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In some circles talk may be cheap, but not for
students in Tom Veve’s History 2112 class.
The five students enrolled in Dr. Veve’s honors
history section talked a lot about Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and the New Deal this winter. But they
also had a chance to experience standing in the same
spot where the nation’s World War II president
breathed his last. Their field trip to Warm Springs,
Georgia, to visit the Little White House, made
history come alive.
“I found myself looking into a mirror, and I
realized that I was looking in the same mirror that
he used to look at himself every day when was
staying in Warm Springs,” says April Greene, an
English major.
The three-bedroom, two-bath house was nothing
grandiose by presidential standards, the students
discovered, but it was in keeping with what they
learned about the values of this very down-to-earth
president.
“It’s not surprising that the house he built there
was small,” comments business major Jessie Roland,
who says from what she’s learned about FDR, he was a
man of the people.
“I wasn’t as drawn to his cars or the artifacts in
the museum as much as I was to the pictures,” she
adds. “They really captured the time period and let
us see what Americans, and more specifically
Georgians, were going through during that time.
Before his house was built there, the people in that
area didn’t have electricity. I kept thinking that
he brought modernization to this area, that the
people in the photographs represent the lives he
affected.”
Tanner Massingill, also a business major, said he
was struck by a sense of awe upon seeing the desk
where Roosevelt was writing an upcoming speech when
he collapsed from a fatal brain hemorrhage.
And for psychology major Maria Guijon, seeing the
famous unfinished portrait of him sitting at that
desk during his final hours made her feel “closer to
the time period, just actually seeing where he was
right before he died.”
The Little White House tour included a museum that
contained artifacts, pictures, and a historical film
depicting Roosevelt’s life in Georgia.
“The exhibit inside the museum focused on the warm
springs and how they relaxed his muscles, allowing
them to move more freely,” remarks Tanner.
Freshman Ashley Long found the whole experience to
be “awesome.” But it wasn’t just the trip that she
enjoyed; she says she has benefited greatly from
being in a small, discussion oriented class with
other highly-motivated students.
“When I was in high school and thought about
college, I never would have expected to have an
opportunity to go on a field trip like this one,”
says Ashley, who plans on eventually pursuing a
master’s degree in history education and wants to
teach on the secondary level.
“Just to be able to have this kind of hands-on
experience was awesome.”
During their field trip, the students also had the
privilege of meeting five members of the famed
Tuskegee Airmen program, as The Little White House
celebrated Black History Month. Of the 11,000 men
who entered the program, 994 graduated and only
about 350 remain.
“When you see what passes for celebrity these days,”
says Dr. Veve, “you can’t help but be impressed by
our real heroes, the navigators, bombardiers, and
co-pilots who served in that program along with the
fighter pilots.”
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Jessie Roland, left, and Maria Guijon pose in front of one of FDR's
automobiles in the museum next to The Little White House.
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Dr. Tom Veve stands in front of The Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia,
where his Honors History 2112 class traveled recently.
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