FDR Wrote His Own Funeral Instructions. They Found Them After He Was Buried

On April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt died in a small cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia. Eight years earlier he had written out exactly what he wanted done with his body: four handwritten pages, seventeen points, folded into an envelope and locked in the safe of his White House bedroom. Nobody opened that safe in time. This is the record of the hours after: the phone call to an Atlanta funeral home, the copper casket chosen in a hurry, the accordion on a Georgia road, the casket lifted through a train window, the lit railcar crawling north through the night, the service in the East Room, a widow alone with him one last time, and the rose garden at Hyde Park. And then the moment someone finally read those four pages, and found that almost every wish had already been broken, except one. Where were you when you heard that FDR had died? If you were too young, what did your parents tell you? Did your family keep the newspaper? Tell us in the comments. Every memory is part of the record. Chapters 0:00 The envelope in the safe 1:11 Warm Springs, April 12, 1945 2:55 The call to Atlanta 3:45 The copper casket 5:20 Eleanor arrives 5:42 Goin' Home 6:54 Through the train window 7:56 Seven hundred miles in the dark 8:54 Washington 9:52 The East Room 11:25 The last viewing 12:54 The four pages 15:36 Why nobody found them 17:42 Hyde Park 18:57 The stone 20:08 What became of them 21:44 The file 22:35 Where were you? Sources FDR's handwritten funeral and burial instructions, December 26, 1937 (FDR Presidential Library & Museum / National Archives) White House Historical Association, "Franklin D. Roosevelt's handwritten instructions for his funeral and burial" and "Mourning Franklin D. Roosevelt" National Archives, Prologue blog, "The Death of a President" (2020) FDR Presidential Library blog, "More than a Moment for the Nation: The Presidential Funeral of FDR" Robert Klara, "FDR's Funeral Train" (2010) Architect of the Capitol, list of individuals who have lain in state in the Rotunda Images and film: National Archives, FDR Presidential Library & Museum, Library of Congress, Truman Library and other public-domain archives. Thumbnail portrait: Leon Perskie, 1944, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. #FDR #FranklinRoosevelt #FuneralHistory