Death
Roosevelt was injured in April 1960 when she was struck by a car in New York City. Afterwards, her health began a rapid decline. Subsequently diagnosed with aplastic anemia, she developed bone marrow tuberculosis subsequent to having been treated with cortisone which reactivated the dormant tuberculosis that she had contracted years earlier. Roosevelt died at her Manhattan home on November 7, 1962 at 6:15 p.m., at the age of 78. President Kennedy ordered the lowering of flags to half-staff in her memory. UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson said, "The United States, the United Nations, the world, has lost one of its great citizens. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt is dead, and a cherished friend of all mankind is gone."
Her funeral at Hyde Park was attended by President John F. Kennedy and former Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. At her memorial service, Stevenson asked, "What other single human being has touched and transformed the existence of so many?" He further praised Roosevelt by stating, "She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world." She was buried next to Franklin at the family compound in Hyde Park, New York on November 10, 1962.
Read more about this topic: Eleanor Roosevelt
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“...here he is, fully alive, and it is hard to picture him fully dead. Death is thirty-three hours away and here we are talking about the brain size of birds and bloodhounds and hunting in the woods. You can only attend to death for so long before the life force sucks you right in again.”
—Helen Prejean (b. 1940)