The Wiltwyck School

The Wiltwyck School for boys was an institution for children between the ages of 8 and 12 who had come from broken homes or had gotten into minor difficulties with the law. Many came from the inner city. The school was initially established in 1936 and was re-organized in 1942 under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt and a non-sectarian inter-racial and board of directors. Two well- known “graduates” of Wiltwyck were boxer Floyd Patterson and author Claude Brown.

Mrs. Roosevelt served on the Wiltwyck school board until the end of her life. She hosted a picnic at Val-Kill every summer for the entire school. One hundred children would descend upon the site and Mrs. Roosevelt would be at the outdoor fireplace buttering hundreds of hotdog rolls and putting them on the outdoor fireplace to grill.

During one particular hot and humid summer, the Director of Wiltwyck approached Mrs. Roosevelt as she was busy with the food by the fireplace. He told her that she should not work so hard, didn’t need to bother buttering the rolls for the children. He said it was fine to keep everything plain and simple for the kids. She turned to him and said, “When the King and Queen were here we had buttered rolls for them. Why should the children of Wiltwyck be given anything less?”

After the food was enjoyed, Mrs. Roosevelt gathered the children together, as she did with her own grandchildren and read to them from the Rudyard Kipling “Just So” stories.

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The Wiltwyck School