The better I got to know the woman whom I had been raised to revere, the more I marveled at her achievements and squirmed in her presence. I mean a contagious genius for living joyously. In 1941 she re-entered the paralyzed Presidents life bearing an additional gift. (If FDR had not fallen in love with Lucy Mercer, ER might never have become a force for peace and social justice. I knew her father had died of alcoholism, and her uncles had drunkenly fired hunting rifles at her from the windows of her grandmothers house. By Hayley Peterson I waded through the syrupy tributes in hope of a crumb of real insight. She did such a good job that when FDR was hired to be a vice president for the Fidelity and Deposit Company he asked her to become his full time secretary. While Sara had initially frowned on her son's marriage, she now threatened to cut off his inheritance should he follow through with a divorce. He paid all of her medical bills and changed his will so that half of the proceeds of his estate would go to help support her until she died. 17:41 25 Nov 2012, updated 13:35 18 Sep 2014. A military tribunal later found all eight men guilty. ], FACT: Yes, its known as Operation Pastorius, says series co-writer and historian, Linda May Kallestein. By Paul M. Sparrow, Director, FDR Library. Missy suffered a terrible stroke in 1941 and left the White House, so her assistant Grace Tully took over for her. But many of those papers belonged to Missy. [1], As a young woman, Lucy Mercer worked in a dress shop. The least disputed of Roosevelt's supposed affairs, however, was with Lucy Mercer, his wife's social secretary when he was assistant secretary of the Navy in 1916. This photo is from Jan. 20, 1936, Love nest: FDR took many of his close female friends whom he was rumored to be involved with romantically to his Hyde Park home in upsate New York. Winthrop Rutherfurd died in March 1944 after a long illness. [20] Winthrop Rutherfurd had proposed to socialite Consuelo Vanderbilt (18771964) in 1896, only to see her social-climbing mother instead force her into marriage with Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough (18711934) (cousin to later British prime minister Winston Churchill). If Lucy Mercers art was living, the medium in which she worked was personal and the scale miniature. Admirers compared her voice to velvet and swore her smile was radiant. Lucy Mercer had a talent, though it is not one held in high regard today. When he returned in September, sick with pneumonia in both lungs, Eleanor discovered a packet of love letters from Mercer in his suitcase. Teddy's daughter, Alice Roosevelt, would later put it that, "My father lived up to his reputation of being the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. In her book The Gatekeeper,Kathryn Smith describes Missys role this way: Missy was the Swiss Army Knife of the White House. Yet a strong partnership in political matters, shared membership in the storied Roosevelt dynasty, and six children did not make Franklin and Eleanor's a happy marriage. She was, according to Jean Edward Smith's "FDR," the president's constant companion for 21 years, his attendant on excursions where Eleanor was not present, and the only one to refer to him with the pet name "F.D." She had a long face and a prominent jaw and nose, but a sweetness of expression that spoke of her good nature. He was physically fearless, but he could be emotionally craven. When his daughter Anna was grown and newly divorced, she took up residence in the White House and became her father's confidante. To her surprise, Anna found that she liked Rutherfurd immediately, and the pair became friends. To license content, please contact licenses [at] americanheritage.com. [5] According to historians Joseph Persico and Hazel Rowley, the affair between Mercer and Franklin likely began in 1916, when Eleanor and the children were vacationing at Campobello Island to avoid the summer heat, while Franklin remained in Washington, D.C.[6][7] In 1917, Franklin often included Mercer in his summer yachting parties, which Eleanor usually declined to attend. The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency by Kathryn Smith finally gives Missy LeHand her due. They mention her soft heart. The two were from separate branches of the Roosevelt clan, fifth cousins once removed. Eleanor did not enjoy or entirely approve of the bohemian lifestyle FDR was engaging in, fishing and drinking and frivolous pastimes, and so she spent little time onboard. you have breathed new life into its spiritand the fate of all that is good is in your dear blessed and capable hands. Still, she cannot help wishing for the soft life of joy & the world shut out.. Born in 1882, he was the only child of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano. ER relied upon the kindness and sustenance of her friends, especially her women friends. And every day they would gather for Childrens Hour and FDR would mix martinis or some other cocktail and they would drop the worlds woes and spend time gossiping, chatting, and generally having fun. Throughout his life, Franklin Roosevelt was surrounded by remarkable women. And biographer Hazel Rowley has speculated (via Roll Call) that Mercer's devout Catholic faith may have prevented a physical relationship. One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's numerous rumored affairs will be revisited in the coming weeks with the release of 'Hyde Park on Hudson,' a film depicting the American president's quasi-incestual affair with his distant cousin, Margaret 'Daisy' Suckley. Unlike a formerly unpublished letter from which I finally got permission to quote, it wasnt even classified. This week marks the 72nd anniversary of the death and subsequent funeral of President Franklin Roosevelt. A few years later, when FDR contracted polio and was paralyzed from the waist down, their lives changed. It is covered with a penciled note in the kind of cryptic shorthand I and most writers I know use when insight or inspiration strikes. Just in the late 1920s, Hazel Rowley (via NPR) documents 116 weeks that Franklin was gone. She later commented, "He deserved a good time. Rutherfurd continued to meet more frequently with Roosevelt in the months that followed. Doris Kearn Goodwin counters in"No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt" that Franklin doted on his children when he could give them his time. Biographer Hazel Rowley wrote (via Roll Call) that Franklin Roosevelt remained in his marriage after his affair with Lucy Mercer was discovered because he "still loved Eleanor. Besides such material concerns, Rowley believes that Franklin still genuinely loved Eleanor. FDR was not the sexual rake certain historians have made him out to be, but he did subscribe to the philosophy of the E. Y. Harburg song that would appear the year after his death, When Im not near the girl I love, I love the girl Im near. Missy once said he was really incapable of a personal friendship with anyone. Some found him almost sadistic. Just a few months later FDR would be stricken with polio, and Missy would become his companion and gatekeeper. [36] The two women, Mercer and Shoumatoff, immediately packed and left the cottage. During the early days of their marriage, ER wrote her mother-in-law that the Jew party at Bernard Baruchs was appalling. When FDR died, Grace Tully ended up with all of the papers that she and Missy had collected over the years. She was laid up in her bed for weeks, then transferred to a hospital. Daisy Bonner, who cooked for Franklin Roosevelt for twenty years in the Georgia White House, recalled his favorite dish. region: "", Missys role as Gatekeeper gave her enormous influence in who the president spent time with. ' He also had a simple and unshakable faith in God. Widely considered the firstand onlyfemale presidential chief of staff, Marguerite Missy LeHand was the right-hand woman to Franklin Delano Rooseveltboth personally and professionallyfor more than twenty years. "[17] The incident marked a turning point in her life; disillusioned with her marriage, she became active in public life, and focused increasingly on her social work rather than her role as a wife.[18][19]. Per NPR's review of the book "Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage," she engineered a cruise with herself, Franklin, and Franklin's best friend that winter, a move that left Eleanor worried. And what was the future First Lady who would champion female equality doing opposing woman suffrage? She speaks of how much you have given . [30] When her husband later suffered a stroke, she contacted Roosevelt to arrange for him to be cared for at well-regarded Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.[31] Historian/author Doris Kearns Goodwin speculated that an entry in the White House ushers diary for August 1, 1941 included a code name for Lucy Rutherfurd, suggesting that she attended a private dinner with the president then. Franklin spearheaded the New Deal and set an optimistic tone for the country through his speeches and "fireside chat" radio messages, while Eleanor advocated for her husband's policies and reached out to Americans through her newspaper columns and travels. When one of their children died in infancy, Eleanor fell into such deep mourning that she later wrote of feeling a bitterness toward her husband for a time. For example, FDR's principal strategist and trusted adviser, Louis Howe, lived in the White House from 1933 until his death in 1936 as did FDR's secretary Missy LeHand who stayed until she suffered a stroke in 1941. In the first decade of their marriage, Eleanor was pregnant five times, four within the first four years. Several of them actually lived in the White House at one time or another. His health had declined throughout World War II. It was then that their relationship became more unconventional. But this was FDRs first shot at national political office and he went at it with his trademark gusto. Those were Groton idealstaught by youI try not to forget- and your words are still with me and with hundreds of other of us boys. The extent of Suckley's close relationship with Roosevelt wasn't known until her death in 1991, when a stash of letters from Roosevelt was found under her bed. At the time of their marriage, Eleanor's uncle Theodore Roosevelt joked that "there's nothing like keeping the name in the family." Dont, I murmured when on FDRs first presidential visit to Campobello a dozen years after hed been stricken with polio and carried off the island on a stretcher, she scolded him publicly for bringing the assembled guests to the dinner table late. WebMissy LeHand was private secretary to Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd US President of the United States) for over two decades. Fierce opposition came from Franklin's political advisor, Louis Howe, and from his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt. A formidable, multitalented multitasker.. I envied Lucy. When I looked at their early prejudices, I saw signposts indicating how far they had traveled. Copyright 1949-2023 American Heritage Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved. target: "#hbspt-form-1682997151000-4739201604", He replied that no one did, but that ER, who was breathtakingly generous to those in need, often turned away from those who no longer needed her. WebBeing obsessed with all things Roosevelt, I was thrilled to see a biography about Marguerite Missy LeHand, President Franklin D. Roosevelts personal secretary. Support with a donation>>. WebBesides children and grandchildren, several other longtime aides and friends also lived in the White House during the Roosevelt years. See also "Miss LeHand: FDR's Influential and Largely Forgotten Assistant". At a time when interest in their war just keeps on rising, why arent Americas World War II poets better remembered? Missy LeHand, FDR's closest companion for two decades, was crippled by a stroke followed by a nervous breakdown. Her stress was a trigger for heart problems, say the series co-writers, adding that the medication LeHand took gave her mood swings, depression and anxiety. Now closed to the public as part of the enlarged White House security zone, the Square has witnessed many historic moments over the last two centuries. . He maintained a relationship with his secretary Marguerite "Missy" LeHand. Attention and admiration were not things a young Franklin Roosevelt needed to worry about. WebThe exact nature of FDR's relationship with LeHand's is debated by historians, but it is generally accepted that there was an element of romance. He knew what he owed to her; he knew how much he needed her." [34] When Eleanor discovered, shortly after Roosevelt's death, from some female cousins, of Anna's role in arranging these meetings, the relationship between Eleanor and Anna became strained and cool for some time. Sara Roosevelt's attentions helped give her son a happy childhood, but she remained protective of him well into adulthood, a tendency that would later mar his marriage to Eleanor. The void left by my father, who died shortly after the war, made the towering national patriarch even more irresistible. Aware of Rutherfurd's role in her parents' early marriage, Anna was at first angry that her father had put her in such a difficult position. During their engagement she wrote to her future husband, Sometimes I think that a womans moods are sent her just as a mans temptations are.. Though it was reported several times in Eleanor's lifetime that Roosevelt had had a serious affair with an unnamed Catholic woman, this remained only a rumor for decades. After two decades of cruising the Florida waters and sharing a Warm Springs cottage with FDR, sitting by his side as he sorted his stamps when she knew he needed silence, and arranging impromptu dinners and late-night poker games when she sensed hed like company, Missy, who was only 43, had suffered a stroke the night beforebrought on, some said, by her effort to keep up with FDR. Franklin and Eleanor were acquainted as children but came to romance and courtship as young adults in 1902. WebThe Role: Missy LeHand served as private secretary to President Roosevelt, and according to biographer Kathryn Smith, eventually served as Chief of Staff in all ways but in name. "Attention and admiration were the things through all my childhood which I wanted," Eleanor later remarked, "because I was made to feel that nothing about me would attract attention or bring me admiration.". She had emerged from a tragic, if gilded, childhood to embrace the underdog, speak up for the disenfranchised, and battle tirelessly for human dignity. In conjunction with Glenn Horowitz Booksellers, we are offering the archive, intact, directly from Ms. LeHands heirs. A novelist who has just spent several years with them tells a moving story of love: public and private, given and withheld, In the FDR Library in Hyde Park, among the effects of Anna Roosevelt Halsted, the only daughter of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, there is a scrap of yellowing paper, about four inches by five. She had to, and J began to resent her for it. After a major White House renovation in 1934 Missy was moved into a prime office with a view of the rose garden, and a door that opened directly into the new and improved Oval Office. Sometimes, these bled into public view. "Your mother only bore you," she went so far as to tell young James Roosevelt. FDR confidant and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter regarded her as the "fifth most powerful person in the country" at the time. Roosevelt's longest supposed affair was with his secretary, Missy LeHand, which some historians believe he became romantically involved with beginning in 1921, when he was serving as governor of New York. Both branches of the Roosevelt family enjoyed wealth and privilege, yet the future first family were raised in markedly different circumstances. She was an exquisitely sensitive and engaging companion and later a constant and competent nurse to a husband who doted on her. During this period Missy had a serious medical issue with her irregular heartbeat and Eleanor grew deeply concerned about her health. Eleanor Roosevelt was 13 years into her marriage in 1918. She expected her husband to do well. Fact or Fiction: FDR's private secretary Missy LeHand suffered a sudden collapse at a White House dinner. FDR's affinity for the company of women was always well known and some historians dispute stories of his alleged affairs, saying his friendships never grew to become romances. One of many women: Franklin D. Roosevelt was said to have carried on a 20-year affair with his secretary, Marguerite 'Missy' LeHand. Missy grew to love this special place, and between the cruisesaboard the Larooco and the rehabilitation work at Warm Springs, Missy had become a critical part ofFDRs recovery efforts. It takes place during the June 1939 weekend that the British king and queen visited Roosevelt at his upstate New York cottage in Hyde Park, where FDR was said to take a number of mistresses. Mercer stayed in FDR's life until his death in 1945, and she was with him when he took his last breaths, even though she eventually married another man. In her autobiographies she admitted to a tendency, when hurt or angry, to withdraw into a punishing silenceher Griselda mood, she called it. [4] In 1914, Mercer was hired by Eleanor Roosevelt to become her social secretary. Just what the nature of that affair was is unknown and never will be. I shared her frustration when FDR declined to make an antilynching law a top priority, and refused to open the door to the Jewish victims of Hitlers persecutions, but wasnt she sufficiently astute to appreciate the adage that to be a great statesman, one must first be a good politician? There was more heartbreak waiting for Eleanor when she arrived in Warm Springs. The demands Eleanor Roosevelt made on herself could take a fearful toll on others, especially her husband. The Episode 6 scene of Roosevelt and Martha in a basement lockdown is fiction. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress. In June 1942, two squads of saboteursall U.S. residents who returned to Germany to serve the Reichwere dropped by U-boat on beaches in New York and Florida, respectively. But their public accomplishments took a personal toll. When President Roosevelt died, Grace Tully took all of her and many of Missys papers with her. The princess called Roosevelt by the nickname 'Dear Godfather,' and friends said they were very flirtatious towards one another. Their union lasted for 40 years, and Franklin and Eleanor supported each other's ambitions and ventures throughout it.
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