Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
April 1995 | Volume 46, Issue 2
Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
April 1995 | Volume 46, Issue 2
In the late afternoon of Thursday, April 12, 1945, my wife and I were relaxing on the front terrace of our West Point quarters. Such a mild, sunny day seldom came to the Hudson Valley so early in the spring. Suddenly from an open second-story window one of our young sons, who had been listening to the radio, called out, “Momma, Papa—Roosevelt is dead!” We sat in stunned silence.
At last my wife spoke. “You’ll have to plan the President’s funeral.” As assistant operations training officer for the U.S. Corps of Cadets I was responsible for all cadet ceremonies and the preparation and coordination of military training programs.
I shook my head. “No, Washington will take care of everything. The Military Academy won’t be involved.”
The next evening my home telephone rang. It was Brig. Gen. George Honnen, commandant of cadets. “Mac,” he said, “you’re it. The War Department has just ordered us to plan and supervise President Roosevelt’s funeral at Hyde Park, set for ten on Sunday morning. We’ll go up there at seven-thirty tomorrow and look over the situation.” My wife was right, as usual.
General Honnen and I arrived at the Roosevelt home in Hyde Park early Saturday morning and introduced ourselves to the superintendent of the estate, William Plog. At his invitation we briefly visited the inside of the house.
I shall never forget the sight of the dark blue Navy cape hanging in the closet of the President’s upstairs bedroom, his Harvard pennant on the wall, his wheelchair, the ramps that replaced stairways. During his entire Presidency I had never seen him in a wheelchair.
Superintendent Plog led us outside and pointed to the exact spot in the rose garden that Mr. Roosevelt had selected for his gravesite some five years earlier. Then we walked through the wooded grounds, reconnoitering the roads and paths that allowed access to the burial site. A dense hemlock hedge, planted in the 1840s and some fifteen feet high, almost completely surrounded the garden. There was an opening on the west side through which a column of troops could pass, but the single opening to the south, facing the mansion, was much too narrow for the casket bearers. Mr. Plog promised to widen the archway by having his gardeners cut back several feet of tangled branches on both sides of the path.
Next we drove down toward the Hudson River along the winding lane that led to a spur track on the New York Central right-of-way, to determine the distance to the nearest point where the train could stop. Afterward we drove to the Hyde Park railroad station, clocking the mileage from the burial site.
Although these data would be useful, we still lacked much urgently needed information. How many mourners would attend the funeral? When and where would the casket leave the train? What other military units, besides the West Point cadets, would share in the final honors? Later in the day, when I saw workmen