This hospital was one of the few places where Roosevelt would allow the public to see him in his wheelchair, for he believed he could lift these patients’ spirits by rolling out from behind the façade that hid his disability from the rest of the world. He had first come to Warm Springs in 1924, hoping for some miracle cure for his polio, a miracle that had never come. But he loved the place, so he built a six-room white cottage with four colonnades out front in 1933 (the year he took office) and visited often with his dog, Fala, to recuperate from the stress of his job. All the rooms were on
...more
