Mrs. Roosevelt Assists the Daughter of Her Close Friend and Traveling Companion

Dr. A. David Gurewitsch was a physician and a pioneer in the field of Rehabilitation Medicine. He met Eleanor Roosevelt in 1944, and after the President died and she moved back to New York, she asked him to be her doctor. Their friendship began on a joint trip they took to Switzerland in 1947; Mrs. Roosevelt was en route to United Nations meetings in Geneva, and Dr. Gurewitsch was on his way to a medical facility in Davos. Mrs. Roosevelt subsequently endeavored to schedule her more important trips abroad to coincide with Dr. Gurewitsch’s. He accompanied Mrs. Roosevelt on her first visit to Israel in 1952, and together they traveled on study and lecture trips to India, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Japan, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Bangkok, Morocco, the Soviet Union, as well as throughout France, England, Belgium and the United States. Mrs. Roosevelt and Dr. Gurewitsch had the shared goal of curing physical and social ills – he through medicine (lecturing on the organization and delivery of health services), and she as a political activist through education and social services. In 1959, the Gurewitschs, with Mrs. Roosevelt, purchased a townhouse in Manhattan. They shared this house; it was, in fact, her home when she died and is now a New York City landmark.

Typed Letter Signed on her letterhead, New York, February 5, 1957, to Mrs. Edward Bruen, who arranged dances for young people, seeking to have Gurewitsch’s daughter admitted as a member. “I am writing in behalf of a young friend of mine, Grania Gurewitsch. Her father and mother are both friends of mine and her mother was Nemone Balfour, an English woman. Her father is Dr. A. David Gurewitsch, a well-known doctor at Medical Center and in charge of medical services at the Institute for Crippled and Disabled. Grania is a charming girl and a great friend of my grandson, Franklin D. Roosevelt III. I hope very much she may be able to join the Get Together Dances next year, and I just want to tell you that I recommend her warmly.” Grania became a New York filmmaker.