It was after teaching a few years at Fulton High School in Fulton, New York, that Nan and Marion had gone to London to work in the Endell Street Military Hospital, which was staffed almost entirely by women, including a woman surgeon. Nan became indispensable there when she learned to make prostheses for the amputees, but she did not make good friends as easily as Marion. Marion had a capacity to adapt to new people and new ideas, whereas Nan seemed to see insults and rifts with others that Marion ignored. But together they made an indomitable and harmonious pair. Although Nan was older, Marion was the mother hen. By the time peace was declared in 1918, Nan and Marion were ready to return home. Although Marion inevitably lost her bid for the New York legislature, both women nevertheless felt that the campaign had been worth the effort to show what women could do, even against an entrenched male politician. Marion continued in education, but Nan had been bitten by the politics bug.
When Harriet May Mills asked Nan to come to New York to be her assistant in the Women’s Division of the New York State Democratic Committee, Nan gladly went. After Harriet retired, Nan took over the office, which she would run for nineteen years. Marion continued to pick up teaching jobs until she could find employment in New York City and join Nan in an apartment in Greenwich Village.
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Now that women had received the right to vote, there was a lot of fieldwork to be done. Eleanor and Nan immediately began strategizing with Caroline O’Day, a New Yorker and wealthy widow who was working in the Democratic Party Women’s Division, about the best way to organize women voters in the state. For the next several years Eleanor, Marion, Nan, and Elinor Morgenthau, who was also active in the League of Women Voters and the New York State Democratic Women’s Division, traveled together, making contacts and helping develop the local chapters. Caroline would later benefit from this network—she was elected four times to Congress—and the women’s efforts also gave FDR a network of contacts and a cadre of workers for his own political future.
The sight of Franklin struggling in 1921 to walk down the avenue from Springwood to the gates was disheartening, but Marion trusted that he would overcome his difficulties. She believed in him and wanted to be part of his future. Eleanor was beginning to have ambitions of her own. It was ingrained in her to demean her own efforts—a defense if she failed and a show of female modesty (a woman should be modest)—but those who came to know her best understood that Eleanor had a good deal of self-interest. She began to have her own ideas about how government could serve the needs of the people, and she showed signs of being a good politician.
After the summer of 1922 Nan and Marion were Eleanor’s most intimate friends. When the Roosevelts moved back to the city, the children returned to their private schools and Franklin saw various doctors about his legs, and Eleanor went on the road with Marion, Nan, Elinor Morgenthau, and Caroline O’Day, who had succeeded Harriet May Mills as chairman of the Women’s Division of the state Democratic Party. They traveled in all kinds of weather, dealing with flat tires, running out of gas, and failing to find anyone at home when they called on individuals who might help. They stayed in modest lodges and talked to anyone who would listen, and their perseverance paid off. By the spring of 1924 they had organized all but five New York counties.
Politics was also fun. In the fall of 1924 the Singing Teapot, a seven-passenger touring car, left New York City promptly at noon carrying members of the Women’s Division for a two-week tour of the state to win votes for Al Smith, who was running for reelection as governor of New York against Theodore Roosevelt Jr. The news reporter for the Ogdensburg Republican-Journal, following protocol in calling women by their father’s or husband’s names, noted that one of the drivers of the car was Miss Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Among the other drivers were Miss Emily Smith, daughter of Governor and Mrs. Smith, and Miss Ella O’Day of Rye, daughter of Caroline O’Day, respectively associate state chairman and chairman of the Women’s Division. The Buick Company donated the car for the occasion; Mrs. Henry (Elinor) Morgenthau Jr. paid the expenses. Among the passengers were Mrs. J. Borden Harriman of New York and Washington, representing the national ticket, and Miss Harriet May Mills, Syracuse, representing Governor Smith.
The Buick touring car had been outfitted on the top with a paper replica of a teapot, which steamed as it arrived in towns from New York City to Buffalo and swung through the southern part of the state to remind gawkers about the Teapot Dome oil scandals of Warren G. Harding’s Republican administration. Nothing was too challenging for the women during this excursion. Local chairs met them at each location. In Potsdam they attended a street meeting at 8:30 p.m. and left the next morning for Canton at 10:00 a.m. and a thirty-minute stop at Gouverneur.
Those who knew Eleanor Roosevelt appreciated that she kept a tight schedule. But perhaps even they were surprised that she had unleashed her imagination to help defeat her cousin Theodore, thereby widening the bitter divide between the Oyster Bay Roosevelts and the Hyde Park branch of the family, who were upstaging them. The friends themselves had a whole lot of fun, although years later Eleanor was obliged to admit that the Teapot Tour had been a “rough stunt.”16 But she did not offer an apology.
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In the election of 1924 Eleanor made a valiant effort to get more women represented in Democratic Party decisions, but in the end she and her cohorts were denied access to the all-male committees running the show. Her leadership had been exceptional, however, and she had made a name for herself; so had Franklin, who had agreed to nominate Governor Smith for president at the party’s convention in Madison Square Garden. It marked his first public appearance after polio, and many historians have emphasized the importance of the occasion for him. Sara, Eleanor, Marion, Nan, and four of the Roosevelt children were seated in the balcony when the drama began. The convention delegates watched Roosevelt’s perilous approach to the podium on the arm of his son James. Once there, he triumphantly positioned himself and to thunderous applause gave what became known as the “Happy Warrior” speech. The speech borrowed that phrase from a Wordsworth poem to describe Smith, but the audience understood that it best applied to Roosevelt himself. Smith lost the nomination to a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, a Wall Street lawyer, and continued as New York governor. FDR was the real winner. Eleanor was wary about what it meant for her.
When Franklin returned to the family’s New York City apartment after the convention, Marion came to the house to congratulate him and was told that he wanted to see her in his upstairs bedroom. When she walked into his room, he was sitting up in bed beaming. “Marion, I did it!” he exclaimed.17 It was the first of several times when Franklin invited Marion personally to share his political triumphs. And it was one of many times that Franklin relied on Marion and Nan. As Frances Perkins, who worked in FDR’s administration when he was New York governor and later when he was president, as his U.S. secretary of labor, observed when Franklin was governor of New York, Marion, Nan, and Caroline O’Day “were women that he saw all the time. He didn’t have to go out on the highways and by ways” to seek advice.18
In 1928 Eleanor again worked for Smith’s presidential campaign. Although she did not campaign for Franklin, who was considering running for governor in the same election, she encouraged him, thus, observers thought, making the difference in Franklin’s decision. Eleanor had persuaded Franklin to take a call from Smith asking him to run, and Franklin agreed to Smith’s request despite the opposition of his secretary and now his constant companion, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand. Franklin won and Smith lost. Eleanor was more disheartened by Smith’s defeat than she was pleased by Franklin’s victory. Marion and Nan were elated.
As Eleanor became more politically active, letters about her flew back and forth among the Oyster Bay Roosevelt relatives, none harsher than one from a source that must have been a stab in the heart for Eleanor: her beloved Auntie Bye, who had encouraged Grandmother Hall to send Eleanor to Allenswood. Writing t
o her sister Corinne, Bye snidely lamented, as possibly only a family member could, about the effects politics was having on Eleanor: “Alas and lackaday! Since politics have become her choicest interest all her charm has disappeared, and the fact is emphasized by the companions she chooses to bring with her.”19 Eleanor and Nan had shown up at Bye’s house wearing identical outfits of knickerbockers, which were, in fact, quite stylish; it was Bye whose love for the latest fashion had stopped when she was too old and infirm to command her own audience. The Oyster Bay relatives would have been equally appalled to hear about Eleanor’s arrest for disorderly conduct when she and Marion joined a protest strike of women workers in New York City in the winter of 1926. Eleanor was developing public concerns and personal courage that would carry her through a lifetime of activism, and a cadre of women friends would be ready to go with her.
Eleanor thought that there was nothing unusual about sharing a cottage with two women recognized as partnered in an intimate domestic life. She already knew the pleasures of a shared life modeled by Esther Lape and Elizabeth Read, whose apartment in Greenwich Village provided her with escapes from the twin Roosevelt townhouses on the Upper East Side (Eleanor and Franklin’s was next to Mama’s). Eleanor could create such a domestic setting for herself with Marion and Nan. For their part, Marion and Nan likely discussed with one another what privacy they might be giving up in sharing a home and a life with a married woman who had a large family. The fact that living at Val-Kill put them close to Franklin was perhaps as great an advantage for them as being Eleanor’s housemates, because Marion and Nan were keenly absorbed in Franklin’s career and shared Eleanor’s determination to help him return to public life. Although hundreds of friends visited the Roosevelts at Springwood, none had easier access than Marion and Nan. The time seemed right for them to take the next step. After fourteen years of being together they were ready for a new adventure. It was the beginning of the most significant and exciting chapter in their lives.
3: THE DECISION TO BUILD THE COTTAGE
Why shouldn’t you three have a cottage here of your own?—Franklin Roosevelt
On the late summer afternoon in 1924 when the decision was made to build a cottage on the banks of Fall-Kill Creek about two miles east of the Big House, Franklin, Eleanor, Marion, and Nan were in close harmony, having spent the weekend together at Springwood and having celebrated the end of the summer season with a picnic in one of their favorite places. We imagine that the afternoon may have unfolded something like this.
Eleanor, Marion, and Nan had walked the two miles from Springwood through woods and farmland to Fall-Kill Creek to meet Franklin, who had been driven there by one of his men along with his sons Franklin Jr. (“Brud”) and John, for the last weekend picnic of the season. The men and boys laughed as the car bounced over the rutted roads and the makeshift bridge. They were already at their favorite site when the three women arrived arm in arm. As excited as their father to be free and outdoors, Brud and John raced toward the water’s edge to work on their fort in the marsh.
Franklin’s man picked him up and carried him to the hill above the pond, Franklin joking about the weight he had gained since he had been exercising with his lady therapist. Franklin always tried to make it easier on those who saw how helpless he was by making lots of jokes. When the women arrived—Franklin called them “our gang”—Marion reached into the backseat for the blanket and hurried to spread it out for him. Eleanor took out the picnic baskets, and Nan scratched in the old ashes to lay a new fire. A startled frog splashed into the water, and in the nearby woods there were sounds of birds; in the distance a farmer was working in a field. It was a cool afternoon, the summer heat already fading, and there was some yellow in the scrubby trees, but the dominant color was the blue of the sky. By the time hot dogs were cooked on the spits and potato salad was added to the plates and cold drinks had been passed around, Franklin was in fine form, continuing last night’s stories about riding his horse over these same fields with his father. After the picnic had been put away, the boys raced back to their fort, Franklin stretched out in the waning sun, and the three women took a long walk through the woods, Eleanor setting the pace.
When the women returned, a chill had settled over the water and Franklin was talking to his tenant, Moses Smith, who rented a house and farm called Woodlawns on the Val-Kill estate and raised vegetables, chickens, and cows. Moses was also a good friend, and the two men often discussed local agricultural issues. Today Moses had come to talk about some newly planted trees. Franklin was worried about them. All in all, he would have preferred fewer picnics and more rain. He asked Moses to keep an eye on the trees because he would be leaving soon to join some friends on a Florida houseboat they had rented to motor about the Intracoastal Waterway, get in some fishing, and soak up some sun. Although it was a false hope, Franklin believed that the sun and water would restore full strength to his useless legs. He could still wrestle with his sons, and he liked to show off his upper body strength by dropping from a chair and dragging himself up the stairs. Here by the Fall-Kill he was content to eat and laugh and entertain Marion and Nan, who encouraged him with their questions.
In later years Marion reminisced about the first time they had been leaving the Big House with Eleanor to go on a picnic and Nan had gone in to kiss Franklin goodbye. He had pretended to weep, “Oh, I want to go, too!”1 The women readily agreed, and he laughed and joked with them all the way.
Now on the creek bank on that fall afternoon Eleanor lamented that this would be their last picnic of the season. Marion and Nan nodded. And whether or not they had already talked about it—there is no record of it in Marion’s memories of that day—this last picnic seemed to be on everyone’s mind. Marion and Nan and Eleanor and Franklin all exchanged thoughtful looks.
Whether the idea had been planned or was a sudden inspiration, when the women looked toward him, Franklin spoke (Marion recalled his words even at the end of her life), “But aren’t you girls silly? This isn’t Mother’s land. I bought this acreage myself. And why shouldn’t you three have a cottage here of your own, so you could come and go as you please?”2 Their surprise and delight were immediate, expressed in a sudden burst of energy as they nodded. With some nervous chatter they began to load up the baskets and carry them to the car. Eleanor called to the boys, and they ran back like rabbits. Clearly, Franklin had set something in motion that would change the way they all lived. He was not of a mind to say so, but perhaps it was his gift to Eleanor.
When the women arrived back at the Big House, Franklin was seated in the library with his mother, who did not take her eyes from her son when they entered the room. He was explaining something about the Florida houseboat, and she did not look pleased. Mama did not invite them to sit by the fire, and they hesitated, unsure what to do. Outside the river flowed and night came to the valley.
Remember this—the old bridge, the hillside, the marshes, and the creek ran clear and cold.
4: THE FAMILY VACATION
Things were generally “rough and ready.” There were no cucumber or watercress sandwiches or dainty things!—Ellie Roosevelt Seagraves
After the decision was made to build the cottage at Fall-Kill Creek, Franklin urged Eleanor, Marion, and Nan to take the boys to the family house on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada, and turn over the supervision of the construction to him. He had long wanted his children to enjoy Campobello as much as he had when he was young. His father and mother had first taken him to the island when he was only two, and until the fateful trip in 1921 when he was struck down by polio, he had gone every summer, becoming an expert sailor and exploring every inch of what he called his “beloved island.” (Indeed, he would not return to Campobello until 1933, when he came on a U.S. Navy vessel as president of the United States.) In a sense, Marion and Nan would serve as his proxies on Campobello. While the family was away, Franklin would have a project he would enjoy immensely because he fancied himself something of an architect; he took T
homas Jefferson and Monticello as his ideal. And it would focus his mind, requiring attention to details but still allowing him to send instructions from afar—wherever he was trying to find another kind of treatment for his paralysis.
After Eleanor, Marion, and Nan agreed to take the younger boys and their friends to the Roosevelt cottage on Campobello, they planned the long trip that they would make every summer until 1929, when they took their grand tour of Europe instead. They would camp along the way, pitching tents at night, with the three women sleeping in one tent and the boys in a pup tent nearby. Nan was to prepare all their meals on a camp stove.
Eleanor grasped the opportunity to be more present in the lives of Brud and John than she had in those of her three older children, all of whom were beginning to show signs of discontent. Franklin was no longer able to be the physically active father they once enjoyed, and Eleanor was always on the go. She had come to rely on Nan and Marion for help with the younger boys. On weekends in New York City Eleanor, Marion, and Nan had taken them to all the popular sites—the museums, the Statue of Liberty, the waterfront, Central Park. When Franklin expressed a desire that the boys learn to swim, the three women took swimming lessons at the New York YWCA in preparation. Marion especially wanted to get to know the children and helped them with their lessons. In time she became a go-between when Eleanor’s tolerance for the boys’ perceived misbehavior wore thin.
The Three Graces of Val-Kill Page 4
