On the afternoon of the day he died President Roosevelt was scheduled to attend a barbecue at Warm Springs. That afternoon he would have heard Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson, a Georgia Negro, play his accordion. The President had enjoyed Jackson's songs many times in the past. The next day when the President's body was borne slowly past the main dormitory at Warm Springs, where often he used to wave at the patients convalescing in the sun's rays, Jackson stepped out of the watching circle, sadly fingered the strains of Going Home. As he played, C.P.O Jackson wept open-eyed to the mournful phrases of his own lament.

Goin Home from Eleanor and Franklin
6,462 views Jun 11, 2019

Taps Bugler
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Goin Home from Eleanor and Franklin

FDR's Final Journey Home
2,329 views Jan 17, 2021

NPS Hyde Park
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What happened the day FDR died and his journey back to his home on the Hudson in Hyde Park. NY.

More private photographs taken of the very sick President Franklin Roosevelt at Little White House, Warm Springs, Georgia, April 10, 1945, two days before he died—FDR’s doctors and staff had been concealing crucial facts from Americans about gravity of his cardiovascular illness:

At age 63, President Franklin Roosevelt was secretly photographed today 1945 while posing for a portrait at "Little White House,” Warm Springs, Georgia. The next day, he died.

This haunting end-of-life photograph of FDR, taken for private use by the portrait artist, Elizabeth Shoumatoff, was not shared with the public for decades after FDR’s death.