This quilt presented to the Roosevelts in 1940 honored Eleanor. Callie Jeffress Fanning Smith, a prize-winning quiltmaker from Sulpher Springs, Texas, sent Eleanor this distinctive quilt featuring painted and embroidered blocks depicting scenes from Eleanor’s life, from childhood to the present day. In the letter Smith sent to Mrs. Roosevelt with her quilt, she began in her perfect cursive script, “I have thought for two years that I would like to make a quilt for you. I am only an amateur artist.” She went on, “To say that I admire you tremendously is only saying it mildly. I will say that it is a feeling of great pride to me that I am living today during your time.” After recounting to Mrs. Roosevelt details about her family and life in Texas, she continued, “Will you please accept my ‘small gift’?—I know that my brush does not have the perfect touch that was in my mind and heart, but you will, some how, know that I wish that I could make something very beautiful for you.” She expressed her admiration not only for Eleanor but also the President, writing, “I truly hope that President Roosevelt will be our President for another term. I see no possibility of him not being elected, if he chooses to run again… we have got so used to President Roosevelt that we would have to begin all over again—to try to believe that some one else could fill the place that he holds in our hearts and our lives. And you equally as much, my wonderful lady.”

Image courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, MO 1953.1090.