The Dust Storm That Stopped A First Lady
- Jann Alexander
- Mar 10
- 5 min read
On This Day: On March 11, 1939, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt met a Texas dust storm (her first) — and gave me an idea for my new historical novel, Unspoken
"We drove from Fort Worth to Sherman, Texas, to dine with Mrs. Grace Ridings and speak for the Texas League of American Pen Women that night. While we were going over, I noticed a rather cloudy look in the distant sky and inquired from our driver if that was the way dust storms came up. He said: "Yes, but we never have any bad ones in this part of the State."
—Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day," Tuesday, March 14, 1939
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady, had arrived in Fort Worth on Friday, March 10 aboard the Alamo, a special Pullman car attached to the Southern Pacific Railroad. She'd spent time with her son and his family at their nearby ranch in Benbrook, before setting off to meet the Pen Women in Sherman, Texas. Her schedule, as usual, had been very crowded, with a radio interview, and a conversation with two men from the NYA (National Youth Administration ), followed by a train ride to Abilene for a speaking engagement (topic: A Day at the White House) at Hardin-Simmons University — as she reported in the column she found time to write each day, "My Day."
On Saturday, March 11, she'd left Fort Worth by car to travel to Sherman in the north central part of Texas. Again, she was scheduled to give a public lecture, this time to the Pen Women. As her driver had said, the devastating dust storms sweeping the Plains states had yet to hit the eastern part of Texas. Until that day — making Roosevelt an eye witness:
Dust storms ca 1936 in Texas (left) and Oklahoma by Arthur Rothstein, Library of Congress
"Just as we reached Sherman, the wind, which seems to blow a great deal out here, blew a little harder and suddenly we began to smell and taste the earth. We entered the house before the storm was at its height and everyone told us it was the worst they had seen in a long time.
"When we started back, the storm had about blown itself out, though we had to stop once or twice because we could not see the road ahead very clearly. It reminded me a little of driving through a heavy fog in the mountains, or along the coast of New England, from the way it alternately settled down and lifted. Everyone tells me the rains this past year and the soil conservation programs have greatly assisted the parts of the State which have been so dry and have caused these dust storms. There is no doubt that much of the country which has been put under cultivation should go back into grass and be used as range for cattle. It would be a wonderful thing if we could always foresee the future and restrain ourselves from doing things which promise immediate gain but which spell future ruin."
—Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day," Tuesday, March 14, 1939
She wrote about her first encounter with a dust storm in her syndicated column, "My Day," published March 14, 1939 in newspapers across the country.
[ And I wrote a little more about it in my historical novel, Unspoken, coming July 2025 — I hope you'll read it. ]
The Pen Women of Sherman, whose meeting with the First Lady was made even more memorable by her arrival in a dust storm, were members of the National League of American Pen Women. The Pen Women had formed their group in 1897, a few months after President William McKinley's declaration in his inaugural address that, “… equality of rights must prevail.” To the five women who met that June, McKinley's words were meaningless: Not because women lacked the right to vote (which they did), but because of libel and copyright laws, plagiarism, and the inequality professionals of “the fair sex” experienced from male counterparts. They were determined that Pen Women should always be paid for their work. They became The National League of American Pen Women in 1921 with thirty-five local branches in various states.
As First Lady, Roosevelt would have been awarded honorary membership, but she was already a member as a prolific writer (on topics like childcare, human rights, politics), and had long held the role of "trusted and tireless reporter" who was eyes and ears for a governor stricken by polio who became president. She'd broken precedent by holding her own press conferences, traveling the country to give lectures and do radio broadcasts, and writing about her opinions candidly daily, in her syndicated newspaper column, "My Day." In the White House, she hosted press conferences for women reporters, who were denied access to presidential press conferences.
By Monday evening, March 13, the First Lady would be addressing a crowd in Waco Hall at Baylor University. Texas Lieutenant Governor Coke Stevenson had invited state senators and their spouses to be his guests at the lecture. Ticket sales to the general public had been brisk, and in honor of her visit, the Waco mayor had declared Monday, March 13 "Our Day" — a reference to Roosevelt's popular column, "My Day."
En route to Waco on March 13, Roosevelt had stops to make: in Hillsboro, she inspected the NYA resident project for girls. Then she visited the NYA project at Rich Field in Waco, inspecting the airport's new administration building, chatting with some of the working youth. Her next stop was the Waco Girls Club, at 613 South Ninth Street, where she had a “lively discussion” on youth problems with the state NYA advisory board.
That night, Baylor President and former Governor of Texas Pat M. Neff introduced Roosevelt to the audience of nearly 2,500 Waco and central Texas fans gathered in Waco Hall. They were eager to hear the first lady’s presentation on “Peace.”
“It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it . . . Alone we cannot keep the peace of the world, but in cooperation with others we have to achieve this much longed-for security." — Eleanor Roosevelt
Read more about my new novel, Unspoken
Reserve now for my Book Club Launch, July 3 on Zoom
Sources:
"Bound for Beaumont: Eleanor Roosevelt's 1939 Train Trip through East Texas and Beyond"
by Mary L. Scheer, 2016
https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1939&_f=md055213
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/1600/first-ladies/eleanorroosevelt
Comentarios