most of the space in between.

FDR gave himself the job of baiting fish hooks for everyone. To carry the hooks from one cockpit to the other, he had to step carefully along a narrow, wet plank beside the hot engine.

Suddenly he lost his footing and plunged into the water. It took only a minute for the others to haul him back on board, and right away he was laughing at himself.

“All you landlubbers” were still dry on board, he said, yet he was the one, an “old salt” with many years on the water, who had become the only “man overboard.”

Funny thing, that slip. He’d been dashing around slippery boat decks forever. He’d hardly ever fallen off a boat. Yet that day he had done it. And although he had been swimming in the frigid water there for many years, it never had felt as cold as it did that day—“so cold,” he remembered later, “it seemed paralyzing.”

Once the Blacks had gone, FDR turned to having fun with his children. “Father loved life on the island more than any of us, but got to spend the least time there,” remembered Jimmy, the oldest boy. In this family, fun was strenuous. They played tennis. They went swimming and sailing. They played a pursuit game FDR loved called Hare and Hounds, which sent the players racing up and down the rocky slopes along the shore. For two or three days, Jimmy remembered, they had “a wild, whooping, romping, running, sailing, picnicking time.”

On the morning of Wednesday, August 10, FDR arose from his bed feeling worn out, though he had slept all night. He thought another good day outdoors might restore his energy. So he piled everyone into the family’s sailboat, Vireo, and steered for a deserted island out in the bay. On the beach they shared a picnic lunch. Then, sailing for home, they spotted smoke rising from an island in the distance—a forest fire.

At his home in upstate New York, FDR raised trees as a hobby. He couldn’t bear to see trees destroyed. So he steered toward the smoke and beached the boat. The family tumbled out to fight the fire. Other people who had spotted the smoke joined them. For hours, the Roosevelts worked as an emergency fire brigade, swatting at flames with evergreen branches and stamping on sparks. Anna was standing near a tall spruce when she heard “that awful roar of the flames as they quickly enveloped the whole tree.” They sweated in the heat and smoke until the fire was finally out.

After an outing like that, most families would have been ready to collapse on the couch. But when the Roosevelts got back to the cottage, someone suggested a swim. FDR was still feeling that unfamiliar sluggishness. He thought a quick dip might drive the feeling away. So he and the children set off at a jogging pace for Lake Glensevern, a long, narrow pond with water warm enough for comfortable swimming. It was about a mile and a half away. They all dove in. While the children splashed around, FDR left the pond and ran a little farther for a plunge in the colder waters of the ocean. Then they all straggled back along the trail toward home and dinner.

In the living room, FDR dropped into a wicker chair. He said he was too tired even to change into dry clothes. He just wanted to sit still. “I’d never felt quite that way before,” he remarked later. He and his friend Louis Howe paged through the newspapers and opened mail.

After a while Eleanor called everyone to dinner.

“About halfway through the meal,” their daughter, Anna, remembered later, “Father very quietly announced that he thought he had a slight attack of lumbago”—pain in the lower back. He felt a chill, too, he said, and he wanted to get completely warm. “He thought he’d better excuse himself and go up to bed. There was no fuss.”

He rose, walked across