Eleanor and Franklin (160 page)

Journey to the South Pacific, 1943. “She went into every ward, stopped at every bed, spoke to every patient.”

FDR, August 1944.

Bibliographical Note

I
HAVE INDICATED AT THE APPROPRIATE PLACES
in the following footnotes the manuscript collections which I consulted in the writing of this book. There are at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, in addition to the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt papers, an important group of family letters and materials, sometimes referred to as the Halsted Collection because it was Anna Roosevelt Halsted who saw to it that they were deposited at the library for safekeeping. The family retains control over access to these papers. The diaries of Helen Roosevelt Robinson are in the private possession of her daughters. The diaries of Caroline Drayton Phillips, to which references are made in this book, were supplied to me by her son Christopher.

The transcripts of the interviews conducted by the Oral History Project at Columbia University were an invaluable source, as was the
New York Times'
collection of clippings on Eleanor Roosevelt, which I was able to consult through the kindness of John B. Oakes. A. H. Raskin and Thomas Lask helped me to identify some lines of poetry that turned up in Eleanor Roosevelt's papers. Herman Kahn of the Yale University Library helped me to verify quotations from the diary of Henry L. Stimson, and the George Gallup organization in Princeton, New Jersey, permitted me to consult their files on public attitudes toward Mrs. Roosevelt.

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 Roosevelt
s in Business and Finance
(New York, 1946). I also made use of Allen Churchill,
The Roosevelt
s: 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, Evenin
g 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.