Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and swimming: Val Kill

Franklin R partook in swimming therapy to help ameliorate the effects of his polio. He used to spend time at the Merriman Inn in Warm Springs in Georgia, where he swam in the natural spring water. In 1926 he bought the property and founded a therapy centre, which still exists. FDR died at Warm Springs. 

Meanwhile, at her property at Hyde Park, New York, Eleanor built a pool. It was a favourite family gathering place. There is home 16mm film footage recording the Roosevelts and friends and guests swimming there. One of the guests was Winston Churchill. 
In the filmed fictionalised account of the royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (Hyde Park on Hudson) KGVI (Samuel West) is depicted swimming there with FDR (Bill Murray).

A project is underway to restore the pool. When we visited it was covered by boards (see photos below)

Eleanor Roosevelt at the Val-Kill pool.

Val-Kill pool, Summer 1940. FDR, Missy Le Hand and Eleanor R. From https://fdrlibrary.wordpress.com/tag/val-kill/

Eleanor on the lawn by the Val-Kill pool, Summer 1959. Photo by Keith M. Taylor. From https://fdrlibrary.wordpress.com/tag/val-kill/

Eleanor's swimsuit. From https://fdrlibrary.wordpress.com/tag/val-kill/

How the pool looked on Sep 15, 2013 when we visited.

Springboard In The Pond

The Springboard in the Pond: an intimate history of the swimming pool, by Thomas A.P. van Leeuwen, edited by Helen Searing (Masachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998). This would have to be one of my favourite books. I found it by chance in a second-hand bookshop in Melbourne. Mainly it is about the domestic swimming pool, and its prime focus is the United States. The book includes much about human attitudes towards water, as well as wonderful drawings, plans and photographs of pools. It is a meditation on the philosophy of swimming as much as anything. My favourite chapter is the first. It incudes discussion of the floating swimming pool as it emerged in Europe in rivers and lakes. Great to read in conjunction with Swimming Australia One Hundred Years, which includes information on these types of pools in Australia. Below: Vienna: Damenschwimmschule, 1831, with diving tower. (Matti-Wurm and Storch, eds. Das Bad, 1991) Below: Jacob Alt, watercolour of the Kaiserliche und Konigliche Militarschwimmschile in Vienna in 1815. (Vienna, Museum der Stadt Wien)