HANSON – What better way to follow up Mother’s Day than a Monday afternoon tea with the first lady?
A couple of dozen ladies gathered at the Hanson Muli-Service Senior Center for tea, strawberry shortcake – and Eleanor Roosevelt – and while she hasn’t been first lady since May 1944 when her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Ga., Eleanor looked great for woman who’s been dead for 61 years herself.
The program, sponsored by the Senior Center’s Friends Group, included strawberry shortcake as the ladies, many wearing hats or fascinators for the occasion sipped tea in an assortment of china cups.
“I’d like to welcome you to Val-Kil, Eleanor Roosevelt’s home in Hyde Park, N.Y.,” Senior Center Director Mary Collins said. “I’m just setting the tone. … It is the summer of 1949, you have been invited as guests to a luncheon. Mrs. Roosevelt has planned a recognition ceremony for those who played a major role in feeding America during WWII.”
Set after Mrs. Roosevelt’s work on the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, it takes place a couple of days after she returns from Paris and is hosting groups of old friends and fellow gardening enthusiasts at Val-Kil, her cottage on the grounds of Hyde Park.
The First Lady of the World, as she came to be known for her work for human rights advocacy, was brought back to life for an hour or so on Monday, May 13 by educator and historical interpreter Carol I. Cohen of Norton. But on this day the topic was Mrs. Roosevelt’s other passion – gardening – and the audience was part of the show.
“I’m purposefully portraying her when Franklin is gone and it’s later in her life,” Cohen said.
The second half of her presentation is a PowerPoint of garden photos and stories about Eleanor that “people don’t always hear about.”
Audience members were pulled into the narrative as everyone from a local garden club president, to fellow first lady Edith Wilson and published Henry Luce. This writer was mentioned in passing as a reporter from Ladies Home Journal.
“Edith! How are you?” she greeted the initially stunned Cathy Robinson. “When I met her … we might have called you President Wilson, referring to the period in which Edith Galt Wilson was acting president, beginning in September 1919, for a year and five months while President Woodrow Wilson recovered from a stroke.
Eleanor wanted to ensure her Washington D.C. and Virginia friends were welcomed by her Hyde Park friends.
Senior Center van driver, Bob Hyman, was addressed as a Richard D. Parker, who saved the Fenway Victory Gardens from destruction, and he also bemusedly played along.
“How was the trip up from Boston?” she said.
“Very nice, but there was so much noise on the train,” he said to laughter.
“For a very long time, I’ve wanted to do something to recognize people who did something very, very wonderful to help feed America during the war,” said “Eleanor,” before handing out “certificates” to a few in the audience.
Cohen related how Mrs. Roosevelt was interested in war gardens since people had grown them during the first world war, becoming re-introduced to them during her WWII travels as the “victory gardens” people were planting.
“I wanted to portray somebody that I believed in, that was a champion of women’s rights, but also a friend of mine at the time, who was also my student, portrayed Eleanor Roosevelt in the class,” she said.
Her student did such a great job it gave her the idea. Cohen traveled to Hyde Park a lot while researching her programs.
Cohen is also writing a short book about Eleanor Roosevelt, titled “Lessons from Eleanor.”
A college professor by trade, Cohen has taught at Leslie University.
“I teach teachers and I have a 50-year theater background,” she said before getting into character. “I wasn’t intending to do this as a theatrical thing, I was going to do a lecture, but I decided since some of my students had to portray people, I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to portray someone.’”
She used to assign her students to portray characters for five minutes, and she started at 10, but now does a half-hour on one of three program topics:
At Home with Eleanor Roosevelt; The Human Rights Declaration at 75 and this day’s program, A Walk Through the Garden with Eleanor Roosevelt.
What she doesn’t do is “the voice.” She’s been doing her interactive presentations since 2016.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s high-pitched voice was distinctive, but something she was rather embarassed by.
When Cohen performed one of her programs for a critique from her mom, she said, “It’s really great, just don’t use the voice. She was right, and you know what? I’m not an actress.”