Empty Without You

by Roger Streitmatter

  Well, I must go to bed. I love you dearly & miss you much dear person. Sleep sweetly,

  E.R.

  After spending the first weekend in June with Eleanor in New York, Lorena left for Missouri to assess the president’s popularity in that largely agricultural state. Lorena planned to finish her trip by the end of the month. Meanwhile, ER was pursuing, in earnest, her magazine writing.

  June 6th

  49 East 65th Street

  New York

  Hick dearest, I’ve looked up in my book & I think you & I had better try to spend the 28th & 29th to-gether in Washington getting back for dinner the 29th.

  Young [George] Lorrimer11 sounded interested & Mr. [George] Bye12 very nice but Lord knows if I will succeed, however let us hope for the best!

  Darling, last week end seems a beautiful dream but it gave me so much that is a joy to think about.

  You will never learn what a strong personality you have & how much people admire you but then I like that about you!

  Devoted ever,

  E.R.

  The topic that Eleanor chose to launch her new effort to earn money as a magazine writer was the modern American woman’s role vis-à-vis her husband and children. Because Eleanor saw this article as a major statement to American women, she hoped to publish it in the Saturday Evening Post, one of the most widely read—and highest paying—magazines in the country. The first lady sent a first draft of her manuscript to Lorena for editing and would spend the next several months polishing that draft into final form.

  [June 24]

  49 East 65th Street

  New York

  My own dear one, I know you are a perfectionist & just how hard all my writing problems are for you. I think you hold yourself pretty strictly to your standards both in your work & in your life & that is why you are disappointed in others when they fall down.

  I’ve been working on the article to-day & thinking of you & trying to make myself really work on it! I had my hair & nails done too & worked at books, etc. Tommy & I lunched at a soda fountain.

  I am sorry you are so tired & hope you won’t get home exhausted for it will be hot I fear in Washington.

  I’m awfully sleepy to-night & so good night dearest, sleep well & I will be so happy to see you on Friday. Ever so much love,

  E.R.

  Eleanor spent July and early August at the Roosevelt summer house on Campobello Island. Her secretary Tommy Thompson and her friends and business associates Nan Cook and Marion Dickerman accompanied the first lady, but her thoughts were often on the time that she and Lorena had spent on the island at the end of their road trip to the Gaspé Peninsula two years earlier.

  July 30th

  Campobello Island

  New Brunswick, Canada

  Darling, I’ve been thinking so much to-day of our last visit here & I am cherishing the memories for it was such a happy time, wasn’t it?

  The enclosed wasn’t ready last night. I hope it will interest you. I put a lot of work on it but I know it is controversial & will cause violent differences of opinion. Marion for instance disagrees with a lot of it! Tommy didn’t think I’d handle it this way & is interested but I don’t think entirely in agreement either!

  You can be as tough as you like in your criticism. I know my tendency to make speeches. I want to do good work & I want the help which you can give me, no one else is half as good as a critic & I’m very grateful to you & don’t mind at all!

  A world of love to you dearest,

  E.R.

  Please return air mail.13

  In late July, Harry Hopkins sent Lorena to New York to gauge the political climate in that populous state with its large number of electoral votes. In this letter sent to Eleanor at the Roosevelt summer home, Lorena laments her reduced stature among the many people in the first lady’s life.

  July 31st

  DeWitt Clinton Hotel

  Albany, New York

  My very dear one:

  The sunset at Campobello Sunday night must have been very lovely, and it was nice to think that you wished I were there. You’re probably right, though, when you say I’d not be very happy. I’d probably feel like a fifth wheel. Well—never mind, darling! The time will come when it won’t matter to me that there are so many others who have priority rights to your interest and affection. Then I daresay we’ll all be one nice big happy family. You must admit, though, it’s sometimes rather tough to be the most recent of the people who have any claim on you! I have no seniority rating at all. I’m so very much an “outsider.” But when the time comes when I don’t care so much—or at least not in the way I care now—it will be easier. Anyway, I’m glad you’re up there and enjoying it. And we’ll have our time together later on.

  Saw the Works Progress Administration14 man [for New York state] this afternoon. He’s certainly hard boiled enough. Maybe he’s right. I don’t know. But it does strike me that we’re slightly inconsistent in our attitudes toward—and treatment of—the unemployed.

  We start out, in 1933, by working ourselves up into a sort of frenzy of sympathy for them. We do everything we can to make the acceptance of relief “respectable.” We put in a Civil Works Administration program with wages way above those paid in private industry.

  And now, in the state of New York in 1935, we turn ’em over to a man who seems to think, rightly or wrongly, that they are bums and chiselers, goes at his job with this attitude.

  “By God, we’ll quit coddling these babies and get ’em off relief!”

  I don’t know quite what to make of it. I know one thing I’m going to do, Madame. I’m going to start seeing relief clients again [not just relief administrators], in Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.

  In some ways, probably, the WPA man is right. He’s making the cities come through with more money, he says. And the state. He said the Governor wanted him to do all the state projects entirely with federal money.

  But, my gosh, he seems to think most of the women he’s going to have to put to work ought to be working as domestics. God damn it—I just wish some of these people who think all unemployed women ought to be delighted to hire themselves out as maids or scrubwomen had to take a whack at it themselves. Believe, me, Madame, I’ve been a servant—a maid—in a boarding house! I know what it’s like. People make me sick.

  And so it goes!

  Good night, dearest. Oh, you are a grand person! And I love you.

  H

  August 2d

  Campobello Island

  New Brunswick, Canada

  Dearest one, Your letter of the 31st came to-day & I had to laugh! No dear, we won’t ever be a happy family party here! We might spend a night or even a week end in close proximity now & then but never more, somebody’s feelings would be hurt & I’m too old to handle the strain. You & I will always want to have some time alone to-gether where we spend any length of time in a place where life is not in a routine like Washington.

  I am much disturbed at some of the things [Assistant Secretary of Agriculture] Rex [Tugwell] is doing in the [subsistence] Homesteads without preparation I fear. You know I think they are all a bit too efficient & not quite human enough. I’m afraid I’m too personal though!

  Marion & Tommy & I walked some 3 miles, perhaps four, but Nan has given out & Tommy is pretty stiff! Marion & I also played a set of very bad tennis. This evening I read aloud “Goodbye Mr. Chips”15 now all have gone to bed except Tommy who is reading.

  I’ll wire you to-morrow to Syracuse.

  I guess you will get more & more grief wherever you go! You should see relief clients, I think it may be valuable in many ways.

  I’d like to be able to give you a kiss & hold you very close darling, but I send you many warm & loving & very tender thoughts instead,

  E.R.

  By the time Eleanor wrote this letter, she had left Campobello and was in Hyde Park.

  August 3d

  Val-Kill Cottage

  Hick darling, Your Tuesday night letter is here
& I do hope you get back in the newspaper business soon! Can’t you forget you ever knew us, tell them you never see me & can’t find out anything!

  I am so glad you found that your A.P. work was really what you could stand on & now if you could just stop talking about your friendship for me & ignore it I think you would find it is practically forgotten & no one would think of it now. I don’t think you have to go to Europe in order to do newspaper work tho’ I can see why it would be interesting & why you want to go but if you get a job in N.Y. I don’t think you need fear their [the editors’] demands for I think they don’t need you now to get any story they want [from the White House].

  John was here when I came back & I read him my article [about women’s role] for criticism & have revised it more since. It goes to you air mail & I’ll hold it & mail Monday night in the hope that you can wire any corrections you think vital. It interests me but I think the Saturday Evening Post may not like it & I am frankly a bit nervous about it.

  Dearest, I do miss you tho’ I can’t say I would want you here for you would not be happy. The quiet is about over!16

  A world of love & take care of yourself,

  E.R.

  August 7th

  Sagamore Hotel

  Rochester, New York

  My dearest:

  Two sweet letters from you on my arrival here tonight, and it was very nice to get them. I hadn’t had any since Friday night, when I found three in Syracuse. But your wire came on Sunday, and that helped.

  I think one thing that has “got me down,” so to speak, is the decided change in attitude toward the president. Two years ago when I was through here, they were mostly for him. At least they weren’t panning him. Now, almost to a man, they’re “agin him”—and it doesn’t seem to matter whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, although, of course, most of them are Republicans. I really do believe they think he’s a bit “cracked”!

  Of course one way of looking at it—and it’s probably the sanest way—is this:

  Most of these people didn’t vote for him in 1932. In 1933 they were for him—for a few months, until business began to get a little better. Then they found he meant what he said about social reforms. Now, naturally, they’re against him again. But they do not represent a loss of strength at the polls, necessarily.

  Well—it’s all interesting. But damned depressing, when you get it fired at you all day and on into the evening. The most depressing thing about it is that these business men don’t seem to have learned anything at all in the last five or six years. Not one damned thing! I think the president needs to get out around the country. Only even then—everybody will “yes” him.

  In my own small way, I’m as bad as any of the others. He’ll turn to me and say, “Am I right, Hick?” I don’t always think he is, but I haven’t the nerve to say so. Even if he weren’t president, intellectually he’d always have the advantage in any argument with me.

  Well—you don’t mind my raving on, anyway. Or do you?

  If you got a laugh out of my idea of the possibility of a “happy family” at Campobello—I was equally amused at your idea that I could get a newspaper job, telling them I never saw you and didn’t know what was going on. They’d NEVER believe it, dear—unless I actually did quit seeing you. And that would be expecting a good deal of me. Gosh I’m not prepared to give you up entirely! (And I don’t believe you would want that, either.)

  I must go to bed. Sleep sweetly, my dear, with all my heart I love you.

  H

  In late August, Eleanor and Lorena spent several days together at the Val-Kill cottage while the other Roosevelts and their guests stayed at the Springwood mansion. Their time together was less than blissful.

  August 26th

  Val-Kill Cottage

  Darling, I hated to leave you this morning, how I wish we could get back to being happy to-gether.

  It is lonely here & I went over [to the mansion] at once & saw James before he left for N.Y. The p.m. has been spent on mail & to-morrow Tommy & I will begin on articles.

  Darling, I love you & do try to remember that always,

  E.R.

  August 28th

  Val-Kill Cottage

  Dearest, It was nice to get your Monday night letter.

  Thank you for the article.17 I’ve not read it yet because Nan & I left at nine & went across the river to those fruit stands you & I passed last Sunday & bought apples & plums to can, then we picked up Tommy & we have just returned at 5:30 having spent the whole day at the [Dutchess County] fair! I am weary! John won a fourth but at least he wasn’t hurt in the jumping. I’m not going to have to ride to-morrow at the show & I am most grateful!

  I’m staying at the cottage you know not the big house till F.D.R. comes.18

  Tommy’s working hard at the second draft of the teacher article & I’ll send you a carbon as soon as it is done.19

  I think the war idea is a good one & a woman writing will be a new thing in war journalism.20 I’ll be tempted to join you if war comes in some capacity if by chance F.D.R. doesn’t get in but I think he will by a small margin.

  You don’t know it dear but you did a grand thing for me on Sunday night by showing me that I should never be sorry for myself. I have so much more in life than most people & I am really never unhappy except when I begin to whine & feel sorry for myself & God knows I’ve no right to do it. You are putting up such a grand fight & have so little to make you happy that you made me feel ashamed.

  Ever so much love,

  E.R.

  Having completed her investigation of the relief and political situation in New York state, Lorena was living at the White House. Eleanor was still in Hyde Park.

  [September 5]

  Val-Kill Cottage

  Dearest one, I read your letter through last night after I went to bed!21 It is a grand criticism & has given me a way to analyze what I am thinking which is most helpful. You need not have been afraid that your criticism would discourage me, you see I haven’t the feeling that the things are good in themselves. I’ve always felt it was largely name & I’m glad to have it back because it shows they are wanting something besides name.22 If I can’t do this after giving it a good try then I must do something else that is all & one can only find out by trying.

  I think I know what you mean about structure, it comes from not thinking through from the start & building up step by step & I think I can do that better. It is muddy thinking. I am glad to have your analysis but I hate you to do it when you are so tired.23

  Your trip sounded nice but rather tiring.24 Gettysburg must have been really interesting & I’d like to see it. Will I ever have any leisure I wonder? I haven’t since I was married!

  This morning I took the ferry to New Rochelle where Tommy met me by train & we went in the rain to lunch with Esther [Lape] & Elizabeth [Read] & got home at 7:30 p.m.25 Darling, I must go to bed. A world of love & be careful!

  E.R.

  Lorena had left the White House and was now investigating conditions in the Midwest. In this letter, she discusses the assassination of Huey Long, a demagogue who used one of the most elaborate patronage networks in the history of American politics to rise to governor of Louisiana in 1928 and then to United States senator in 1932. Long criticized FDR for not having gone far enough in attacking the Depression. Long advocated a radical redistribution of wealth that would guarantee every American an annual income of $2,500. Long had announced in the summer that he might run against FDR in the next election, but he was shot on September 8.

  September 9th

  Hotel McCurdy

  Evansville, Indiana

  Dearest:

  Well, Madame, what do you make of the Long business? I’ve been thinking today about all the people who must be secretly hoping he’ll die, but who would hate to admit it even to themselves! Boy, it creates an interesting situation! One Indiana farmer today was quite frank. “He ought to have killed him instead of just sending him to the hospital,” he said. I take it th
at with that gentleman, at any rate, Doctor [Carl] Weiss26 is a hero. And I’d hate to bet that, secretly, he isn’t a hero to plenty of people. But, if Huey dies, he’ll be a martyr.27

  Well—I’m too sleepy to think much more about it tonight. I’ve a mountain of work to do—stuff to read—but I simply cannot keep my eyes open. So I’m going to bed right after I finish this and [will] get up early tomorrow morning.

  It’s been a busy and interesting day. Farmers. Prosperous as Hell. And, on the whole, strong for the president. Sentiment out here much, much better than in the East. In one small town today I counted eleven new cars—Fords, Chevrolets, one Pontiac—parked at the curb in one short block on Main Street!

  Newsboys yelling the Long extras kept me awake until after midnight and started me on one of my terribly dreaded “white nights.”28 But I’ll sleep tonight.

  I’m more than half asleep now. Good night, my dearest. I hope you are safe and happy.

  H

  Although the letter that prompted this angry retort from Eleanor has not been preserved, Lorena clearly had become irritated when the first lady’s commitments conflicted with what Hick wanted to do during a trip to Washington.

  September 21st

  Val-Kill Cottage

  Hick darling, I could shake you for your letter of the 19th. I’ve never even thought of not being in Washington with you. I do have to go to N.Y. on the 8th because I take the apartment that day29 & want to get all I can out of storage & be settled. I am not going till the morning of the 8th however & I shall be very sorry if you are not in Washington. I probably won’t be able to get to Washington till the 6th & of course flying might be impossible but that is not likely at this time of year, if it should happen you might go up to N.Y. with me for a couple of days.