Roosevelt and Rust - Harvard Class of 1904

Watching Ken Burns' The Roosevelts - An Intimate History on PBS this week reminds me of the connection my dad's step-father, Edgar C. Rust, had with FDR: they both graduated from Harvard in 1904.

The following newspaper clipping is in one of the scrapbooks in my paternal grandmother's collection.

Classmates Meet Again, Unknown newspaper.

The caption reads:

Edgar C. Rust              Governor Roosevelt             Carl B. Marshall
Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York enjoying a bite with two classmates of Harvard '04, in the college yard at Cambridge during reunion of commencement. Rust
is a resident of Boston, while Marshall hails from Providence, R. I. (Associated Press
[cut off]).

1929 would have been their 25th college reunion, and before Edgar Rust's first wife died.

Five years later was their 30th college reunion and my grandmother's scrapbook also has the following invitation:

The President and Mrs. Roosevelt

At Home

Saturday afternoon

April the twenty-first

at four o'clock

The White House

Admit at East Gate

NOT TRANSFERABLE

April 21, 1934

Thank you to my husband who found FDR: Day by Day website at the FDR Presidential Library website.

I searched for April 21 on the FDR: Day by Day page, and I found his calendar for that day, which included:

4:30pm –   Received 754 in Harvard 1904 Class Reunion in Blue Parlor         White House STE, USH
    6:10pm      Note: Stenographer's Diary indicates a Lawn Party for Law Class

STE: Stenographer's Diary; USH - White House Usher's Diary (see below for images).

From FDR's Stenographer's Diary - April 21, 1934

From FDR's Usher's Diary - April 21, 1934

Although many of Roosevelt's Harvard classmates may not have agreed with some of his policies, I'm sure they weren't going to turn down an invitation to visit him in the White House for their 30th college reunion! I'm sure my step-grandfather and my grandmother, Libby, attended.