YESTERDAY IN HISTORY

Around 1:00 in the afternoon on August 12, 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt was working at this card table in his beloved Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. An artist, Elizabeth Shoumatoff was painting his portrait.
A friend and neighbor, Daisy Stuckley was one of several people in the room at the time. Daisy was sitting on the couch (crocheting) when she noticed that something was wrong with Roosevelt. She went to his side to see if she could help.

In an audio recording, Daisy recalls that FDR said, "I'm having such terrific pain in the back of my head".

His doctor was called. Franklin Roosevelt was carried to his bed in the next room.
In her eye witness account, Daisy Suckley said, "We all knew what was going to happen."

The doctor did what he could but there was so little to be done. In just a few hours, at 5:48 pm regular radio programming across the United States was interrupted with this blunt announcement. "We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin from CBS World News. A press association has just announced that President Roosevelt is dead! The president died of a cerebral hemorrhage. All we know so far is that the president died at WS in Georgia."

In BLUE my character Ann Fay did not hear the announcement directly. But she knew the exact moment when it took place.

"It was late in the day when I heard a big commotion at the nurse's station. I was stuck in my bed, but I could tell something important had happened in the world. The nurse at the other end of the ward went rushing out of the room, saying "Oh dear God in heaven. What will America do now?"...

I was sliding out of my bed, fixing to get into that wheelchair, when Harvey stepped into the room. His lips was trembling, but he put his finger over them and we all got quiet. I seen his Adam's apple sliding up and down in his neck and I knew something had really upset him.

Finally Harvey spoke. "It's our president," he said. "Mr Franklin Delano Roosevelt died this afternoon at his polio place in Warm Springs, Georgia."

And then Harvey's face twisted, and he walked away quick before we seen him cry.

It was a day that will live in history...