My memory may be a bit fuzzy

Here, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful houses in America.
It is (or was) the residence of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York, where they lived for many years before moving to the state house in Albany and later to the White House in Washington. After Franklin died in April 1945, it was to this house that Eleanor Roosevelt returned to spend the rest of her days, leaving it only on those rare occasions when she needed to sit with the U.S. delegation to the United Nations or make television commercials for margarine. I remember one that began with her saying, “When you think about the starving people of the world...” and until she said that I hadn’t thought about the starving people of the world at all.


From 1965 until 1968 we lived just a few miles away from Hyde Park in Poughkeepsie, New York. Here are my two oldest children and their two cousins from Florida sitting on the front steps of FDR’s home. My older son is on the left and my younger son is on the right. In the middle are their cousins. From left to right, these four individuals are now 46-1/2, 46-1/2, 45 (today is his birthday), and 45 (his birthday was a couple of months ago), respectively.

Here is a slightly closer view, and a little more off-center.

The fuzziness, of course, is in my cell phone, not in my memory. I used my cell phone to take photos of a snapshot, and you see the result. The dadblamed phone simply would not focus. Actually, you now know how I see everything when I’m not wearing my glasses.

Here is how I see things when I am wearing my glasses:

This is not my children and their cousins from Florida. This is Jethro, my dog. I do not know if his memory is a bit fuzzy, but everything else is.

Hyde Park, Mon Amour?

The lovely home in the preceding post was the residence of this happy couple:


Here they are in another location with some friends who dropped in for a visit. Unfortunately, I have no idea who the gentleman resplendent in white in the center of the picture is.


Without straining your eyes to read the photo caption, can you identify the husband and wife who are serving as bookends or hazard a guess as to what year the photo was taken?

When I said the mystery home was “very close to a place that has been in the news lately” I was referring to the Hudson River, not the Gaza Strip as one person guessed, but he is more to be pitied than censured as he makes his home in Utah. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Home and Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, is indeed quite near the Hudson River, about 75 miles north of where a passenger on a ferry bound from Manhattan for New Jersey snapped this photo with his mobile phone a few few days ago:

(Photo by Janis Krums of Sarasota, Florida)

Who lived here?

I have a black-and-white snapshot of this house taken around 1967 or 1968 and another snapshot, taken closer up, that shows my two oldest children and their two cousins from Florida sitting on the front steps.

I will give you two hints.

Hint #1: The person who lived here is also buried here.
Hint #2: When I took my snapshots, I worked for IBM in Pough-keepsie, New York.

I will throw in two more hints for good measure.

Hint #3: At one time this was one of the most photographed homes in the world.
Hint #4: It is very close to something that has been in the news lately.

Anybody want to take a crack at answering?