Eleanor and Franklin
Page 117
The following persons gave me their recollections and evaluations of Mrs. Roosevelt: Mrs. Amyas Ames, Dr. Viola W. Bernard, James and Dorothy Bourne, Earl Browder, Emma Bugbee, Mrs. Gladys Brooks, Mrs. Edward Carter, Benjamin V. Cohen, Mrs. Corinne Robinson Cole, Maureen Corr, Mr. and Mrs. W. Sheffield Cowles, Mrs. Margaret Cutter, Howland S. Davis, the Baroness Emily de la Grange, Laura Delano, Marion Dickerman, Leonard K. Elmhirst, James Farley, David Gray, David Gurewitsch, Anna Roosevelt Halsted, Mrs. Susan Hammond, Duncan Harris, James Hendrick, Mrs. Rhoda Hinckley, Mrs. Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, Mr. and Mrs. Hartley Howe, Nannine Joseph, Esther Everett Lape, David Lilienthal, Mrs. Margaret Dix Lawrence, Mrs. Agnes Leach, Mrs. Edith Lehman, the Reverend James Elliott Lindsley, Mrs. Alice Longworth, Isidore Lubin, Earl R. Miller, Raymond Moley, Mrs. Gerald Morgan, Pauline Newman, Christopher Phillips, Justine Wise Polier, Mrs. Belle Roosevelt, Elliott Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., James Roosevelt, John Roosevelt, Samuel I. Rosenman, Mr. and Mrs. Durward Sandifer, Mrs. Dorothy Schiff, Thomas L. Stix, Dr. Belinda Straight, Daisy Suckley, Aileen Tone, Eugene Wigner, Mrs. Helen Wilmerding.
References
1. HER FATHER
Young Elliott Roosevelt’s letters to his family are in the Halsted Collection, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL). Many of them were published by Eleanor Roosevelt, ed., Hunting Big Game in the Eighties (New York, 1933), where also will be found on pp. viii and 181 the quotations describing young Eleanor’s feeling for her father. Additional family material—the papers of Anna Roosevelt Cowles, especially her “Story of the Roosevelt Family,” Houghton Library, Harvard University; the papers and letters of Theodore Roosevelt at the Widener Library, Harvard University, called the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association Collection; Theodore Roosevelt, Diaries, Library of Congress: and a few letters relating to Elliott and the first Theodore Roosevelt at the Theodore Roosevelt Association, New York City. An engaging account of President Theodore Roosevelt’s youthful years with vivid glimpses of Elliott is contained in Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, My Brother Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1921). Her friend Frances Theodora Parsons’ memoir of the Theodore Roosevelts, Perchance Some Day (privately printed, New York, 1951), was also helpful in the writing of this chapter. Writers of Teddy Roosevelt’s youth and family background are indebted to Carleton Putnam’s unfinished Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York, 1958). William Sheffield Cowles, Jr., is my authority for the size of Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt’s estate, and Putnam, p. 337, for the amount of the legacies the first Theodore left his four children. On the evolution of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts from hardware merchants to investment bankers, see William T. Cobb, The Strenuous Life: The Oyster Bay Roosevelts in Business and Finance (New York, 1946). I also made use of Allen Churchill, The Roosevelts: American Aristocrats (New York, 1965). Colonel M. L. Crimmins has written an account of “Elliott Roosevelt’s Visit to Texas in 1876–1877,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 48, Oct., 1944. on “Mittie” Roosevelt’s position in New York society, see Mrs. Burton Harrison, Recollections Grave and Gay (New York, 1911), p. 278.
2. HER MOTHER
Material on the Hall family, including Anna Hall’s letters and notebooks, Halsted Collection, FDRL. For the position of the Livingstons of Clermont in American history and New York society, see George Dangerfield, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York (New York, 1960), and Staughton Lynd, Class Conflict, Slavery and the United States Constitution (New York, 1967), Pt. I. For Eleanor Roosevelt’s recollections of her great-grandmother Elizabeth Livingston Ludlow, see her This Is My Story (New York, 1937), hereafter referred to as TIMS, and Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor Roosevelt, A Friend’s Memoir (New York, 1964). For the impression Anna Hall Roosevelt made on her contemporaries, see a memoir written by “Three Friends,” In Loving Memory of Anna Hall Roosevelt (privately printed, New York, 1892); also, “Representative Society Ladies—VIII. Mrs. Elliott Roosevelt,” Leslie’s Weekly, Oct. 12, 1889.
3. THE WORLD INTO WHICH ELEANOR WAS BORN
1. For descriptions of New York society in the 1880s and 1890s: Mrs. Winthrop Chanler, Roman Spring (Boston, 1934); Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (New York, 1936); The Age of Innocence (New York, 1920), and The House of Mirth (New York, 1905); Ward McAllister, Society As I Found It (New York, 1890); Mrs. John King van Rensselaer, The Social Ladder (New York, 1925); Florence J. Harriman, From Pinafore to Politics (New York, 1923); and Town Topics. On Browning’s reaction to Anna Hall Roosevelt, see the letter from Anna Hall Roosevelt to Bamie Roosevelt, Aug. 5, 1887; letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Henry Cabot Lodge, Sept. 5, 1887.
2. John Sargeant Wise, Recollections of Thirteen Presidents (New York, 1906), pp. 241–43.
3. See New York newspapers of Oct. 11, 1884: Times, Tribune, Herald, World, Sun, Evening Post.
4. E. Roosevelt, ed. Hunting Big Game in the Eighties, cited (Ch.1), pp. 36–37.
5. Ibid.
6. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, cited (Ch. 2), p. 7; New York Herald, May 23, 1887.
7. Letter from Joe Murphy to Eleanor Roosevelt, May 6, 1937.
8. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, pp. 17–18.
4. THE CRACK-UP
1. Eleanor Roosevelt, draft of article. “Conquer Fear and You Will Enjoy Living,” Look, May 23, 1939.
2. Cowles, “Story of the Roosevelt Family,” cited (Ch. 1).
3. New York Tribune, New York World, New York Sun, Aug. 18, 1891, and the New York Times, Dec. 4, 1891, and Jan. 19, 1892.
5. HER MOTHER’S DEATH
1. Recollections of Elliott Roosevelt in Abingdon appeared in the Washington County, Va., newspaper, March 4, 1933; also, “When a Roosevelt Found Health in Virginia Hills,” Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch, May 24, 1935.
2. “Three Friends,” In Loving Memory of Anna Hall Roosevelt, cited (Ch. 2).
3. Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Katherine Ellsworth, Nov. 20, 1929.
4. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, cited (Ch. 2), pp. 19–21.
5. Ibid.
6. “HE LIVED IN MY DREAMS”
1. Eleanor Roosevelt, “Ethics of Parents” (unpub. article, 1927). Italics are author’s.
2. Eleanor Roosevelt, If You Ask Me,” McCall’s, Jan., 1950.
3. E. Roosevelt, ed., Hunting Big Game in the Eighties, cited (Ch. 2), p. 181.
7. THE OUTSIDER
1. Two compositions written at a considerably later date were sketched out in the “Commonplace Book” that Eleanor’s Aunt Pussie turned over to her. They spoke directly of her father.
She had waited so long, so long. One night she awoke. Someone was whispering in her ear. Suddenly the room seemed to be filled by millions of shadowy forms who whispered to her, “He has broken his word. He has broken his word.” She could stand it no longer & she cried out in the dark “Oh my father come” & a voice answered “I am here” & he stood beside her & his cool hand lay on her hot head. She clasped it in both hers & sighed contentedly. “Oh I knew you must come” but he answered, I have kept my word I have come back but I must go away again, & the child cried out Oh! Take me with you I have waited so long & it has been so hard I cannot stay alone. He bent down & kissed her & she fell asleep. The next morning the people who had never understood came in & looked pityingly at her lying cold & dead & they said “poor child to die so young (how sad) & a few tears were shed & then she like all those who have ceased to move in this earthly sphere sank into oblivion.
A child stood at a window watching a man walking down the street, the little face was white & set & the big tears stood in the brown eyes but the mouth smiled till the man was out of sight & the sob which was choking her did not break out till he was gone & she could see no more. Her father [was] the only person in the world she loved, others called her hard & cold but to him she was everything lavishing on him all the quiet love which the others could not understand. And now he had gone she did not know for how long but he had said “what ever happens little girl some day I will come back” & she had smiled. He never knew what the smile cost. His letters came
often telling of the life he was leading, his hopes & fears & sometimes there would come a letter without any news, filled only with love for her & these were the letters she loved & kissed before she went to bed. But a time came when there were no more letters & a grown up person told the child that her Father was dead, but the child did not cry. Dead people did not come back & her father had promised to come & he never broke his word. At first she could not bear to hear him spoken of as dead but at last she grew accustomed to it, they were making a mistake but what was the difference? The years went by & she still believed but doubts came sometime now. . . .
2. Interviews with Mrs. Lucius Wilmerding (Helen Cutting) and Mrs. Charles W. Lawrance (Margaret Dix). Additional information about the Roser classes supplied by Mrs. Francis (Corinne Robinson) Cole, Mrs. Paul (Susan Sedgwick) Hammond, and the Baroness Emily (Sloane) de la Grange.
3. Interview with Corinne Cole.
4. Interview with Margaret Lawrance.
5. The Reverend Elliott Lindsley, rector of St. Paul’s Church, Tivoli-on-the-Hudson, helped me reconstruct the settings and arrangements at Oak Terrace and made available to me Hall family documents and photographs that came into his possession as well as shared with me his knowledge of the various families that lived along the Woods Road.
6. E. Roosevelt, “Ethics of Parents,” cited (Ch. 6).
7. Eleanor Roosevelt, Introduction, John Martin’s Book: Tell Me a Story (Jacket Library Edition, 1932).
8. Lillian Rixey, Bamie: Theodore Roosevelt’s Remarkable Sister (New York, 1963), pp. 112–14.
9. Interview with Alice Longworth; Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living (New York, 1960), p. 28.
10. Hermann Hagedorn, The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill (New York, 1905), pp. 27, 32, 40.
11. Interview with Corinne Cole.
8. THE SPARK IS STRUCK
1. Letter from Marie Souvestre to Mrs. Hall, Feb. 18, 1901.
2. Leon Edel brought Henry James’s letters to my attention, and I am also indebted to him for defining the sense in which James used the term “middle class.”
3. Interview with Helen Gifford, London Daily Mail, Oct. 21, 1942.
4. Ibid.
5. Interview with Corinne Cole.
6. Letters from Carola von Schaeffer-Bernstein to Joseph P. Lash, March 19, 1968, and April 24, 1968.
7. Letter from Dorothy Strachey-Bussy to Eleanor Roosevelt, Sept. 26, 1942.
8. Draft of an article written by Eleanor Roosevelt in the late forties.
9 Beatrice Webb’s appraisal of Marie Souvestre, in My Apprenticeship (London, 1926) and Our Partnership (London, 1948).
10. Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” syndicated column, Feb. 21, 1946.
11. Ibid.
12. Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey: The Unknown Years (New York, 1967).
13. Richard Harrity and Ralph G. Martin, Eleanor Roosevelt: Her Life in Pictures (New York, 1958), p. 18.
14. Eleanor Roosevelt, “What Religion Means to Me,” Forum, Dec., 1932.
15. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, cited (Ch. 2), p. 8.
16. Letter from Marie Souvestre to Mrs. Hall, Jan. 24, 1902.
17. Interview with Helen Gifford, London Daily Mail, Oct. 21, 1942.
9. YOUNG IN A YOUNG COUNTRY IN A YOUNG TIME
1. Harold U. Faulkner, The Quest for Social Justice, 1898–1914 (New York, 1931), p. 105.
2. Margaret Dix, “Rosemary for Remembrance,” privately printed.
3. Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James (Boston, 1935), II, pp. 312–14.
4. Quoted in Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (New York, 1942), II, p. 405.
5. Junior League Handbook, published by the Association of Junior Leagues of America.
6. Chanler, Roman Spring, cited (Ch. 3), p. 117; New York Herald, Jan. 12, 1903.
7. Letter from Marie Souvestre to Eleanor Roosevelt, July 7, 1902.
8. Interview with Duncan Harris.
9. Interview with Helen Wilmerding.
10. Town Topics, Dec. 18, 1902.
11. Interview with Laura Delano.
12. Interview with Corinne Cole.
13. Rixey, Bamie: Theodore Roosevelt’s Remarkable Sister, cited (Ch. 7), p. 35.
14. Chanler, p. 228.
15. Rixey, p. 230.
16. Mark Sullivan, Our Times: The United States 1900–1925, 6 vols. (New York, 1926), II, p. 28.
17. Eleanor Roosevelt, “Lady Bountiful Rolls Up Her Sleeves,” Reader’s Digest, March, 1938.
18. M. and C. Beard, II, pp. 421–22.
19. Annual reports of the College Settlement, later known as the Rivington Street Settlement, 1903–5.
20. Interview with Margaret Cutter.
21. Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jan. 20, 1904.
22. Ibid., Jan. 26, 1904.
23. Ibid., Feb. 9, 1904.
24. E. Roosevelt, You Learn by Living, cited (Ch. 7), pp. 103–4.
10. “FOR LIFE, FOR DEATH”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s letters, unless otherwise noted, will be found in Franklin D. Roosevelt, F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, ed. Elliott Roosevelt, 4 vols. (New York, 1947, 1948, 1950), hereafter referred to as Letters.
1. Harrity and Martin, Eleanor Roosevelt: Her Life in Pictures, cited (Ch. 8), p. 17.
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Diaries, in FDRL.
3. Sara D. Roosevelt, Journals, in Halsted Collection, FDRL.
4. Interview with Corinne Cole.
5. Interview with Alice Longworth.
6. Interview with Laura Delano.
7. Maxine Cheshire, column, Washington Post, Feb. 19, 1967.
8. Interview with Mrs. Paul Hammond.
9. Associated Press, Oct. 11, 1934.
10. Thomas Lask, of the New York Times Book Review, tracked down this line to its source.
11. Harrity and Martin, p. 19; A. Churchill, The Roosevelts: American Aristocrats, cited (Ch. 1), p. 226.
12. Interview with David Gurewitsch.
13. The poem is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Woman’s Shortcomings.”
14. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, cited (Ch. 2), p. 111.
15. S. D. Roosevelt, Journals, Dec. 1, 1903.
16. Eleanor Roosevelt, “I Remember Hyde Park: A Final Reminiscence,” published posthumously, McCall’s, Feb., 1963.
17. Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dec. 6, 1903.
18. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, p. 111.
11. MOTHER AND SON
1. Interview with Corinne Cole.
2. Interview with Helen Wilmerding.
3. Frank Freidel, The Apprenticeship, vol. I of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 3 vols. (Boston, 1952), p. 13.
4. Rita Halle Kleeman, Gracious Lady (New York, 1935), pp. 82–83.
5. Joseph Alsop and Robert Kintner, “Roosevelt Family Album,” Life, Sept. 9, 1940.
6. Eleanor Roosevelt, in conversation with Arnold Michaelis, on the recording “A Recorded Portrait” (1958).
7. Kleeman, p. 177; E. Roosevelt, “I Remember Hyde Park,” cited (Ch. 10).
8. Kleeman, p. 170.
9. Sara D. Roosevelt, My Boy Franklin (New York, 1933), p. 13.
10. H. N. MacCracken, Blithe Dutchess (New York, 1958), p. 90.
11. S. D. Roosevelt, My Boy Franklin, p. 4.
12. Frank D. Ashburn, Peabody of Groton (New York, 1944), p. 43.
13. For this description of Peabody and Groton I have leaned heavily on Ashburn and on George Biddle, An American Artist’s Story (New York, 1939).
14. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Roosevelt Family before the Revolution,” in FDRL.
15. Interview with Sheffield Cowles, Jr.; also Cowles, Oral History Project, Columbia University, hereafter referred to as OHP.
12. JOURNEY’S END
1. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, cited (Ch. 2), p. 110.
2. Interview with Alice Longworth.
3. See Freidel, The Apprenticeship, cited (Ch. 11), p. 27, on Roosevelt’s desire to go
to Annapolis; see Ibid., p. 48, on Roosevelt’s desire to enlist during the Spanish-American War.
4. Clara and Hardy Steeholm, The House at Hyde Park (New York, 1950), p. 113.
5. Kleeman, Gracious Lady, cited (Ch. 11), p. 240.
13. EPITHALAMION
1. Interview with Corinne Cole.
2. Ibid.
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. Samuel I. Rosenman, 13 vols. (New York, 1938–50), 1938, p. 38, hereafter referred to as Public Papers.
4. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, cited (Ch. 2), p. 123.
5. Halsted Group, “Engagement Presents and Wedding Presents,” listed in Eleanor Roosevelt’s own hand.
6. Interview with Margaret Lawrance.
7. New York Times and the New York Herald, March 17 and 18, 1905.
14. HONEYMOON
1. A. Steinberg, Mrs. R.: The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt (New York, 1958), p. 54; C. and H. Steeholm, The House at Hyde Park, cited (Ch. 12), pp. 114–15.
2. E. Roosevelt, “My Day,” cited (Ch. 8), Nov. 13, 1939.
3. Interview with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.
4. Interview with Anna Roosevelt Halsted.
5. The honeymoon letters of Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Sara D. Roosevelt, in F. D. Roosevelt, Letters, cited (Ch. 10), II, pp. 2–85.
6. Interviews with Maureen Corr and David Gurewitsch.
7. Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech, in FDRL.
15. SETTLING DOWN
1. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, cited (Ch. 2), p. 138.
2. Ibid., p. 139.
3. Ibid., pp. 142–46.
4. Ibid., p. 162.
5. Interview with Corinne Cole.
6. E. Roosevelt, TIMS, p. 162.
7. Kleeman, Gracious Lady, cited (Ch. 11), p. 246.
8. E. Roosevelt, “I Remember Hyde Park,” cited (Ch. 10).