. After being elected as the thirty-second president of the United States in 1932, he used his new home at Warm Springs, "The Little White House," as a retreat from the rigors of leading a nation through the Great Depression. He died there in 1945. To a generation of west Georgians, he was both the president and a trusted friend who could be seen waving as he passed by in his convertible or rode by in a train on his way to the nation's capital.