Grandmère

by David B. Roosevelt

  Eleanor’s birth in October was a ray of light for the family, but perhaps not for her own mother. It is difficult to conceive why a young mother doesn’t immediately bond with her baby girl from the moment she lays eyes on her; perhaps Anna was simply too young and ill prepared for the responsibilities of motherhood. What is certain is she did not assume that most basic womanly destiny until the births of her two sons, Elliott and Grace Hall, some years later.

  Winston Churchill, who became a close friend to both FDR and Grandmère during the White House years, once said, “Famous men are usually the product of an unhappy childhood.” So much has been written and conjectured about the effect of Grandmère’s childhood on her life that there can be little question that it was difficult. Her description of herself as a child is telling: “I was usually shy and frightened because I lived an entirely lonely life….”15

  Eleanor’s childhood was polarized from the beginning between the dismissive and unforgiving world of my great-grandmother and the outgoing adventurous life of her father. Anna had been brought up in cold severity, virtue, and discipline within a family that disapproved of emotional displays, and these were the qualities she sought to impart to her baby girl. Elliott, on the other hand, adored his baby daughter and from the beginning bonded with her in intense warmth and joy. From the moment he laid eyes upon his baby girl, she became the instant focal point of his love and adoration—and he of Eleanor’s.

  This conflicting emotional climate was to deeply influence and affect the psyche of Grandmère for the rest of her life. A powerful psychological triangle was formed between her, her loving father, and her dismissive mother. This strange pattern of emotional, sometimes painful magnetism between her and two other people would seem to repeat itself over and again throughout her life and in her closest relationships.

  Largely left to the care of nannies, when Eleanor was with either parent she became entwined in two quite different if not polarizing sets of emotions. Anna was disappointed that her baby daughter had not inherited her own physical beauty, and often was heard to refer to Eleanor as “Granny” and to ridicule her in the little girl’s presence.

  Cousin Alice would remember Grandmère’s early life as being difficult:

  Grandmère in 1888 posing for a portrait.

  Poor Eleanor!… She had a miserable childhood, which I don’t think she ever got over. There was her exquisite, empty-headed mother, Anna Hall, who was one of the most beautiful women of her time. She was rather mean to Eleanor. She called her “Granny” and made her feel unwanted and unattractive. Eleanor had also two very pretty Hall aunts and a hateful grandmother. Then there was her father, my Uncle Ellie, who was the black sheep of the family.16

  As a consequence, Eleanor became a shy and timid little girl, quiet and extremely introverted, with few friends her own age and no apparent talents. Anna was cool and distant throughout her daughter’s childhood, almost to the point of neglect. In her later years Grandmère seldom spoke of her mother, except to comment on her beauty and vivaciousness. Her father, though, was quite another thing. To describe Elliott Roosevelt is difficult without perhaps providing an erroneous portrayal. His physical maladies, which began early in his teen years and only intensified later, drove him to seek relief in many ways. It is well documented that he developed alcoholism at a young age, and that his headaches and other complications were treated with an abundance of morphine and other drugs, which in that day were commonly prescribed painkilling medicines. Use of alcohol and drugs to ease his pain became dependencies in short order and remained so throughout his brief life. These dependencies, in turn, led to other less admirable traits; extended periods of absence from family, philandering, and eventually an imposed exile from his wife and family for “treatment.”

  Again, Alice remembered her uncle Ellie as a source of worries for TR and her aunts Bye and Corinne:

  There was this attractive and intelligent young man who ruined himself with drink. He was considered far more promising than my father when young, but once he started hitting the bottle his slide downhill was spectacular. Conversation about Uncle Ellie and his problems was frequent when I was young. I could tell because it would stop when I entered the room. Apparently he had a form of epilepsy, which obviously wasn’t helped by the drinking. I have vague recollections of him, usually fast-moving ones. He would take one for walks as a child and would set off at such a pace that one’s feet barely touched the ground.17

  There is an often repeated story that Elliott’s “forgetfulness” and lack of concentration also extended to the way he treated his own daughter: he once abandoned little Eleanor at the door of the Knickerbocker Club for several hours while he was inside enjoying an extended bout of drinking with his cronies. Although one shudders at the thought of such an episode, and perhaps it has been inflated, it probably did occur. Eleanor, a child deprived of motherly attention, drew from her father’s admiration all the tenderness she so desperately needed, and so could perhaps too easily forgive his recklessness.

  Grandmère’s love of her father would translate into a psychological imprint that would later be projected into several intimate relationships, most strongly in her marriage to Grandfather. The flirtatious, debonair, socially brilliant male would later return and evoke in her simultaneous and powerful feelings of love and rejection.

  For Anna, it must have been trying to find herself in the grips of a marriage that brought little emotional and psychological security. She balanced her husband’s excesses with her more staid and reserved nature, but even so her everyday life was curtailed and conflicted by his recklessness and addictions. But in spite of everything, throughout their entire marriage she remained an amazingly resilient, dedicated, loving wife, wanting only to see her husband recovered from his dependencies and returned to the fold of the family. However, the situation imposed tremendous strain on the familial relationship, and most especially on my great-grand-mother’s relationship with her daughter.

  The most effective way to relate the depth of feeling Grandmère held for her father is by her own words. In 1932 Grandmère lovingly compiled a collection of letters written by her father commencing in 1873, when he was but thirteen years old. Her introduction to that work, Hunting Big Game in the Eighties, accurately reflects the depth and complexity of her feelings for my great-grand-father:

  About 1894 a little girl of nine was studying her lessons in an old-fashioned New York City house. The house belonged to her grandmother, Mrs. Valentine G. Hall, and this little girl with her small brothers had come to live there when their mother, Mrs. Elliott Roosevelt, had died.

  On this particular day there was a suppressed excitement in every movement of the child. She expected the person that she loved best in the world to come and see her… Suddenly she heard his voice and she fled and found herself in the arms of a rather young-looking, very charming man still in the early thirties. This man was my father, Elliott Roosevelt; the little girl was, as you have guessed, myself.

  … My brother was just a baby when my father died and I was only ten years old. He never accomplished anything which could make him of any importance to the world at large, unless a personality which left a vivid mark on friends and associates may be counted important… He was the one great love of my life as a child, and in fact like many children I lived a dream life with him; so his memory is still a vivid, living thing to me.

  … Of course, whatever I tell you of his childhood is entirely from hearsay, but there are one or two stories which have been told to me by other members of the family which I feel should be an introduction… because they indicate the way in which a character unfolds and grows…

  Elliott, at the age of seven, went out to walk one day in a new overcoat and he returned without it. On being questioned, he admitted that he had seen a small and ragged urchin who looked cold, and he had removed his new coat and given it to him. I can think of many occasions in his later life when generosity of the same kind actuated him, not, perhaps, to
wise giving, for unlike some people he never could learn to control his heart by his head. With him the heart always dominated.18, 19

  Grandmère’s first nurse was French, and because her mother believed that it was essential to study languages, Grandmère spoke French before English. Indeed, she spoke the language as if she had been born to it, and throughout her life she often spoke French with friends and family members while at Val-Kill.

  In 1887, when Eleanor was three, her father became disinterested in his business pursuits and resigned from the Ludlow firm, deciding that an extended trip abroad would restore his health and outlook. In May of that year, Elliott embarked for Europe on the Britannic, accompanied by Anna, little Eleanor and her nurse, and Anna’s sister Tissie. During the crossing, an incoming ship called Celtic rammed their ship in the fog. The collision was severe, with the Celtic slanting a blow that penetrated her nose into the Britannic a full ten feet. Some passengers were killed and many were injured, and the whole ship was thrown into wild confusion and utter panic as people attempted to board lifeboats. Eleanor was picked up by a stranger, who lowered her into the outstretched arms of my great-grandfather standing in a lifeboat below. This terrible event became so indelibly etched in Grandmère’s psyche that she never lost her fear of the sea. Eventually the Celtic picked up the passengers of the Britannic, and it sailed back to New York. Once recovered, everyone was ready to set off for Europe again—everyone, that is, but Grandmère. There was absolutely no way of convincing little Eleanor to go with them. With the terrible ordeal fresh in her mind, she simply refused, despite her father’s pleas. And so my great-grandparents decided to leave her behind to spend the summer with her aunt and uncle. Not only had Eleanor been traumatized by her sea experience, but her parents had abandoned her for reasons she could not begin to comprehend at the age of three.

  At the end of the summer, Grandmère’s parents returned to New York, and her father settled at his uncle Gracie’s banking and brokerage firm in an attempt to bring his family and his own life back into order. He began the building project of a large, patrician house at Hempstead on Long Island that he intended as their summer retreat, a happy place for Eleanor, as she would be able to play there with her cousin Alice, who was her same age. But the two girls were very different in temperament: While Eleanor was shy and introverted, Alice was bold, self-assured, and as competitive as her father.

  Throughout their lives, what developed early on as differences in personality and temperament between the two would continue, and as Grandmère began to emerge as a more assured person in her own right, the chasm between them broadened, perhaps accentuated during Eleanor’s eventual courtship with Franklin. Nevertheless, TR and his family provided a safe haven for Eleanor, and the older brother was a constant and steadying influence on Elliott. Teddy had become a seasoned statesman, having served three terms in the New York State Assembly. Though he was distraught by the deaths of his wife and mother, his interest in politics remained keen, and in 1886, at the beckon of New York City Republican Party leaders, he ran for mayor. Following what he considered an appropriate period of mourning for Alice, and desperately yearning for a wife and a continuation of his family life, Theodore married a longtime family friend, the genteel Edith Carow.

  Edith Kermit Roosevelt Carow, TR’s beloved wife.

  The TR elan.

  Although handed the nomination of the party, TR was under no illusions about his chances of winning the election, but noted, “ at least I have a better party standing than ever before…” As anticipated, he was soundly defeated, but by a margin far greater than ever he expected. Undaunted, Theodore set about to establish himself at his imposing Sagamore Hill home with his new wife and adored daughter, Alice. In short order, Theodore and Edith added to their family with the births of Theodore Jr. (1887), Kermit (1889), Ethel (1891), Archibald (1894), and Quentin (1897). TR loved spending time and playing with his children and, in sharp contrast to Eleanor’s unhappy family life, this side of the family seemed cemented by a solidarity of love and strong relationships. Indeed, life at Sagamore Hill could appear to an outsider rather raucous and unruly, especially when TR was in residence.

  Meanwhile, Elliott’s fresh beginnings were as idyllic as they were short-lived, for he once again succumbed to the roller coaster of drinking, partying, and polo playing, causing great distress not only to his wife but to TR and the rest of the family. But the fall and winter of 1888 were the last few months in which Eleanor would endure being an only child, for in 1888 her mother became pregnant again. Elliott Jr. was born in October 1889, an event that prompted Eleanor’s first letter to her father, written while she was exiled at her grandmother’s house during Anna’s convalescence:

  Dear Father:

  I hope you are well and Mother too. I hope little brother doesn’t cry and if he does tell the nurse to give him a tap tap. How does he look? Some people tell me he looks like an elephant and some say he is like a bunny. I told Aunt Pussie today she would be very unhappy if she were a man because his wife would send her downtown every day she could only come home on Sunday and then she would have to go to church. Goodby now dear Father, write me soon another letter. I love you very much and Mother and Brother too, if he has blue eyes.

  Grandmère with her brothers Elliott Jr. and Gracie Hall.

  My great-grandparents were ecstatic with the new addition, but Eleanor never sensed any diminishing in her father’s affection. In comments made in the collection of letters in Hunting Big Game in the Eighties, Grandmère confirmed her father’s constancy of affection toward her: “He loved to give and tried always to find just the thing which would rejoice the heart of the one receiving his gift. You always felt somehow surrounded by his thought and love and that you made him grateful by accepting it.”

  Despite the happy birth of Elliott Jr., by 1890 Grandmère’s family began to disintegrate. Elliott’s alcoholism had become more pronounced, and in another attempt to hold the family together, he set off once again with Anna, Eleanor, and baby Elliott for yet another tour of Europe. Anna, who by now was taxed to the limit by the entire situation, decided to intern Eleanor in a convent near Neuilly “to learn French,” which the little girl had spoken practically since birth, while she attempted to recover her strength and make sense of her broken life. This was a period of terrible unhappiness for six-year-old Eleanor, who was yet again abandoned by her mother while having no idea of her father’s whereabouts. In June 1891, my great-grandmother gave birth to her third child, Hall. Elliott’s excesses worsened, and finally, completely exasperated, she returned to New York with the children, leaving her husband behind. She agreed not to seek a divorce if Elliott consented to stay under the care of physicians for six months at the Chateau Suresnes outside Paris.

  It is easy to sense the anguish of my great-grandmother and her three young children during this time. Her husband’s actions and emotions cast a deep shadow on all of them, and in wanting to shield the children she retreated once more to her morally upright world—cold, distant, and void of emotions too strong to bear. Unfortunately, Anna’s constant aloofness continued to afflict Eleanor, desperate for emotional security and psychological reassurance from the only adult left in her everyday life. Grandmère was convinced that in her mother’s eyes she was a great disappointment, but she still hungered for her praise and affection. In an effort to gain the attention of her mother, who by now was prone to bouts of monumental headaches herself, Grandmère would spend hours upon hours sitting at her bedside, gently stroking her brow to relieve the pain. But no matter how hard she tried, she was painfully aware that her own mother preferred her other children, and demonstrated that preference continuously. This solemn, frightened, and insecure little girl, considered by her own mother to be “old-fashioned” and a “granny,” would be told by one of her aunts that she was “the ugly duckling of the family,” a moniker that stuck with her for years and served to bolster her feelings of inadequacy. “I was always disgracing my mother,” Gr
andmère would say in later years, and she was constantly “afraid of being scolded, afraid that other people would not like me.”20

  In hopes of reconciliation, my great-grandfather returned to America in 1892, promising yet again to seek a cure and establish himself in an occupation. He secured a position with his brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, managing the family’s extensive timber and coal properties in Virginia, and for a period proved to be adept.

  But again, Grandmère’s beloved father had left her. Unable to understand the reasons for this new separation and desperately lonely, she could only blame her mother. All that bolstered Grandmère during this newest absence were the frequent letters from her father, in which he expressed his almost passionate love for his “Little Nell.” So important were these letters to seven-year-old Eleanor that she waited every day for another word, carrying the letters around with her constantly, almost as a talisman. The letters are symbolic of the intricacies of her feelings for her father, for she had a most curious way of writing both horizontally and vertically across the page. The peculiar crisscross practice made the letters almost indecipherable. It was as though there were an avalanche of feeling waiting to erupt and yet carefully controlled and concealed, for perhaps there was never enough time with her father, and she did not want to worry him with her unhappiness in his absences nor when he was with the family.

  It seemed that happiness was not in Grandmère’s early destiny, for in late 1892 unexpected tragedy again rocked the Roosevelt family. Eleanor was staying at her grandmother Hall’s house when the devastating news was delivered: