Eleanor Roosevelt II

Taxicab

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:23:08 GMT

(John fishing with one of his three daughters)

Aunt Eleanor had very little patience with physical ailments. She believed she could simply deny and dismiss them and get on with her busy schedule. She had learned that it helped to lie down for a couple of hours if she felt a flu coming on, but if it was simply a painful back or aching headache, the best approach was to ignore it. We all felt a little intmidated by her strength of character and certainly reluctant to admit any ailment ourselves, least of all fatigue.
    In the summertime, it was my aunt's practice to go to New York once a week to attend to her appointments and errands and to stop in her city apartment. She could get a taxicab in the city--in fact many of the cab drivers recognized her and had taken her across the city as a fare--but in balmy weather she preferred to walk. Sometimes walking took less time than a cab would take to go the same distance, and she knew and taught me which streets were pleasant to walk on and which ones to avoid.
    Dressed in her light tweed coat and skirt to match, wearing a stylish hat and gloves, always in good lookig walking shoes and carrying a handbag, she felt at home on the sidewalks of New York. So familiar was her route that she could plan other events as she strode along.
    One day she took a shortcut in the middle of a block, stepping into the street from between two parked cars. A taxi driver, sho had just delivered a fare, backed out into the street, hit Aunt Eleanor, and knocked her down. She got right up again, but the taxi driver was instantly out of his cab and beside her. He apologized profusely, asking to take her to the octor at least home, but Aunt Eleanor was more concerned about him.
    "You must leave right now!" she directed him. "You might be fired for this! Just go, get in your cab and go right now!"
    A small crowd was already gathering. Aunt Eleanor picked up her bag and walked steadily down the block in order to put an end to the scene. Unfortunately, she found that walking was painful, but she wasn't going to let that cab driver endanger his job. She told me she fet relieved when he drove off, and she was sure that no one would notice, she allowed her self to limp to her apartment.
    For once, she felt that her ankle was so painful it was only sensible to go to her doctor, who discovered that it was badly sprained. He told her to keep her leg elevated and to put no weight on it for several days at least.
    When she returned to Val-Kill Cottage in two day's time, I arranged a comfortable chair and footstool and low table for her in Tommy's living room where she could work. She dictated her daily column to Tommy and worked at her mail. She even allowed herself to take an occasional nap sitting upright, but she would not admit to anything more than inconvenience. She tried to cheat, but the ankle really was painful when she tried to walk on it.
    When her son John came over from the Stone Cottage to see her, he laughed, then said, "Sorry Mummy, but it seems that sometimes you're just like the rest of us after all."
    Aunt Eleanor looked up at his considerable height. "But, Johnny, I don't want to be just like the rest of you!"

Cousin Laura

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:28:23 GMT

Families are not unlike a barnyard flock; there is more often than not a pecking order in the chicken coop. There does not seem to be a specific moment when you are assigned your place in the hierarchy, but once assigned, t can become permanent. Among her cousins, Aunt Eleanor did not rank highly in the system of prestige. She had several strikes against her. According to her mother, she was not beautiful or vivacious. Rather, she was too tall and awkward, unsure of herself, and serious. Her cousins felt sorry for her and therefore that much more secure in their own position in the hierarchy.
    Cousin Laura Delano was a younger sister of Sara Delano, mother of Uncle Franklin. Laura was a smallperson, witty and acerbic, always ready to gossip. For a time, she owned a successful women's clothing boutique in New York City. She wore silks that flowed with her feminine figure and suggested mystique. Expensive jewlry weighed down her fingers and jangled opulently from her wrists.
    Younger members of the family admired and envied her. Young wives of the Roosevelt sons vied with one another to become a favorite of Laura, hoping to be remembered in her will.
    It was obvious that Laura felt secure in her empire. She gave intimate dinner parties for select groups in the summertime that included her cousin Eleanor and some of Eleanor's guests. The invitations were always for eight o'clock in the evening, so aunt Eleanor would always serve a substantial tea earlier at four.
    At first I was puzzled by Cousin Laura's attitude toward my aunt. She seemed unable to let go of the fact that Eleanor had been the first lady of the United States and was now becoming "First Lady of the World."
    I once heard :aura ask her, "Tell me, Eleanor, is Winston Churchill sexy? Did he wear his jumpsuit in the White House?" When my aunt hesitated, Laura added, "Oh, come now, you must know."
    Aunt Eleanor simply smiled and said to her hostess, "Laura, I have no idea."
    At another dinner party I attended, Laura, who knew that her cousin seldom touched alcohol, leaned over and poured a generous jigger of sherry in "dear Eleanor's" soup.
    It was then that I suspected Laura felt threatened by a power she could not match. As a social circumstance, it was only embarrassing and rather sad, but eventually she revealed true malice. Shortly after Uncle Franklin died, she told Aunt Eleanor that his mistress Lucy Mercer had been among the people with him at Warm Springs when he died.
    I can scarcely imagine the hrt my aunt felt. I believe she had not known until that moment that he had continued his relationship with Ms. Mercer. But Aunt Eleanor did not allow this revelation to destroy her. She simply had too much good work to do.

(photo: Aunt Eleanor and Cousin Laura)

Lectures

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:26:37 GMT

Early one summer evening, Tommy and I took our places in the back seat of Aunt Eleanor's car. She got into the front seat beside Tubby, a former truck driver wo would have been offended to be called a chauffeur.
    As we pulled away from the cottage, Aunt Eleanor asked Tommy what the subject was for her lecture that night. I was stunned; twenty minutes away from an hour's lecture and the speaker asks what the subject is. I remembered winning a public-speaking prize at school and the hours and apprehension that preceded my presentaion.
    Tommy replied, "The psychological effect of the war years on students in our society."
    Eleanor was quiet for a few minutes, then found a scrap of paper in her purse and jotted down a few notes.
    At tee high school, reporters and school officials greeted us. Two of the reporters then asked my aunt for a copy of her speech. I suspect they wanted to scan it in the comfort of their homes and write a piece about it at their leisure. Aunt Eleanor smiled sweetly and informed them that she never wrote out her speaches, so there never could be any copies of them.
    The freshness of her presentation lay in the fact that she derived her inspiration and intesnity from the very people who listened to her, and it only made her feel stilted to have to refer to notes, except as a reminder of a point she particularly wanted to emphasize. Journalists all over the country eventually learned that in order to get a copy of one of her speeches, they had to hear it themselves.
    Afte ra lecture, she always wanted to know "how it went," and she often relaxed with a cup of tea and talked about it, but apparently it never occure to her that a record of her speech should be kept in an archive.
    No matter what official topic she had been given, she also managed to talk about subjects that interested her. She would adroitly turn the content towards human rights or the United Nations and peace. That night she decided to talk about education. But no matter what the topic, the audience always grew quiet and remained so winthout so much as a cough, until their speaker picked up her wristwatch from the podium and said, "now you must ask me questions."
    That night, a young woman asked a question my aunt had heard many times before. "Mrs. Roosevelt, what can we, as individuals, do to help our country to promote world peace when there are socialist ad fascist nations out there wating to conquer the world?"
    "It may suprise you," Aun Eleanor replied, "and some of your teachers may disagree with me, but I am sure the more you study communism or socialism, the more tolerant you will feel. The very best thing would be to travel to such countries and see for yourself. We are not afraid of a known situation. It is the unknown we fear."

Difficult Handwriting

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:10:14 GMT

It was after 11:30, time for me to put out the reading light and roll over to sleep, but another lamp shone at the desk by the window. Aunt Eleanor was still writing letters to her friends. At night, after siging the mail that Tommy had left on her desk at the end of the day, she enjoyed writing to her family and some intimate friends.
   One might wonder why people liked getting her handwritten letters, since they had to spend some time deciphering them. My aunt's handwriting was dreadful. But it was a complement to know that she herself had pushed the pen, so you puzzled once again over the scrawl and evetually became quite good at reaing it; it was dreadful but consistant, unique, and recognizable if not legible.
   The pleasant, second story, south facing room in her new apartment served as living room, guest room, and study for my aunt. One wall had floor-to-ceiling bookcases and cupboards. Along the opposite wall, two day beds stretched head to foot, each one covered by a dark blue, hand loomed bed spread and smothered with cushions of every size and shape. Discovering your bed in the evenin required poling cushions on the other bed, or on the floor if there were two of you. Aunt Eleanor felt free to work at her desk if I was the guest, although she always asked if I would mind. It was companionable to have her there, and I have never had any trouble going to sleep unless circumstances weredramatically against me, so I welcomed my hard-at-writing aunt.
   Some years ago, the FDR Library in Hyde Park, New York, asked anyone who had handwritten letters from Eleanor Roosevelt to please send them to the library where permanent records about my aunt are housed. I sent most of the letters she had written to me, but I have to admit I kept a few for my personal enjoyment. I'm glad now that I did. Each one is special to me.

The Declaration of Human Rights

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:49:26 GMT

In the 1940's, the Soviet Union was the United States' only significant international rival. The Russians believed their political philosophy should be spread world-wide with themselves in charge. Aunt Eleanor believed that the ideal of communism, in which every citizen would share equally with every other citizen, was a perfect expression of man's longing for a fair and altruistic society. She also believed that the Soviet Union was as far from a truly communistic society as Hitler had been from democracy.
    Aunt Eleanor met the Russians head-on as she chaired the eighteen-nation commission (which included the Soviet Union) to draw up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It seemed that nobody thought it could be done, but that was just the sort of challenge to which Aunt Eleanor responded.
    In her letters from Geneva, she described the Russian representative rising to his feet every morning and, for twenty minutes, exhorting the commissioners to follow the glorious example of the Soviet Union. Aunt Eleanor would let him speak, then bang the table with her gavel, and discussion of each article in the document would begin again.
    For more than a year, she had it written in her calendar that they would return to the United States by Christmas of 1948 with a completed declaration for the General Assembly to ratify. She did not intend to disappoint herself even if every word used in the declaration had to be approved. A State Department advisor described my aunt as being an astonishing combination of naivet and cunning. She would turn to a Russian delegate and say, "I know I am only a woman, and women don't know about these things, but..." And she just as sweetly invited any Russian to visit the United States, "If you will let us travel in your country." (She had been denied a visa to travel in the Soviet Union).
    The deadline would not have been met had she not insisted upon long hours every day and meetings on Saturdays, even Sundays if the objective had not been reached. The delegates complained about their "slave driver." "How about human rights for us?" they chided. She replied that she would never again believe that women talk more than men do. If they didn't talk so much, they would get more work done.
    Aunt Eleanor spoke often and eagerly about the difficulties of hammering out a universal declaration. For instance, when she suggested that the first article of the Declaration be based on the U.S. Constitution, which begins, "All men are created equal," there was an immediate uproar. The delegate from India submitted that "men" pointedly left out women and could not be tolerated. The Chinese objected to the word "Created" as implying a religion. Most delegates could not agree on a definition of "equal." Aunt Eleanor realized that the entire declaration would have to be drawn up word by word, and in words whose translation into other languages would not obscure a universal meaning.
    There was also argument about the freedom to work. In the United States, a person may work anywhere he or she wishes to, at any job he or she chooses. In the Soviet Union, the citizens indeed enjoyed the right to work, but that right translated into an obligation to work where the state wanted them to work, at jobs the state required.
    The return of prisoners of war became a stumbling block as well. World War II was just over. The allies hoped they had won an enduring peace and freedom for all people. Prisoners of war could now return to their native lands. The Soviet Union would, indeed, accept their returning soldiers and refugees, but some of them would unfairly be tried for treason.
    Aunt Eleanor became aware that fascists and communist states regard government as the ruling body of the nation, whereas in a democracy the people are the ruling body.
    On the day in December when the commission finally finished its work and voted the declaration ready to be brought before the General Assembly, Aunt Eleanor gave a small reception for her colleagues at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. She wrote to me after all the guests had left and she was walking through the empty halls with her advisor, she came up with a better way to celebrate than with a glass of champagne at a party. The marble floors were polished to the shone of black ice. My aunt's feet were long and narrow, and her low0heeled shoes had leather soles. She ran, gathering momentum, and then slid down the hall, her arms outstretched in triumph. It was so much fun that she did it again.
    In New York City on the 10th of December, 1948, Aunt Eleanor stood before a plenary session of the General Assembly of the United Nations and read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so painstakingly hammered out by her commission. It was unanimously accepted. Then the Assembly did something it had never done before. Everyone rose to honor the speaker. This particular speaker had been able to put together a document that few thought possible, and, not only that, it was a woman who had done it.

The First American Woman at the UN

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:54:51 GMT

    With brightness in her eyes and slight hand gestures, Aunt Eleanor described her work with the United Nations. She had helped her husband think through the charter for the organization, and it remained a chief interest for her the rest of her life.
    My aunt believed that nothing real is gained through force. You must study your enemy, understand his motivations, make personal contact, and then work problems through. The United Nations was such a forum for forging lasting peace.
    When President Truman appointed her one of the first five official delegates, it almost goes with out saying that she was the only woman delegate from the United States. Along with five alternate delegates and a staff of advisors, five months after Uncle Franklin's death, she sailed to London for the gathering of the General Assembly. Most of the US delegates had arrived at the New York City steamer dock in official limousines. Aunt Eleanor drew up in a taxicab and, as always, carried her own bag on board.
    She wrote to me while she was gone, describing her stateroom as containing an impressive stack of Department of State briefs that explained the official position of the United States in every conceivable circumstance. She said she missed her secretary but had left Tommy at home to handle the huge volume of personal mail, which was never less than two or three hundred letters a day.
    During the five-day sail to England, Aunt Eleanor informed herself on every aspect of her new position. And every day, important, official documents, printed on blue paper, were added to the pile on her table. Sometimes she found herself falling asleep as she tried to study the verbose reports. Once, when she asked a gentleman from the State Department to translate a document into a language she could understand, he said, "Mrs. Roosevelt, I don't understand these words. I don't think anyone is supposed to."
    In London, my aunt was received with acclaim. She dined with the king and queen, who wanted to talk about the problems of the world's Jewry, and Lady Peasley, president of the World Women's Party for Equal Rights. When the delegation met to assign their members to specific committees within the United Nations, they assigned my aunt to Committee Three. Obviously, the men thought an appointment to the committee scheduled to deal with humanitarian, social, and cultural matters would be a safe place to put their controversial female member. Surely she could do no harm (to any of their political careers) from there. They, themselves, would deal with important subjects like government, military affairs, finance, and political involvement.
    Back in New York, after the initial meeting in London, it turned out that one of the jobs the Economic and Social Council had assigned to Committee Three was to set up an eighteen-nation commission on human rights. The commission's first task would be to draft a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a kind of international bill of rights. The group was given three weeks to set up an agenda to accomplish the task. They met in New York City and were paid $15 a day. After their first meeting, by unanimous acclamation, they chose my aunt to be their chairperson.
    On the second day, she was four minutes late and apologized, saying the New York subway had let her down. During the second week, she came down with a case of shingles, but no delegate ever knew it. Tommy and I, back at her apartment, worried about her and wished we could find her some relief. But she just asked her doctor to cover the affected area with something that wouldn't ooze through her clothes while she went on with the important work of the commission.

Aunt Eleanor's New York Apartment

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:09:54 GMT

Me and my son Lauren

    After Uncle Franklin's Death, Aunt Eleanor no longer needed the spacious apartment and staff that she had kept on Washington Square in New York City, so she moved into a two bedroom hotel apartment. It had a room for her, a room for her secretary, Tommy, two bathrooms, and an office. All her life she spent at least part of every winter in New York, the focal point of the serious work she did, the city that connected her with social and political events of the day.
    In the autumn of Aunt Eleanor's first year alone--and every year until her death--I received a note inviting me to spend a week with her in New York City after the excitement of Christmas was over. The stipulation remained the same every year: I must come alone. The children were invited to Val-Kill in the summer, but the winter vacation was a solo engagement. Exhausted as I was raising four children by myself, as well as by the holidays, I considered it a special gift, a very thoughtful gesture. It was also good for my children. I have always maintained that you don't know what you are doing until you are in the midst of doing something else. Then you see the picture in better perspective, and you feel refreshed when you return to it.
    But the habits of home remain strong to both parents and children. My idyllic days in the big city were punctuated by phone calls to or from Michigan, where we were living at the time. One early morning, as Aunt Eleanor and I were about to leave for a television interview, the phone rang. A small voice asked Aunt Eleanor if Ellie was there. (My children have always called me "Ellie.")
    My four children, five hundred miles away, were getting ready for school, and one of the boys was in distress.
    "Ellie," he wailed into the phone, "where is my other shoe?"

Life After Franklin

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:20:19 GMT

    Aunt Eleanor had not wanted the public life of first lady. She dreamed of being a private person, living quietly in her Val-Kill Cottage, enjoying her family and friends, knitting even more baby sweaters, walking through her woods. Then, suddenly, Uncle Franklin died, and she was out of the White House in a few day's time, making haste so that President Truman could move in.
    She traveled to her cottage, taking her personal belongings and her favorite pictures with her, but soon found herself unsatisfied. She hadn't realized how much it meant to her to promote the causes in which she was particularly interested: world peace, women's rights, universal education, and personal fulfillment. As first lady, she had more influence than she realized, and she told me she was surprised to find she missed it. But she didn't let her loss of official status stop her from working on the behalf of others.
    Thinking it might keep her in the public eye, she even did an advertisement for margarine. I was present when three of her sons tried to dissuade her from doing something so undignified. Unaware of the quality of her own celebrity, she argued that she still wanted to be useful and it was good to keep her name in people's minds. Her shocked sons countered that she couldn't erase her name from peoples minds even if she tried. On said, "Mummy, you don't need advertisement. That's been our trouble all our lives!"
    She went ahead with her advertisement, then seemed to decide that product promotion was not the path toward her vision. She did not have to wait long for an alternative. President Truman thrust her back onto the center of the world stage by appointing her to the first delegation to the first session of the new United Nations.

Uncle Franklin's Funeral

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:53:02 GMT

    At 5:30 in the morning, as Mackenzie King's private railway car steamed down the east side of the Hudson River, I woke up in my little bedroom. I lifted the blind and watched the river go by. Soon we would be at the Roosevelt siding in Hyde Park. There the locomotive would stop, and the private car would be uncoupled from the train and shunted onto the siding, where it would be out of the way of the funeral train that was bearing Uncle Franklin's body from Washington to hi home. I had breakfast with the prime minister, and he showed be the bouquet of early flowers he had picked from his garden to lay on his friend's grave.
    It was eight o'clock when we walked up the woods road from the siding to the rose garden near the big house, and the earth was blinking on a new, spring day. Tiny leaves were testing the weather, wild flowers too, as we quietly walked up the long hill, Mr. King with his bouquet in hand. We took our places in the rose garden. Aunt Eleanor was there with her daughter, Anna, and her sons with their wives. A few dignitaries who had missed the formal service in Washington stood in the group along with friends and neighbors from Hyde Park. The sun was gradually touching the tops of tall trees, and a lone robin sang its song of renewal from the top limb of a tall elm tree.
    Then we heard drums, beating a slow, sad beat up the woods road. We turned and saw marines, their drums draped in black, marching at the head of the funeral procession. Following them was a handsome, rider less horse with boots hanging backwards from its saddle, symbol of a fallen leader. Finally came the flag-covered casket on a caisson drawn by four horses. The procession stopped at the rose garden, and the burial service began.
    Wreaths were laid solemnly on the fresh grave, and Mr. King placed his bouquet among them.
    After the service, as we approached the big house from the garden, I saw Aunt Eleanor standing alone at the door. I was not surprised as I watched her welcome every guest and offer them all the help she could, now that the president was gone. She always though of others before thinking of herself.
    Later that day, Tommy said to me, "Your aunt needs you now. She needs friends who don't just want something. Visit her often, and keep your happy smile with you."
    I never forgot Tommy's words, and I acted on them from that moment until my aunt's death in 1962. Before, I had always been drawn to what I felt was her interest in me, but I had also felt hesitant to assume it. Because of Tommy's encouragement, I felt free to act as my instinct led me and tell her that I wanted to be with her. I liked driving her to lectures when I could; I enjoyed accompanying her to have lunch with friends or cousins. I began to visit her often and regularly. I learned from what she said and valued all my time with her. And I especially appreciated that my four children were able to know their grandfather's sister.

The Death of Uncle Franklin

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:08:34 GMT

    On April 12, 1945, I expected the telephone call to be from my mother congratulating my husband and me on our fourth wedding anniversary. We were living in Ottawa, Canada, and finally the eighteen inches of ice on the sidewalks was beginning to melt.
    "I suppose you heard the news," my mother said.
    "What news?" I had spent the day, as usual, trying to keep ahead of two small boys while also trying to keep up with the household tasks and pretending to be an artist.
    "Your Uncle Franklin died this afternoon."
    Like a good portion of the world population, I was stunned. Uncle Franklin was not far into his fourth term as president. He had gone to his "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia, for a few days of rest and died suddenly of a massive cerebral hemorrhage: a stroke. The world lost its leader just as the Second World War was coming to a close. I lost a friend.
    The telephone rang again. It was Mackenzie King, the prime minister of Canada. We had become friends on the few occasions when I had met him in Ottawa. He was a sincere and honest person, a friend of Uncle Franklin and a popular leader. He said he planned to go to the burial service in Hyde Park and asked if I would go along with him in his private railway car. I hear myself say yes even as I wondered how I would arrange to leave my two young boys.
    I never traveled with Uncle Franklin on his campaign whistle-stop tours of the United States, so I was curious about what it would be like to travel in a private railway car. Today, the only place to see on is in a museum.
    It was late afternoon, a day or two later, when Mr. King's sedan drove up to our duplex. The prime minister himself came up the snowy walk to carry my bag to his car. When I was seated, the chauffeur put a fur lap robe across my knees to warm them. At the Ottawa station, we walked along the platform to the special car that had been attached to the train bound for New York City. It was a fairy tale house on wheels. It had a little living room complete with comfortable sofa and chairs and an open fire in an iron fireplace. It also had a study for the prime minister, three tiny bedrooms with toilet facilities, a dining room for six, and a kitchen.
    The Roosevelts taught me to embrace new experiences, so despite feeling numb about the death of Uncle Franklin, I was fascinated by my adventure. It was a tribute, in some way, to his lively, unrelenting spirit.

St. Patrick's Day

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:39:25 GMT

    March is an in-between month in Dutchess County. I was visiting Aunt Eleanor at Val-Kill Cottage in March of 1942 and was glad to be having tea by the open fire. Patches of leafy earth were showing through the snow that lay in the woods. Trees stood tall, waiting for better weather before letting their leaves out to decorate their branches.
    Aunt Eleanor took up the knitting that stood in a basket by the wing chair that was her acknowledged place by the fire. From there she could look at the family photos that surrounded the fireplace and hung above the mantle. She also had a good view of the alcove beyond, filled with books from floor ceiling. The walls were wood paneling finished in the soft pine polish that was developed by the craftsman at the Val-Kill Furniture Factory. It was a cozy room in which to sit on an overcast, early spring afternoon.
    Aunt Eleanor told me she looked forward to spending more time in her home someday. She dreamed of being a private person but acknowledged that part of her effectiveness as an advocate for the causes in which she believed was her status as the first lady.
    As we sat together quietly that day, she received a call from her husband. It was St. Patrick's Day, their thirty-seventh wedding anniversary. Uncle Franklin wished his wife a happy day and asked about the dogwood along the trails in their woods; trails that they had walked when they were first engaged.
    He hadn't been able to walk those trails since contracting polio twenty years before, but he could drive. The Ford Motor Company had remodeled one of their touring cars for him so that he was able to control it using only his hands. He loved to drive on the dirt roads through his estate, watching over the woods, determining which trees should be cut to make firewood for the following winter.
    I found myself continuing to listen as my aunt and uncle touched on the past together.
    My mother and others had spoken to me about Uncle Franklin's long-term relationship with Lucy Mercer, whom they euphemistically called his "best" friend. Tommy always said that my aunt harbored an adolescent fantasy, born of adoring her father, that you married and lived happily ever after. Eventually, I agreed with Tommy that my aunt never forgave her husband for the affair, so she never had the profound growth that real forgiveness entails--nor did she have the companionship that is born of trust. When she first learned of the affair, before he was president, she offered him his "freedom," a divorce, but he chose not to accept it. I suspect that, in part, he knew how important she was to his career. Also, his mother would never approve of divorce.
    Aunt Eleanor remained Uncle Franklin's loyal partner, but they never developed an easy, affectionate relationship. She seemed to protect herself from the hurt of infidelity by building a wall around herself and concentrating on work.
    But on this occasion, I sensed in their exchange a brief sadness in my aunt for never having forgiven Uncle Franklin and, perhaps, for not having the kind of relationship that might have been.

Toast and Scrambled Eggs

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:38:40 GMT

When Aunt Eleanor first moved into the White House, she tried in vain to find a cozy space where she could enjoy breakfast with her guests in the morning and a companionable cup of tea in the afternoon.

    The Roosevelts were an informal family. Aunt Eleanor didn't want to have breakfast in the formal dining room, and the other rooms in the White house also seemed to be formal as well as designed for specific purposes. The space she sought would be hers alone. Uncle Franklin didn't come down to breakfast; it was served to him in bed as he read an impressive number of government reports.
   Her solution was to convert the end of the hall nearest her bedroom into her tearoom. She set up three tall screens, a folding table that could be set aside after breakfast, several comfortable upholstered chairs, two or three occasional chairs, and potted plants. It was an intimate but spacious "room," pleasantly lit by tall windows.
   Women of my aunt's generation and social standing didn't do any household work, including cooking. Their responsibility lay in hiring and firing servants and dictating the daily routine. A butler would stand quietly by Aunt Eleanor's chair at breakfast time and take everyone's order. Eggs or cereal and fruit arrived in fairly good shape from the distant kitchen, but toast did not.; it would be cold and dry. Aunt Eleanor solved the problem by keeping the toaster on a silver tray beside her and making the toast herself at the table.
   Her guests may have been surprised to be sitting in easy chairs so low that their scrambled eggs were not far below their chins, but Roosevelts were always full of surprises, and Aunt Eleanor was no exception. She seemed never to understand why she was considered eccentric when she was, merely being practical. It was the conversation at breakfast and tea that mattered. Who cared what you were sitting on?
   During the Second World War, certain consumer goods were scarce, so we all held ration cards. It was the fair way to apportion an inadequate supply. Gas was high on the list. I remember being allotted three gallons a week. The next most-rationed commodities were meat and sugar. I lived in Canada during the war years, and meat was not rationed there. On my infrequent trips to "lower forty-eight," I often carried in my bag a large sirloin steak as a gift for my hosts.
   In the United States, there was a campaign to persuade people to establish one meatless day a week. Aunt Eleanor was acutely aware of the privileged position of the White House and felt that she and Uncle Franklin must join in as well. So every Thursday night for dinner, she served scrambled eggs, which was one of the few things she knew how to cook. I think the custom dated from her young married years when Thursday was the cook's night out.
   At the White House, scrambled eggs became a ceremony. A big, copper chafing dish with an alcohol lamp under it was placed in front of my aunt's seat at the table. Surrounding it were bowls containing cheese and parsley and a pitcher of creamy milk. After my aunt was seated, a butler placed a large bowl of slightly beaten eggs beside the other ingredients. My aunt then scrambled the eggs, adding a little cheese, salt, and pepper. Since she was occupied, the butler made the toast, the cut each piece into four points and decorated each plate. When everyone was served, the shining chafing dish was removed, and we set about eating our scrambled eggs. Fruit or salad followed the eggs, and then coffee, of course.
   In general, people are delighted to receive an invitation to dine at the White House, but I suspect that during the war years, candidates hoped it would not be for a Thursday night dinner.

White House Mail

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:07:33 GMT

    After her brother died, Aunt Eleanor indeed worked harder than ever before to help others. Part of that work was logistical: answering mail. The amount of mail Aunt Eleanor received in the White House was far more than her secretary could handle by herself, so there were others at work in a mysterious office somewhere, just as there was an office dedicated to taking care of the president's mail.
During my week-long visits to the White House, I usually started each morning in Tommy's office, interrupting her work and listening to her amusing account of household events of the previous day.
    I also got a short view of the letters my aunt received. Sometimes a letter was written on a torn piece of lined paper, laboriously spelled out, with a poignant lea for assistance. Sometimes the message was a treatise on the wrongs in the world and how they should be righted, a document that rambled on for several pages with no punctuation and no return address. Most of the letters were reasonable requests for help, financial help as a rule, for the unemployed, students, young people out of work, young single mothers, hopeful authors of half written books, homeless folks, or seniors. And then there were the children who wanted autographs, and the parents who would like to come to the White House and meet the first lady.
    Tommy protected my aunt from mail that was not worth her while to answer, but she knew she couldn't discard any reasonable request. Her boss wanted to know, through her mail as well as her travels, what the temper of the country was, and she personally answered as many of the letters as her incredibly busy schedule allowed. Autographs were sent, and parents were invited to one of the teas for 200 that Aunt Eleanor regularly hosted to let the people know that the White House really belonged to them.
    Sometimes she was moved to send money to a young person, and sometimes she made lifelong friends in this way. One young man, who was able to finish medical because she sent him the $500 he had to have at the end of his last year, kept in touch with Aunt Eleanor for many years as he moved ahead in his profession. But my aunt knew, of course, that she couldn't hand out dollars to everybody. In the first place, she didn't have dollars to hand out, but, more important, she felt that every citizen in our democracy deserved at least the advice of the experts who were appointed to serve them when thy were in trouble. So she appealed to those appointees on the citizens behalf. She sent letters to the State department if someone was being wrongfully denied a passport or if the service was so slow that the person was suffering. Her letters went to the Labor Department for a laid-off worker or to the Labor union to ask them to support their members or to the Department of Health and Human services or to the Department of Education
    It became a joke in every department. They all recognized my aunt's unassuming stationary, and I am sure they all hoped the letter was directed to someone else. For here was the first lady again asking why they were not doing their job. It was difficult to send a reply without being able to report some action in response to her request. And this was just what Aunt Eleanor expected. She used her influence well.

The Death of Hall

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:10:16 GMT

My father, Hall, as a young man

In 1941, I received a telephone call from the White House. Aunt Eleanor said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you, dear, that your father is very ill. He's in the hospital in Bethesda. He has cirrhosis of the liver and is not expected to live many more days."
    I was speechless as se continued, "He's out of his head much of the time, but I wanted to tell you and leave it up to you whether or not you want to come to see him. It's quite possible he won't recognize you, but I feel the decision should be yours."
    My father left my family when I was three, and I didn't see him again for twelve years, when Aunt Eleanor arranged for me to meet him. I have always been grateful to her for that. The next six years turned my father into a living person for me and laid to rest the fantasy I might have harbored otherwise.
    On the train to Bethesda, I thought about my father and about his and my aunt's father, my grandfather. Aunt Eleanor's father had died when she was nine and therefore too young to make considered judgments. In her overwhelming childhood grief, she felt the loss of the one person who sincerely loved her. She focused on remembering everything her father had said to her and vowed never to forget one word of his admonitions or one whisper of the secret messages they shared when she sat on his lap.
    One of the admonitions was to take care of her little brother Hall, my father. My aunt did her best to fulfill her father's request. After they were orphaned, she tried to be both mother and father to him. When she was grown and married to Franklin, my father lived with them until he married. Even after he was married, she continued to provide a haven for him. She watched over both his marriages, and, as he gradually disintegrated into alcohol addiction, she always provided some kind of housing for him and an opportunity to work at something.
    Most recently, he had finished a book with the help of a ghostwriter. The Odyssey of an American Family is a history of the first Roosevelts in America. They were Dutch who sailed to New Amsterdam (now New York). He gave me a copy of the book, and on the flyleaf he wrote, "To a most darling lady, my daughter."
    Our times together had been sad celebrations for me: a birthday party, an evening at a nightclub, a Thanksgiving Day with his friends; never was it just him and me. It was as if he couldn't let anyone see him quietly. And alcohol was his protection.
    At the hospital, I found Aunt Eleanor at his bedside. She left the room so that I could be alone with him, restless and half-conscious as he was. But he did recognize me and held my hand. I had an overwhelming feeling of sadness for a brilliant life lost to emotional instability. I also felt sad for Aunt Eleanor, who was watching a replay of the death of her father. He also had dies from cirrhosis of the liver due to abuse of alcohol.
    Hall died next week, and his casket lay in the lovely east room of the White House until it went on its final journey to Tivoli, New York, to be placed in the Hall vault in the graveyard of the Tivoli Episcopal Church.
    After the service at the White House, Aunt Eleanor, Tommy, and I were driven back to Val-Kill Cottage in the White House limousine with an escort of two motorcycle policemen. Occasionally, I feared for the lives of pedestrians or innocent animals along our route. I think motorcycle policemen must be the modern equivalent of the cavalry. They enjoyed charging ahead.
    Val-Kill Cottage was quiet. Only Marge, the coo, came to greet us and then disappeared to cook our dinner. Tommy and I sat in her cozy living room beside a friendly fire, enjoying a cocktail before dinner, while Aunt Eleanor went upstairs to bathe and change. Aunt Eleanor never allowed herself to relax with a glass of wine, no doubt because of its role in the death of her father and now of her brother.
    After dinner, we were back in Tommy's living room for coffee when Aunt Eleanor left us to go up to her bedroom. She returned with a shoebox full of her brother's letters, sat on the couch by the fire and took her glasses out of her purse. One by one, she took his letters out of the box and read them through quietly to herself.
    Tommy and I sat in silence watching her, until Tommy finally said, "Mrs. Roosevelt, you must not be too hard on yourself."
    Only then did Aunt Eleanor look up, her eyes glistening. "I'm trying to find where I failed him, Tommy."
    She went through several more letters before Tommy spoke again. "You must not blame yourself, Mrs. Roosevelt. You did everything in your power to help him. The truth is that he couldn't be helped because he had lost the power to help himself. You must go on now and help other people. There is a world of people out there who need your help. Don't be diverted by a personal sadness when there is so much that needs to be done that only you can do."
    An era ended for my aunt that night. Her impossible struggle to help her brother had failed. But she would carry on now, more than ever inspired by the desire to help people everywhere.
    The golden light of the fire softened the shadows on Aunt Eleanor's face as she began to go through the letters a second time. She read them one by one, and one by one she gently let them drift into the fire.

Courage and Fearlessness

Eleanor roosevelt ii — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:57:52 GMT

When Uncle Franklin said in his first inaugural address that there is nothing to fear but fear itself, he defined his own attitude as well as that of his wife.
    He was called "Happy Warrior" as he led our country our of the Great Depression and through the Second World War. He was insouciant about his own vulnerability. He liked to campaign in his open touring car, sitting in the backseat waving his misshapen, weather-worn fedora to an enthusiastic public.
    He liked to feel close to his countrymen and resisted hiding behind bulletproof glass. Even after an assassination attempt in Florida, he resisted what he considered to be overprotection and went right on challenging his guardians. If the Secret Service thought their president was a difficult subject to protect, they had a worse time with his wife.
    My aunt devoted her life to her father's admonition to improve the lives of those less fortunate than herself, and she seemed not to care if something happened to her in the process. She said she didn't have time to worry about safety and didn't want a bodyguard getting in her way as she traveled alone in the world. (Later, she relented and did hire protection.) During the war, in Red Cross uniform, she traveled throughout the Pacific to see and encourage our troops. "Top Brass" was at first opposed to the idea but changed their minds when they recognized the enthusiasm of our troops. During that tour, she lost thirty pounds.
    But sometimes Aunt Eleanor seemed like a fatalist to me, as though she didn't have a sense of somebody to live for. In any case, she was certainly brave. Her attitude was just to get out there and do it anyway.
    One of the subjects of discussion at White House meals was whether she should accept some of the many invitations she received to speak in favor of desegregation in the southern states, where segregation was still an accepted fact.
    She wanted to go down there and talk about her strong belief that we are all equal citizens of a great democracy. It took messages from Cabinet members, besides the impassioned pleas of the Secret Service, to dissuade her from most of the invitations.
    Admirable white people went to the South in those years to help black people fight for their civil rights. Many of the white people suffered financially because the white southerners wouldn't hire them, and most of the black people weren't in a position to employ them. With her earnings from lecture tours, Aunt Eleanor helped many among them whom she knew were sincere and in need of assistance.
    She did manage to escape to the South herself. One event that caused panic in the White House was when she drove alone through the hills in the dark and rain to meet with a group of black people. She said later that the possibility of encountering the KKK--which had a bounty on her head--just hadn't occurred to her. But it would not have stopped her in any case.
    After that night, the Secret Service insisted that she carry a gun, and she reluctantly agreed, tossing it into the glove compartment of her car. She knew she would never use it, however, and several months later got rid of it.
    She strove to change hearts and minds through example. During another visit to the South, in an auditorium where blacks were seated on one side of the center aisle and whites on the other, she simply took her chair and set it in the aisle itself, so that she could be seated in the middle.