Fruit cake made by Ruth Jackson, Minturn, for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 56th birthday, January 30, 1938.
From the Eagle Valley Enterprise, Jan. 28, 1938: Huge Birthday Cake Sent Prest. Roosevelt: Mrs. Ruth Jackson makes a beautiful greeting for president--nearly one month in constructing a wonderful piece of the culinary art for the occasion "A beautiful token of the regard in which Eagle county people hold their president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, left Minturn Monday evening for Washington, D.C., to be presented to the President on his 56th birthday, January 30. It was in the form of a huge birthday cake made by Mrs. Ruth Jackson. The cake was a wonderful piece of art in addition to being a culinary masterpiece. Mrs. Jackson started at Christmas time to build up this cake. It was in pyramid form, just five feet high and crated for shipment weighed 70-odd pounds. The cake is a white fruit cake, containing fifteen pounds of fruit and nuts and ten dozen eggs were used in it. The cake itself weighed over forty pounds. At the top of the pyramid was a perfect replica of the federal capitol building, with surrounding lawns. On one side was an inscription in gold, a greeting from the people of the United States, supported on either side by a figure of Uncle Sam. On the sides of the cake were inscribed the flowers of each of the forty-eight states in the union...." EVE Feb. 18, 1938 "Ruth Jackson received a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, thanking her for the birthday cake she sent. 'Thank you very much indeed for that especially fine birthday cake. I more than appreciate your friendly thoughts in presenting it to me.' "
All Eagle Valley Enterprise newspapers 1901-1964 can be viewed anytime, anywhere by visiting www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.
