response/ assignment II

“All that is in me goes back to the Hudson,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said. Roosevelt considered this river his home, and returned many times both as president and private citizen.

His fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, was a sickly child who was sent upstate each summer to take the fresh-air cure. The cure was a Hudson River tradition-- and those who wished to partake in the river's healing powers frequented the Hudson River Valley's many resorts, camps and luxury sanatoriums. It worked for our pal Teddy, who grew up to be big and strong and charge up San Juan Hill. The Hudson also made the old Teddy bear a nature lover, and he went on to create the National Parks and National Forests as the United States’ 26th president.

Franklin Roosevelt followed in the footsteps of big old Teddy bear in more ways than one. Aside from becoming president, he too, contributed to the natural treasures of the United States. Growing up in the Hudson River Valley, he was surrounded by the beauty of the river and its forests. Inspired by the Hudson's beauty, he promoted wildlife and forest protection laws throughout his political career.

Roosevelt returned to the Hudson River Valley after contracting polio at age 39 in 1921. It was here, near the river, where he recovered and became the American hero of the history books.