year, with the war roaring to a climax on a dozen fronts and FDR’s health so precarious—at least six times he toppled to the floor of his study and had to be lifted back into his wheelchair by one of his Secret Service men—the First Lady persisted in playing his social conscience. She would invade his cocktail hour with sheaves of memos pushing her various causes, insisting on immediate decisions. Once, Anna Roosevelt recalled, “Father blew his top. He took every single speck of that whole pile of papers, threw them across the desk at me and said, ‘Sis,’ you handle these tomorrow morning.’” A humbled Eleanor apologized—but several weeks later, when she asked to accompany FDR to the last summit meeting of the war at Yalta, he coldly refused—and took Anna instead.
Inevitably, FDR sought love from other women—notably his beautiful secretary, Marguerite (Missy) LeHand, until she collapsed from the strain of trying to combine overwork and adoration. In the last two years of his life the still beautiful, still devoted Lucy Mercer, now the widowed Mrs. Winthrop Rutherfurd, returned—with the tacit collaboration of Anna Roosevelt.
A few of Lucy’s visits were in the White House. Most were at Warm Springs, the Georgia rehabilitation center which FDR had found when he was struggling to recover from polio. Mrs. Rutherfurd had an estate in nearby Aiken, South Carolina. During a particularly felicitous stay in late 1944, Lucy told Anna of a marvelous hour she had just spent with FDR, sitting in his car on a nearby mountaintop, listening to him talk about the problems of the world, interspersing global concerns with lively anecdotes about his years as a visitor to that part of Georgia. Anna realized, “Mother was not capable of giving him this—just listening.”
Anna’s brother Elliott agreed: “What he [FDR] missed more and more was a woman’s warm inspiriting companionship, which Mother by her very nature could not provide…. She was no kind of company when he wanted to relax without listening to her voice of conscience.”
When Eleanor Roosevelt learned that Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd had been sitting with FDR, watching him having his portrait painted, at the moment of his death on April 12, 1945, the deep-buried pain of the primary wound erupted in terrible rage at her daughter. In Washington, DC, she demanded an explanation of how she could have let “that woman” above all others return to her father’s inner circle. Anna told her mother that she was only trying to comfort a very sick, very lonely man.
Eleanor Roosevelt was unquestionably a great First Lady. Her pioneering in behalf of woman’s rights, African-American rights, and a dozen other causes is beyond comparison with any other woman of her time. But her achievements as a symbolic personage have to be assessed against her tragic limitations in the private role of loving counselor, companion, protector—in a word, wife.
Chapter 6
—
PARTNERS
IN PRIVATE
I HAVE ALWAYS SYMPATHIZED WITH A NNA R OOSEVELT’S ATTEMPT TO help her father. I saw at first hand how the White House can tear apart a couple. Yes, it almost happened to that seemingly perfect White House marriage of Bess and Harry Truman—and for a while I, like Anna, was a daughter trapped in the middle. There was, thank goodness, a happier ending, but the experience still left a few scars.
My mother did not want my father to become President—especially through “the back door,” as he himself called it—moving up from vice president. She had read her history books, and knew that almost every one of these accidental Presidents had a miserable time in the White House. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, almost got impeached. John Tyler, William Henry Harrison’s successor, was a President without a party. Chester Arthur, James Garfield’s successor, was considered a joke.
Bess Truman also loved being a senator’s wife. For her it was a perfect combination of being near
Inevitably, FDR sought love from other women—notably his beautiful secretary, Marguerite (Missy) LeHand, until she collapsed from the strain of trying to combine overwork and adoration. In the last two years of his life the still beautiful, still devoted Lucy Mercer, now the widowed Mrs. Winthrop Rutherfurd, returned—with the tacit collaboration of Anna Roosevelt.
A few of Lucy’s visits were in the White House. Most were at Warm Springs, the Georgia rehabilitation center which FDR had found when he was struggling to recover from polio. Mrs. Rutherfurd had an estate in nearby Aiken, South Carolina. During a particularly felicitous stay in late 1944, Lucy told Anna of a marvelous hour she had just spent with FDR, sitting in his car on a nearby mountaintop, listening to him talk about the problems of the world, interspersing global concerns with lively anecdotes about his years as a visitor to that part of Georgia. Anna realized, “Mother was not capable of giving him this—just listening.”
Anna’s brother Elliott agreed: “What he [FDR] missed more and more was a woman’s warm inspiriting companionship, which Mother by her very nature could not provide…. She was no kind of company when he wanted to relax without listening to her voice of conscience.”
When Eleanor Roosevelt learned that Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd had been sitting with FDR, watching him having his portrait painted, at the moment of his death on April 12, 1945, the deep-buried pain of the primary wound erupted in terrible rage at her daughter. In Washington, DC, she demanded an explanation of how she could have let “that woman” above all others return to her father’s inner circle. Anna told her mother that she was only trying to comfort a very sick, very lonely man.
Eleanor Roosevelt was unquestionably a great First Lady. Her pioneering in behalf of woman’s rights, African-American rights, and a dozen other causes is beyond comparison with any other woman of her time. But her achievements as a symbolic personage have to be assessed against her tragic limitations in the private role of loving counselor, companion, protector—in a word, wife.
Chapter 6
—
PARTNERS
IN PRIVATE
I HAVE ALWAYS SYMPATHIZED WITH A NNA R OOSEVELT’S ATTEMPT TO help her father. I saw at first hand how the White House can tear apart a couple. Yes, it almost happened to that seemingly perfect White House marriage of Bess and Harry Truman—and for a while I, like Anna, was a daughter trapped in the middle. There was, thank goodness, a happier ending, but the experience still left a few scars.
My mother did not want my father to become President—especially through “the back door,” as he himself called it—moving up from vice president. She had read her history books, and knew that almost every one of these accidental Presidents had a miserable time in the White House. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, almost got impeached. John Tyler, William Henry Harrison’s successor, was a President without a party. Chester Arthur, James Garfield’s successor, was considered a joke.
Bess Truman also loved being a senator’s wife. For her it was a perfect combination of being near
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