America’s great wartime leader, President Franklin Roosevelt, was in Ottawa on this date in 1943. His trip included a private stop at Laurier House, the home of his host, Prime Minister Mackenzie King. While there, King showed FDR (and his private secretary Miss Tully) his private library that included an autographed picture that was, shockingly, still on display despite the fact Canada was at war.
“I had Miss Tully come up,” King wrote. “Told her the President would like to have her see my library. Both of them spoke of the beauty of it, and how well adapted it was for quiet reading and work. I also showed the President the photograph of Hitler (giving to King when he visited the German dictator in Berlin in 1937). He instantly reacted to it with a shudder at the appearances of the man and had some words about him. Also showed him signed photographs of President (Teddy) Roosevelt. Drew his attention at the picture of himself, father and mother and Churchill.”
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.