fdrlibrary: Did you know that FDR was superstitious about Friday the 13th? FDR’s personal secr
fdrlibrary: Did you know that FDR was superstitious about Friday the 13th? FDR’s personal secretary, Grace Tully, in her book F.D.R. My Boss (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949) page 22 said: “The Boss was superstitious, particularly about the number thirteen and the practice of lighting three cigarettes on a single match. On several occasions I received last minute summonses to attend a lunch or dinner party because a belated default or late addition had brought the guest list to thirteen. My first invitation to a Cuff Links Club dinner, held annually on the President’s birthday, came about in 1932 when withdrawal of one of the guests left a party of thirteen. I was an annual fixture after that.“Many times, FDR went to great pains to schedule a trip departure on the twelfth of the month or the fourteenth in order to avoid starting on the unlucky day. Occasionally this meant pulling a train out at 11:50 P.M. on the twelfth or 12:10 A.M. on the fourteenth.“Even in death he escaped the day of ill omen, the end coming on the afternoon of Thursday, April 12, less than twelve hours before that bugaboo of all days, a Friday the thirteenth.”John Gunther, in his book Roosevelt in Retrospect (Harper and Brothers, 1950) page 95 stated:“Like most people with good luck, FDR was moderately-not excessively-superstitious. He hated Friday the 13th, he would never start an important trip on a Friday if he could help it, and he disliked sitting down with thirteen at dinner.”FDR believed in other superstitions as well. He carried this rabbit’s foot lucky charm around with him during the 1932 presidential campaign. Learn more about this piece on our Digital Artifact Collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/4885 -- source link