A Trip Through Georgia (Part 2) Franklin Roosevelt's Little White House & The Carter's Hometown of Plains (Special Edition)

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In this our second episode of our tour through Georgia, we head out into rural south west Georgia to visit the community of Warm Springs. It was there in a small little resort town that Franklin Roosevelt discovered a treatment for his polio. It never cured him but it certainly revitalized him. The warm 88 degree water full of minerals allowed Roosevelt to move in the water like he was back on his feet again. it buoyed more than just his body, it lifted his spirit too. 

Roosevelt spent two thirds of his personal fortune, building a hospital to help those afflicted with polio, and that hospital still exists today helping with other disabilities and diseases. Roosevelt, who was born wealthy, met all types of people here in Georgia. He learned their struggles, their economic hardships, and the sky high cost of electrification. He vowed to help them, and he did. A great deal of the policies that made up the New Deal were from learning the problems of average Americans that he saw first hand in his adoptive home of Warm Springs. 

It was also here that he returned after his 14,000 mile trip to Yalta near the end of World War 2. He was tired, and it showed. He had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, his blood pressure periodically spiking, and it was clear his health was not good. He came here to Warm Springs to recuperate, and gather strength for the final push of the European War, and his dream of building a United Nations for peace. He did not live to see either of them. 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, here at the Little White House in Georgia. We will tell that story in this episode too. 

Then we will head back out on the road and go an hour and a half deeper into Georgia to a tiny little town of around 524 people. It is so small, its downtown actually looks like a movie set. You would probably ride right past it if not for its very famous residents, former President and former First Lady Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter called Plains, Georgia home, for 100 years. We will visit their gravesites, their remarkable, and yet very modest home, and visit the high school museum both attended. 

It was their in that museum that we learned about his famous school teacher Ms. Julia Coleman, their work at the Carter Center, and finally stumbled on the only work of fiction, out of the 27 books he wrote during his long post Presidency. We bought a copy of the "The Hornet's Nest" the first novel ever written by a former President. 

We will take you through it all, and even walk you through downtown Plains, Georgia, in this episode wrapping up our tour through Georgia. 

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