Private collector runs unique museum

updated 12:23 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2007

WORCESTER, Mass. - Mention FDR, and most people talk about the Great Depression, the New Deal and fireside chats.

But when Joseph Plaud talks about the longest-serving president, he comes up with enough material to fill a museum. Which is exactly what he's done.

Scores of handwritten letters, personal belongings and even hand prints that were analyzed by a "palmist" are displayed in Plaud's Franklin D. Roosevelt American Heritage Center & Museum, located in a seemingly unlikely spot: Worcester's Union Station.

Plaud was in junior high school living in nearby Shrewsbury when his collection began with a picture he bought of Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR Jr. for about $50. He found it in a Boston bookstore, and picked it up after being inspired by his grandmother's countless tales about the 32nd president.

"She was a young woman during the Depression, and she talked about him like he was a close personal friend of hers," said Plaud, a 41-year-old forensic clinical psychologist who wears bow ties, French cuffs and suspenders.

Plaud owns thousands of FDR-related pieces, spanning Roosevelt's public service from his time as a New York senator through 12 years in the White House that reshaped the country with programs of the New Deal.

"It's a remarkable achievement," Jim Roosevelt, one of FDR's 26 surviving grandchildren, said of Plaud's collection. Roosevelt, who lives in Cambridge and is president of Tufts Health Plan, says he's visited the museum several times.

If You Go FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER: Union Station, 2 Washington Square, second floor, Worcester, Mass., 508-770-1515. Open Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free admission. OTHER FDR SITES Franklin D. Roosevelt estate, Hyde Park, N.Y.; 800-337-8474 or 845-229-9115. Grounds include Springwood, which was FDR's birthplace and family home, and the Presidential Library and Museum. Eleanor Roosevelt's cottage, Val-Kill, is also in Hyde Park. Roosevelt Campobello International Park, Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada (across the FDR Memorial Bridge from Lubec, Maine); 506-752-2922. Grounds include FDR's summer home, which is open to tours. The Little White House Historic Site and F.D. Roosevelt State Park, Warm Springs, Ga., 706-655-5870.

"He's taken an extraordinary collection of real, tangible history and placed it in a very accessible and attractive place," he said.

Among the most impressive pieces are documents of signatures from the nine Supreme Court justices and most of the U.S. representatives and senators sitting in Congress during FDR's 1936 re-election bid. The autographs were reprinted by the president's campaign in a flier that billed the signatories as members of the "Franklin D. Roosevelt for President Club."

There's also a handwritten letter that Roosevelt sent to Jouett Shouse, chairman of the Democratic National Executive Committee and the leader of the "Stop Roosevelt" group that failed in its mission at the 1932 nominating convention.

"I am not one to hold any rancor towards the give and take of battle during the pre-nomination campaign, and as you know, I was wholly ready to support and work for the nominees and the party if someone other than myself had been chosen," Roosevelt wrote.

There are a number of other, better-known sites related to FDR around the country, including his home in Hyde Park, N.Y.; his summer home on Campobello Island, in New Brunswick, Canada, just across the FDR Memorial Bridge from Lubec, Maine; and the "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Ga., where FDR sought relief for his polio by swimming in the warm local spring waters.

"Every person who walks through the door asks why the museum is here," says its director and sole employee, Cyrus Lipsitt.

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