Story Over

During her twelve years in the White House. Eleanor Roosevelt had enjoyed dozens of small, domestic triumphs. She had vanquished the rats, hardy rodents whose forebears had scuttled through the walls since U.S. Grant's day. Under her supervision rusty drains had been replaced, dumbwaiters installed, glass shower stalls set up in the old-fashioned bathrooms. Last week she wrote for her column: "I always have a pride in the beauty of the rooms. . . . Yesterday I took Mrs. Truman all through the house. It was good to find [her] so appreciative of the things I have loved."

That day Army trucks ground up the drive, unloaded hundreds of empty boxes. Packers tramped into the rooms. Servants began emptying drawers and cup boards. The Executive Mansion's normal order was lost in cheerless confusion and lights burned late at night.

Down from the walls of the oval study came Franklin Roosevelt's Currier & Ives prints, his ship's clock. Grace Tully, who had been his secretary, called in the people who had been closest to him, gave each his choice of the knickknacks which had littered his desk.

Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Boettiger carefully handed packers a toy horse and a U.S. flag which fluttered when plugged into a light socket--gifts from her father to her six-year-old son John.

Sorrow and Work. The task of moving was complicated. Secretaries toiled amid mountains of correspondence--25,000 letters alone had poured in by midweek. Eleanor Roosevelt spent hours answering personal notes, hours more telephoning friends and relatives who were to receive mementos from her husband's possessions. Those who saw her thought her hair looked greyer; her eyes were tired and she was pale, but she worked on without pause. Toward the end of the week, she invited newspaperwomen to pay her a last visit at the White House.

She had expected simply to say goodbye, but the newshens, some in working clothes, some dressed for tea, brought their notebooks. When black-garbed Eleanor Roosevelt stood to make a little speech of farewell, they crowded close, began scribbling furtively. Mrs. Roosevelt halted, spoke more lightly, moved away. But a few moments later she was encircled again and questions began to fly.

She raised her hand; it was shaking uncontrollably. "This is a social thing," she said. "Not a press conference. If you want to say 'Mrs. Roosevelt said this or that in conversation,' that is your privilege, but I do not want to be quoted directly. ..." Gradually, older women started the crowd toward the door. Shaky but composed, Mrs. Roosevelt said goodbye to each.

The Last Evening. Late the next afternoon the packing was done--there were 1,000 boxes and bundles in all, and ushers stepped carefully around the crates in the corridors. Secret servicemen, White House office workers and servants came to Mrs. Roosevelt's upstairs study to say goodbye. She thanked them, her voice warm, her face strained. Others came--"Bernie" Baruch, Judge Rosenman, Admiral Leahy. She chatted with each one, then went back to her "thank you" notes. In the early evening, she put on her coat and hat. In the White House rooms past which she walked, the outlines of vanished pictures showed on bare walls.

Two black limousines took Mrs. Roosevelt and her family out through the gate in a drizzling rain, headed for the Union Station. That night in Manhattan the usual knot of reporters awaited her. She spoke only four words. "The story," she said, "is over."

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