That James and Sara gave so much time to their only child, Franklin, was exceptional, especially when compared to many of their contemporaries. Sara Delano Roosevelt got down on her knees to bathe FDR while his nurse stood by ready with the towel. For a time in which servants routinely did a child’s bath, it was a unique situation. Nothing like this, not even remotely as far as we know, ever happened to Eleanor. Being kept at arm’s length was her lot. And hence it was the style she adopted with her children.
My great-grandmother, as I have said, was known for doting on her only son. And he basked in the attention; indeed he counted on her faithfulness throughout his life. This single-minded devotion of his mother’s was an anchor for FDR. True, he sometimes felt her close attentions as tiresome interference, but it did not spoil the mother and son’s dedication to each other. When she died in 1941, my grandfather grieved deeply. Indeed it is the only time noted when he wept. In memory of his mother he wore a black armband for the following year on all his suits.
I believe Franklin hoped—and why not?—that his wife would follow suit in devoting time and attention to him, that she would share his dreams and provide the same uncritical support that his mother had represented, the same kind of unstinting support a political candidate typically requires from his spouse.
At one of the annual book fairs hosted by the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, I was asked how long it took Eleanor and Franklin to view each other more realistically, free of those rosy lenses that had accompanied their courtship and engagement. I paused for thought and then replied, “About three weeks, I expect.” There was a roar of laughter, but it had not been my intention to amuse the audience, nor to be flippant.
When Eleanor and Franklin entered into marriage, each came armed with complicated expectations, both for themselves and of their partner. Compounding this they had little in the way of experience with intimate relationships, and probably none at all regarding sex. Young men of FDR’s position might have tried prostitution (certainly not an intimate exchange), and as for young women, sex was considered a marital obligation in those days, one that excluded any pleasurable sharing of the experience. Not only did they lack experience but they were also laden with misinformation—such as the notion that only prostitutes enjoyed sex.
During their courtship, FDR enthusiastically shared his hopes for a bright political future. He presented himself as a “reformer,” interested in raising the lot of those “less fortunate than we are.” Undoubtedly, Eleanor was enthusiastic in her response. She had had direct contact with the down-and-out in a settlement house and thus had more firsthand observation of poverty then had her husband, though she had no activist plans or ambitions for herself. Those would come later, much later—in her middle age.
Upon returning from a European honeymoon of several months, Eleanor found herself in charge of their new home, a small brownstone between Park and Lexington Avenues, 125 E. Thirty-Seventh Street, in Manhattan. She tried very hard to be a good wife in every respect, but admitted that she was woefully unprepared take on this responsibility.
Franklin had said openly that he expected to have a large family. Each had a modest income that would be shared in order to support the large brood they—or he anyway—envisaged. And they knew they could count on his mother, Sara, to top up their finances when necessary.
At the time of their marriage FDR had not yet even started law school, and had never held a job. This lack of employment was the key reason his mother wanted to delay his marrying Eleanor. Otherwise she was not against it; she liked the idea of the link to Theodore Roosevelt. And FDR probably knew that even with his mother’s reservations about his early marriage she would fill in the financial gaps in order for the young couple to live in the style of life to which they were accustomed. Throughout their marriage they always had nurses and governesses in tow. In reality their income, when put together, was quite adequate, but my great-grandmother still had to step in regularly to pay expenses such as school fees and trips abroad.
Even though Eleanor wanted desperately to be found competent in domestic affairs, the fact was that she wasn’t very well prepared for the practical side of married life. She was not comfortable acting as hostess or running a household with servants. Raising children was a matter of great anxiety. She wrote openly about not knowing what to do, and was obviously very afraid of not doing things right. Criticism, even when merely implied, did not sit well with her.
She wrote: “I had high standards of what a wife and mother should be and not the faintest notion of what it meant to be either a wife or a mother, and none of my elders enlightened me.” Myself, I find this most odd, as “training” for one’s future responsibilities upon marriage was routine for young women of my grandmother’s upper-class background. It was an integral part of being well brought up. She continues: “I marvel now at my husband’s patience, for I realize how trying I must have been in many ways.”
In letters written early in her married life, Eleanor lamented her lack of knowledge about organizing and dealing with household staff, ordering the food, and all the other attributes and duties expected of a young wife. This ignorance led her into an unrealistic dependency on her mother-in-law, which Eleanor later bitterly complained about, as if it were Sara’s fault!2
It was the same with the children’s nurses. Eleanor writes that she let them decide everything because she “didn’t know how to.” She declared: “I had never had any interest in dolls or little children and I knew nothing about handling or feeding a baby.” Sara must have wondered (at least I do) if her daughter-in-law had been born without the maternal instincts that normally guide a woman. My guess is that it was fear of engaging physically, and a fear of failing to get it right, and hence opening herself to criticism.
But in spite of early misgivings about being so dependent on her mother-in-law, Eleanor very much hoped that attention from Sara might help fill in the gaps of her own at-arm’s-length upbringing, giving her the love and attention she had missed. Her letters to Sara when first married show a craving for attention, and also seeking to cede control. It seems to me that my grandmother was in quest of a mother figure just as much as she needed a reliable paternal one. She later wrote: “I was growing dependent on my mother-in-law, requiring her help on almost every subject and I never thought of asking for anything that I thought would not meet with her approval.”
I have indicated that as the married Eleanor and Franklin got to know each other, they were undoubtedly disappointed. I suspect FDR had hoped for a partner more confident and more emotionally mature, not so subject to moodiness, as my grandmother admits that she was. Franklin admired his fiancée’s independence of mind, her high-minded values, and her unselfish attention to others, but he was now faced with the fact that his dear Eleanor’s emotions were quite unpredictable.
I am sure that my grandmother would have liked to adhere to the upper-class norm of her the time—maintaining cheerfulness in all circumstances, no matter how down in the dumps one might feel. But she did not find practicing that dictum easy. For example, just after she and FDR had moved into their New York house, a gift from Sara, Franklin found Eleanor weeping at her dressing table. Her explanation in reply to his bewildered query was to say that she “didn’t like living in a house which was not in any way [hers].” But just read the letters from my grandmother to Sara and Franklin, asking them to make all the decisions relating to the building and furnishing of the new residence. In her autobiography she admits: “I left everything to my mother-in-law and my husband.” But today the story about not liking to live “in a house which is not in any way mine” is often repeated to show Eleanor as the injured one. Yet it simply is not accurate.
I have said that Eleanor would fully acknowledge that she woefully lacked confidence, and to compound that malaise, turned to stoical silence if she felt criticism was even implied. “One of my most maddening things, which must infuriate all those who know me, is this habit, when feeling hurt or when I a
m annoyed, of simply shutting up like a clam, not telling anyone what is the matter, and being much too obviously humble and meek, feeling like a martyr and acting like one.”
When her third child, a boy, died at eight months old, my grandmother felt very guilty and went into a slump of self-recrimination. “I made myself and all those around me most unhappy during that winter. I was even a little bitter against my poor husband who occasionally tried to make me see how idiotically I was behaving.”
Writing about the early years of marriage, she reports: “But those first years I was serious and a certain kind of orthodox goodness was my ideal and ambition. I fully expected that my young husband would have these same ideas, ideals and ambitions. What a tragedy it was if in any way he offended against these ideals of mine—and, amusingly enough, I do not think I ever told him what I expected.” Amusing it wasn’t, not for Franklin.
He also found that their companionship had limits. For example, he thought they might play golf together. But he was not tactful and commented after one game that she decided to play no more. She never did. “My old sensitiveness about my ability to play games made me give it up then and there. I never attempted anything but walking with my husband for many years to come,” she states in her autobiography.
Early on in their marriage, I expect that FDR had also recognized that his wife was unable to fully offer what he most wanted—affection and approval. Likewise, Eleanor’s disappointment in her husband’s limitations must have surfaced quite soon. She was instinctively judgmental, while his own appetite for approbation seemed limitless.
Franklin’s inability to provide her with little more than good-humored affection has been hinted at in my grandmother’s writing. Gregarious he might have been, but his notion of intimacy may have been limited to a hearty laugh, a peck on the cheek, and briefly holding his wife’s hand.
As with most married couples, the passion of infatuation is a “sometime” state, perhaps lasting only three weeks, or maybe for three years. Then adjustment is required, and to accomplish it there must remain in the marriage a genuine capacity to share feelings. I do not find that element in my grandparents’ relationship as man and wife. Both craved an intimacy—but one suited to his or her needs, of course. Yet, sadly, one might think, they couldn’t find it in each other. To a great extent their good manners and having both been well bred carried them through. As far as I observed, my grandparents were always warmly polite, never even slightly rude to each other, and they tried to be mutually considerate.
The stress of married life increased when, five years into their marriage, Franklin was first elected to public office, as a senator in the state legislature in Albany. This was a success that much encouraged his political ambitions, his first leg up. Although she felt nervous about her new role as a politician’s wife, Eleanor did not object to setting up house in Albany. As she writes, she plunged into her new obligations with great energy, trying hard to fulfill the expectations of a rising politico, and also to raise her growing family. FDR established his reputation as a reformer—and set himself against the “bosses” of Tammany Hall.
Three years later, in a real step up, my grandfather was appointed by President Wilson to be assistant secretary of the navy. The Roosevelt family, with three children, Anna, James, and baby Elliott, and an entourage of servants, moved to Washington where they would spend the next eight years. For FDR, it was a dream come true. Eleanor, on the other hand, was not all that pleased. It meant a new (and fearful) set of duties for her, those expected of the wife of a senior government official. Protocol in the nation’s capital was strict and its officialdom was omnipresent, even though Washington was still in many ways just a sleepy (and segregated) Southern town.
Despite her innate good manners, Eleanor felt severely put to the test. However, she managed to rise to the demands upon her. She had to be very correct, she writes, when dutifully making the rounds of the wives of other government officials and noted that she also had her role as hostess for Franklin and her children to attend to. She found the protocol duties boring, tedious, and tiring, adding that she was frequently fatigued, “either pregnant or just recovering” during that time—with three children already and Franklin Jr. arriving in 1914 and John in 1916. As I mentioned earlier, before Franklin and John there was another child who lived only a few months. Hence my grandmother carried through a total of six pregnancies.
FDR simply loved the navy—he always had. By all reports he not only enjoyed his job, he performed it well. I expect he could feel that he was on his way, a young man of great political promise.
Compared with Albany and its politicians forever absorbed with maneuvering, the government crowd of the nation’s capital was far less parochial. In Washington, Eleanor could engage in discussions of current issues with the company her husband invited home, people from the diplomatic corps as well as government officials. She especially enjoyed the diplomats, finding them good company. The Roosevelts themselves were also much in demand.
One might assume that Eleanor would be pleased to be so engaged, but that was not always the case. Perhaps fatigued and overburdened, my grandmother began to show self-pity, a character trait that most biographers ignore. Her “Griselda moods” reappeared (she had given them that name after the character in folklore known for her patience and obedience to duty). In spite of the interesting social life that engaged her, she felt neglected and lonely, and somehow humiliated. Yet I cannot see that her life was much different from the other wives whose husbands were either diplomats or government officials. My grandmother would recoil at the thought of self-pity, but it is far more descriptive than the phrase “Griselda mood,” which she would use to describe her darker states of retreat.
A typical humiliation—in Eleanor’s mind—occurred one evening when she returned home alone from a gay party, having chosen to leave her husband enjoying himself swirling partners around on the dance floor. On arrival she found that she did not have her house key, so she sat down on the front stoop and waited for FDR to eventually return home. Seeing her, he was appalled and perplexed. She had only needed to ring the bell, as he pointed out, and wake up the household staff to let her in. Eleanor, however, apparently preferred to make a scene.3
Adding to her tensions was, I suspect, the fact that Franklin was not all that sensitive to his wife’s emotional suffering and apparently failed to perceive her loneliness. There were many people in Washington, including relatives, with whom Eleanor could have developed close friendships, but she didn’t. Some people from the diplomatic community were definitely of “her class” and she writes of maintaining correspondence with some of them after leaving Washington. Nonetheless, no real companions emerged to share her life in Washington and to relieve her sense of being apart.
In their exchange of letters, my grandparents usually addressed each other as “Dearest Honey,” but the distance between them was apparent if you read between the lines. FDR used his duties, especially as the First World War developed in Europe, to stay over in Washington while Eleanor and the family either went to Hyde Park or to Campobello Island for the summer. He joined up with them periodically but for only brief periods.
However, when he was present, either on vacation or in their home in Washington, FDR was a devoted father. My mother and uncles often recollected the fun they had together, with their father leading them in games and roughhousing. Time spent with him may have been limited, but it was very special. My uncle James, the eldest son, remembers FDR’s arrivals at rustic, isolated Campobello Island as the start of “whooping, romping, running, sailing [and] picnicking” with their father. My mother, the eldest child and only girl, told me of the efforts she made to keep up. She may well have become a tomboy in her desire to be part of the gang. Her grandmother, my Granny, called her as much—and it wasn’t meant as a compliment!
But despite the often lively relationship with his children, I see Franklin as still innately reserved, holding a lot within himself. As no
ted earlier, since childhood, he had practiced “watching his step” and I expect it continued so, especially with Eleanor. Outwardly, though, he remained gregarious and engaging, and had many friends.
For FDR the opportunities of a political career were always beckoning. He took time off from his government position in 1916 to compete in the Democratic primary for a Senate vacancy but Tammany Hall beat him. Politics, of course, would never be far off in the atmosphere of the Roosevelt household.
He enjoyed having friends both old and new in Washington and continued to be devoted to his work in the Navy Department. He was very busy, engrossed in his responsibilities, yet after a long day would still have energy to spare. Even if he wanted to relax, he looked for amusement to relieve the grind. He needed company—his nature was exuberant—and turned regularly to the Washington social whirl, where he was always welcome.
During this period, especially during the summer months, Franklin would be alone in Washington for weeks on end. After ten years of marriage he knew that the most he could expect from his “dearest honey” were modest expressions of affection and concern for his physical welfare. They were both lonely, but, I think, simply kept any awareness of this to themselves.
Perhaps following Theodore Roosevelt’s style of “the vigorous life,” they both seemed to glory in keeping occupied, filling every moment of the day—not a word about boredom was ever exchanged. It would have been “poor form.” The opposite of keeping fully occupied was to be considered lazy. God forbid.
Washington was a small place; everyone knew everyone. Who Franklin Roosevelt might escort to a soiree was observed, but it wasn’t exceptional for him to bring along one of society’s single ladies. Lucy Mercer would have been included as one of these “acceptable” evening partners for Franklin.
When Miss Mercer entered Franklin’s life during the summer of 1916, she and her mother were well known to be people of “good breeding” but, unfortunately, with a social standing they could barely afford to keep up. While not falling into the category of “gentile poverty,” they had strained resources, and this was common knowledge. Lucy had taken a part-time job as Eleanor Roosevelt’s social secretary, and she was often invited to dinner at their home if an extra woman was needed. Among the Roosevelt circle of friends, it did not raise eyebrows if she accompanied Franklin socially when Eleanor was away. The young Roosevelts were known to be a devoted couple.
Upstairs at the Roosevelts' Page 4