The engaged Eleanor and Franklin in 1906
“Oh! Darling, I miss you so . . .
So very happy in your love dearest, that all the world has changed for me . . .”
YOUR DEVOTED LITTLE NELL
Eleanor’s signature in this 1904 letter to Franklin said as much as the loving words. Her father had called her Little Nell. Now she was sharing the cherished nickname with someone else who said he loved her.
How did Eleanor and Franklin get together? In some ways, they’d known each other practically all their lives. The large Roosevelt family tree had many branches. The couple were not only fifth cousins, but Eleanor’s father, Elliott, was also Franklin’s godfather—though he must have rarely seen him, since he didn’t spend much time with his own children. Family lore recounted how Eleanor and Franklin had met on a visit when she was just two—the little boy gave her a piggyback ride. Over the years, they saw each other occasionally at family functions. Once, when she was fourteen and he sixteen, he asked the shy wallflower to dance at a party, a gesture that earned her gratitude.
Their relationship had its more serious beginning when they met by chance on a train in 1902, the summer before her debut into society. Franklin would start his junior year at Harvard in the fall. At Franklin’s invitation, Eleanor rather nervously joined him and his formidable mother, Sara. Afterward, the young couple struck up a correspondence and then found reasons to be together—a lunch here, a dance there—though rarely unchaperoned. Well-brought-up young women were not supposed to be alone in the company of single men.
Soon the couple’s feelings for each other began to grow. Being in the same social circles, they could be together at parties and balls, and Eleanor was also invited to parties at Franklin’s family’s summer home on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada. Still, they tried to keep their budding relationship under wraps. It was in 1903, during a football weekend at Harvard, that the couple snuck away long enough for Franklin to propose.
Thousands, maybe millions, of words have been written about the relationship of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and how different they seemed, at least on the surface. Certainly their childhoods had been almost polar opposites: Eleanor, an orphan, at the mercy of relatives, and without a home to call her own. Franklin, the cherished child of two devoted parents who gave him almost anything he wanted and doted on his every accomplishment. His growing-up years were idyllic, spent in the family home, Springwood, in Hyde Park, New York, on the banks of the Hudson River. He went swimming and boating in the summer, ice-skating in the winter, and all through the year enjoyed discovering the lush natural world that was right outside his window.
In personality and appearance the young couple seemed to be opposites as well. Where Eleanor was plain, shy, serious, and burdened with responsibilities before she was even a teenager, Franklin was handsome, outgoing, eternally optimistic, and carefree. One story has it that when Franklin proposed to her, Eleanor wondered aloud what he saw in her.
What he saw, as he put it even before they were courting, was a young woman with “a very good mind.” As Franklin came to know Eleanor better, he was impressed with her intuitive and sympathetic nature. Perhaps inspired by his cousin Theodore, Franklin had big plans for his future, and he wanted a wife who was not just a pretty decoration but someone in whom he could confide. In answer to her question, he told her he was sure he could become something “with your help.”
Despite the couple’s differences, they held important values in common, and these were a bond. Franklin felt, perhaps not as deeply as Eleanor, but felt nonetheless, the importance of doing good. He would, on occasion, accompany her home after her classes at the Rivington Street Settlement House—an endeavor he supported—and his conscience was stirred by what he saw. Once, he went with her to take an ill student home and was shocked to see firsthand what tenement life was like. “My God,” he said, “I didn’t know people lived like that.”
At Harvard, Franklin had written a paper about his family and their long history in America and concluded that their success came, in part, because of their sense of civic responsibility: “Having been born in a good position, there was no excuse for them if they did not do their duty by their community.” His father, James, whom he much admired and who had died when Franklin was eighteen, had also urged him to think about his responsibilities to other people.
His mother, Sara, however, wanted him to think mostly about his responsibility to her. Sara Delano was twenty-six when she married James, who was then twice her age. Nevertheless, they were a congenial couple, and when Franklin was born, Sara felt her world was complete. She not only adored her only child, she wanted to keep him close; so much so that while other boys of his social class entered boarding school at twelve, she kept him home for another two years. When he started at Harvard, she took an apartment in Boston to be near him.
Having been around Sara and hearing the family gossip, Eleanor probably knew how tightly his mother tied Franklin to her apron strings. If not, Alice, with her sharp tongue, might have told her. She described him derisively as a “good little mother’s boy.” Eleanor probably wasn’t even terribly surprised that after Franklin confessed to his mother that he’d proposed, Sara insisted they postpone the announcement, during which time Sara would take Franklin on a cruise. Although she didn’t quite come out and say it, the purpose of the trip was to make Franklin forget about Eleanor.
Eleanor’s wedding portrait. She and Franklin were married on March 17, 1905.
Despite all of Sara’s machinations, in the end she couldn’t stop the wedding, which was to take place on March 17, 1905. Theodore Roosevelt had promised to give his niece away at her wedding, but since he was president, the event was hard to fit into his busy schedule. The date was chosen because he was going to be in New York for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. After he was done marching, he would escort Eleanor down the aisle.
The wedding took place in a relative’s home, a lavish affair with two hundred guests and six bridesmaids, including Alice. No one had considered that with the parade route so close to the wedding, the guests would have trouble reaching the house. Eleanor remembered years later, “A few irate guests arrived after the ceremony was over!” Those in attendance saw a stately Eleanor, dressed in satin and lace, carrying a lily of the valley bouquet, escorted down the aisle by her uncle, the president. Waiting at the altar was her handsome groom.
When the ceremony was over, President Roosevelt congratulated Franklin for keeping the name in the family and made a beeline for the refreshments. To Sara’s indignation, the guests followed the witty, outspoken president and left the bride and groom standing alone. Eleanor shrugged it off. “I do not remember being particularly surprised at this,” she recalled later. She and Franklin followed the laughter into the next room.
After a three-month honeymoon in Europe, Eleanor came home pregnant, and the first of their children, Anna, was born in 1906. After that, the babies came in rapid succession: James (1907); Franklin, Jr. (1909), who died at eight months old; Elliott (1910); another Franklin (1914); and finally John (1916).
Eleanor was uncomfortable with motherhood, and it showed. She veered from being too strict with her children to trying avant-garde methods of child-rearing—like rigging up a wire contraption to hold Anna outside a window after she read that fresh air was good for babies!
Without a real childhood of her own to use as a blueprint, she didn’t know how to play with her children or be lighthearted around them, though sometimes she tried. Franklin, by contrast, with his big, boisterous personality, delighted in rolling around with his chicks, as he called them. But whether he was home or, as was often the case, busy with work, Eleanor was left to be the disciplinarian.
Eleanor and Franklin on their honeymoon in Sanremo, Italy
As adults her children described their mother as distant, dutiful, but unable to enjoy them. Eleanor, looking back, said that regretfully she didn’t know anything about being a mother.
Sara took full advantage of this weakness. In many ways, often quite brazenly, Sara undermined Eleanor’s mothering. She hired the help, who were loyal to her, won the children over with gifts and trips, and convinced herself she was more important to the children than their mother. She once told her grandson John, “Your mother only bore you. I am more your mother than your mother is.”
Though her appropriation of the young Roosevelts may have been Sara’s most outrageous action, it was at the top of a very long list of slights, insults, and overbearing behavior. The year Eleanor and Franklin married, Sara gave the young couple a Christmas gift—a drawing of a New York City town house that she was building for them. Actually, there were to be two town houses, one for them and one for Sara. The houses were connected by sliding doors through adjacent walls on three different levels.
Eleanor, afraid of displeasing Sara, went along with the decision to live so close together, but the house would remain a sticking point between them. Sara never stopped coming through those connecting doors. Eleanor remembered bitterly, “You were never quite sure when she would appear, day or night.”
The drawing of the town house that Sara was having built for Eleanor and Franklin. It’s signed, “From Mama.”
And where was Franklin in all this? Pretending as if the acrimony wasn’t happening. Eleanor came to realize that no matter how much she longed for her husband’s support, he wasn’t going to take sides. He disliked unpleasantness and assumed eventually the two women would work things out.
Eleanor’s unhappiness went on for years. Her frustrations and anger boiled into what she would call her “Griselda moods,” named after a put-upon wife in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The harder she tried to be the dutiful wife, mother, and daughter-in-law, the more disagreeable—and depressed—Eleanor became.
Eleanor’s dissatisfaction with her life left her thin and unhappy. Even after she gained more control over her life, bouts of depression would continue to plague her.
Meanwhile, Franklin was forging ahead in his career. He had gone to Columbia Law School and supported his family while living in New York working at a law firm.
But being a lawyer didn’t really suit the outgoing Franklin. He had higher ambitions, and the example of his cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, showed him that politics might be a way to satisfy both his ego and his desire to be in public service.
In 1910, the Democratic Party asked him to run for the New York State Senate as a candidate from the Hyde Park area. Franklin was eager to take up the challenge, but the fact that he was a political novice showed. The first time Eleanor heard him make a speech, he spoke so slowly and his pauses were so long, “I worried for fear he’d never go on.” Speaking style notwithstanding, he won, becoming the first Democrat to take the seat in thirty-two years. The town house was rented out and the family moved to Albany, the state capital. Eleanor hadn’t been especially keen on Franklin getting into politics, but it did have one advantage: Sara didn’t move with them. Nevertheless, she kept her presence felt with frequent visits.
Albany was a revelation for Eleanor. She thought politics and government were going to be her husband’s work. But as she soon learned, the politician’s wife also had a role to play. Eleanor had to conquer her shyness and become Franklin’s helpmate, hosting teas and luncheons and calling on the wives of allies and sometimes rivals. At first, for Eleanor this was just doing her wifely duty. As she put it, “Duty was perhaps the motivating force of my life . . . I looked at everything from the point of view of what I ought to do, rarely from the standpoint of what I wanted to do.” But slowly, she became interested in what made government work and in the men—almost exclusively men—who pulled the political levers.
She looked for ways to be involved. She made social connections with government officials and their wives and figured out ways for Franklin to make political alliances, even with enemies. During Franklin’s time in the state senate, Eleanor made it a practice to invite both sides of a political dispute to her home and make friends with everyone involved. “The first requisite of a politician’s wife,” she said, “is always to be able to manage anything.” As one friend put it, “She was playing the political game far better than anyone else,” but it was a game built on her real interest in people and her growing realization that the idea of championing the underdog was resurfacing as an important part of her life. As her success in political life grew, she began to build a strong base of political support for Franklin—and eventually for herself.
When it was time for Franklin to run for reelection, a man who would become an important influence on both Roosevelts stepped into their lives, Louis Howe. Howe saw a great future for Franklin Delano Roosevelt far beyond the New York State Senate. Howe became Franklin’s closest adviser and helped him win his reelection race in 1912.
Initially, Eleanor, as she put it, “was not favorably impressed.” A short, scrawny former newspaperman with a pockmarked face, a remnant of a serious childhood accident, Howe called himself one of the homeliest men in New York. And while people did say he looked like a troll, it wasn’t his looks that bothered Eleanor: It was his nonstop cigarette smoking that drove her crazy. He befouled the air and left ashes all over her house—and himself. It took a while for Eleanor to appreciate his political skill and personal devotion to the Roosevelts.
Louis Howe, trusted advisor of both Franklin and Eleanor, dressed casually at his house on Horseneck Beach in Massachusetts
During the 1912 election, Franklin had campaigned hard not just for himself but for the Democratic candidate for president, Woodrow Wilson. Though loyally sticking with their party, this decision was awkward for Franklin and Eleanor because Theodore Roosevelt was running as a third-party candidate. Cousin Alice, though she remained friendly, especially with Franklin, never quite got over this betrayal.
Another family issue for Eleanor in 1912 was the marriage of her brother, Hall. Only twenty, he had been an excellent student at both his boarding school, Groton, and later at Harvard. Hall seemed to be making his way in the world, and his wife-to-be was a beauty. At the wedding, Eleanor said she “felt as if my own son and not my brother was being married.” But despite his academic success, Eleanor was worried about her brother. It was clear that Hall was very much his father’s son: He drank too much. She was right to be concerned. His drinking would get worse as the years went by.
It was only a few months after Franklin’s reelection to the state senate that the new president, Wilson, rewarded his election loyalty by appointing him—at only thirty-one years old—assistant secretary of the navy. The job in the new administration was a huge step up from state politics, and, in fact, was the same job that had launched Theodore Roosevelt’s political career culminating in the presidency. The secretary of the navy, Joseph Daniels, Franklin’s boss, noted that fact in his diary with the hope, “May history repeat itself.” Clearly some people were already seeing great things ahead for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
While her husband got to work in March of 1913, Eleanor was left with the huge job of moving her family to Washington, D.C. Once again Eleanor was nervous about change, but building on the skills she’d learned in Albany, she learned her way around Washington and figured out how to navigate D.C. society’s strict protocols. She also felt much more confident as a mother (and as in Albany, happy to be away from Sara’s prying eyes). Franklin Jr. and John, who were born during this time in Washington, were raised by a much more relaxed mother.
Theodore Roosevelt, more forgiving than his daughter, was proud that Franklin held his old position in the navy. He recognized what others did—that Franklin, with his ability, wit, and charm, was a rising political star. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was reelected as World War I was raging in Europe. Wilson’s position had been one of American neutrality, but when Germany sank American ships, the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917. Franklin’s position at the navy now became even more important.
Once the United States was in the war, Eleanor noted, “the men in government worked from morning until late into the night. The women in Washington . . . began to organize . . . to meet the unusual demands of wartime.” For Eleanor that meant volunteering at naval hospitals and at the Red Cross canteens, doing everything from making sandwiches (and once almost slicing off a finger while cutting bread) to supervising volunteers to washing floors. Getting out in the wider world—outside of politics—made her happy and broadened her perspective. “I became a more tolerant person, far less sure of my own beliefs . . . I knew more about the human heart.”
Eleanor had her hands full juggling the responsibility of children, her volunteer work, and the role of political hostess. She had servants to help run the house, but in 1914, she hired pretty twenty-two-year-old Lucy Mercer as her social secretary. Lucy, from a good but poor family, needed the work and did her job efficiently and with good humor.
Eleanor became very fond of Lucy, and so, as it turns out, did Franklin. Eleanor was not always in D.C., especially during the brutal, humid summers. She would take the children to stay with Sara at Springwood, or all of them would travel to Campobello Island.
The attraction between Franklin and Lucy grew, and they began a romance that flourished during Eleanor’s absences. Some in Washington guessed about the affair; others knew—including Alice, who took a certain amount of glee in dropping veiled hints to Eleanor. When Franklin canceled a trip to see the family on Campobello Island during the summer of 1917, Eleanor became suspicious.
Lucy Mercer, circa 1915
In September 1918, the bottom dropped out of thirty-four-year-old Eleanor’s world. Franklin came home after a work-related trip to Europe feeling unwell. Eleanor unpacked his bags. Tucked away, she found a packet of letters tied with a piece of velvet ribbon. As she read them, she realized they were love letters from Lucy. The letters were the confirmation she’d been dreading. Eleanor immediately marched into Franklin’s sickroom, letters in hand, and told him she would give him a divorce. Divorce was frowned upon at that time, but an angry Eleanor was ready to take that step.
Franklin may have wanted to marry Lucy, but reality intruded in the forms of Sara Roosevelt and Louis Howe, who’d moved to Washington to work for Franklin. Sara was furious. She told her son if he did something as scandalous as abandoning his wife and children, she’d snap her purse shut: Franklin would not have access to her considerable wealth. Louis, who believed that someday Franklin would be president, told him divorce and remarriage would mean his political career was over.
Franklin decided to stay in his marriage, and Eleanor agreed—with the stipulation he would never see Lucy again. Though the couple was going to stay together, Eleanor, shattered by the deception, was determined their life together would now be on a new footing. She appreciated Franklin’s skill as a politician; she felt he had an important role to play in government and in the country. He was the father of her children, and she understood that in some way, she was going to have to continue in the role of his wife. But Franklin was no longer her great love, or if he was, she could no longer admit it.
Things were going to be different. Eleanor knew she would now have to decide what she wanted to do with her life—and then figure out a way to do it.
