Eleanor and Franklin

by Joseph P. Lash

  Always affectionately

  Eleanor Roosevelt.

  Her next letter reveals something of what she and Franklin had said to each other that Sunday in Groton. It represents the first time she felt free to give voice to the strength of her feeling for Franklin.

  Tuesday night

  [Nov. 24, 1903]

  Franklin dear,

  I promised that this letter should be cheerier so I don’t suppose I ought to write to-night for the day has been very trying. I wanted to tell you though that I did understand & that I don’t know what I should have done all day if your letter had not come. Uncle Gracie’s funeral is to be on Friday at ten. I have been twice to-day to Auntie Corinne’s & I have promised to spend to-morrow morning there also. She looks so worn & I wish I could do something more to help her. She seems to have every thing to arrange & settle. Teddy came this afternoon I am thankful to say so he will be some help to her & a great comfort. I am dreading Friday. I know I ought not to feel as I do or even to think of myself but I have not been to a funeral in ten years & it makes me shudder to think of it. The others have all gone to the play so I am all alone to-night as I would of course go nowhere this week, & I have been thinking & wishing that you were here. However, I know it is best for you not [to] come until Sunday & for me also as I should be a very dreary not to say a very weary companion just at present & there are so many things I know I ought to think of before I see you again. I am afraid so far I’ve only thought of myself & I don’t seem to be able to do anything else just now.

  Do you remember the verse I tried to recite to you last Sunday? I found it to-day & I am going to write it out for you, because it is in part what it all means to me:

  Unless you can think when the song is done,

  No other is left in the rhythm;

  Unless you can feel, when left by one,

  That all men else go with him;

  Unless you can know, when upraised by his breath,

  That your beauty itself wants proving;

  Unless you can swear, “For life, for death!”

  Oh, fear to call it loving!

  Unless you can muse in a crowd all day

  On the absent face that has fixed you;

  Unless you can love, as the angels may,

  With the breath of heaven betwixt you;

  Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,

  Through behooving & unbehooving;

  Unless you can die when the dream is past—

  Oh, never call it loving!13

  I wondered if it meant “for life, for death” to you at first but I know it does now. I do not know what to write. I cannot write what I want. I can only wait & long for Sunday when I shall tell you all I feel I cannot write.

  Goodnight. I hope you will all have a very happy Thanksgiving at Fairhaven & please don’t get tired out by working at night.

  Always devotedly

  Eleanor.

  She had wondered whether she, too, cared enough to be able to say that it was “for life, for death,” and she discussed her feelings with Cousin Susie on her return to New York. Whatever her cousin’s response, Eleanor’s “great curiosity” about life and her “desire to participate in every experience that might be the lot of woman” pulled her toward marriage. She was swept up by “the urge to be a part of the stream of life,” and it seemed entirely natural and right to her to say yes to Franklin.14

  Franklin, meanwhile, had gone to Fairhaven, the Delano clan’s gathering place, where he told his mother that he had proposed to Eleanor. “Franklin gave me quite a startling announcement,” she wrote in her journal. Then he went to New York where there was a note from Eleanor: “Mrs. Parish wants you to lunch with us tomorrow if you can and also to take tea with us. I do hope that you will come to both if you can for I want you every minute of your stay.”

  “It is impossible to tell you what these last two days have been to me,” she wrote him afterward, thinking he was on his way to Cambridge, “but I know they have meant the same to you so that you will understand that I love you dearest and I hope that I shall always prove worthy of the love which you have given me. I have never known before what it was to be absolutely happy.”

  But Franklin had not left New York. His mother had returned, and it is not difficult to sense the surprise and disapproval in the terse entry, “I find Franklin still in New York.” The next day he went to Seventy-sixth Street and accompanied Eleanor to see Sara. “I had a long talk with the dear child.”15

  To Sara, Franklin’s announcement meant surrendering her exclusive relationship with her son and her plans for their life together after he left Harvard. She did not surrender easily. Could they really be sure they cared enough, she asked them. They were young—shouldn’t both of them think it over and see what the lapse of time and being away from each other would do to their feelings? Her father, Warren Delano, had married at thirty-three, after he had made a name for himself and had something to offer a woman. Franklin was only twenty-one and Eleanor was just nineteen; they had plenty of time.

  These were the reservations that Sara expressed, but Eleanor thought an additional reason was her desire that he should make “a more worldly and social match.”16 There was probably another constraint that was never voiced but that was always in the background—Eleanor’s father’s alcoholism, not to mention her uncles’. Girls were carefully chaperoned, and Eleanor radiated purity and innocence, but the maid who invariably accompanied her reflected her own or her family’s awareness that she was more vulnerable than other girls her age to rumor and gossip if she overstepped the strict line of decorum that society drew for young ladies. As uneasy as Sara may have been about Eleanor’s flawed heritage, she kept it to herself. She only pleaded with them to keep their engagement secret for a year, during which time she would take Franklin on a cruise as a test of how they really felt. They agreed to her conditions.

  After Franklin returned to Harvard, he wrote his mother a comforting letter.

  I know what pain I must have caused you and you know I wouldn’t do it if I really could have helped it—mais tu sais, me voila! That’s all that could be said—I know my mind, have known it for a long time, and know that I could never think otherwise: Result: I am the happiest man just now in the world; likewise the luckiest—And for you, dear Mummy, you know that nothing can ever change what we have always been & always will be to each other—only now you have two children to love & to love you—and Eleanor as you know will always be a daughter to you in every true way—

  Eleanor sent a sympathetic and understanding letter to Sara, tenderly buttressing Franklin’s point that Sara was gaining a daughter, not losing a son.

  8 East 76th Street

  Dec. 2d, 1903,

  Wednesday.

  Dearest Cousin Sally,

  I must write you & thank you for being so good to me yesterday. I know just how you feel & how hard it must be, but I do so want you to learn to love me a little. You must know that I will always try to do what you wish for I have grown to love you very dearly during the past summer.

  It is impossible for me to tell you how I feel toward Franklin. I can only say that my one great wish is always to prove worthy of him.

  I am counting the days to the 12th when I hope Franklin & you will both be here again & if there is anything which I can do for you you will write me, won’t you?

  With much love dear Cousin Sally,

  Always devotedly

  Eleanor.

  Eleanor’s days were full of activity but they were dominated by thoughts of her beloved, to whom she wrote now with ever deepening commitment.

  Dearest Franklin,

  Though I only wrote last night I must write you just a line this morning to tell you that I miss you every moment & that you are never out of my thoughts dear for one moment. I was thinking last night of the difference which, one short week can make in one’s life. Everything is changed for me now. I am so happy. Oh! so happy & I love you so dearly. I cannot begi
n to write you all I should like to say, but you know it all I am sure & I hope that you too dearest are very, very happy. I am counting the days to the 12th & the days in between seem so very long.

  She was generous to Sara in spite of the onerous conditions the older woman had exacted from them.

  I found the sweetest, dearest letter here from your Mother last night. Boy dear,† I realize more and more how hard it is for her & we must both try always to make her happy & I do hope some day she will learn to love me. She is coming to town to-day for a few days & says she will telephone me & try to see me.

  She had told Cousin Susie of Sara’s reaction to the engagement. Cousin Susie felt, Eleanor wrote Franklin, “as I do that your Mother’s feelings ought to be considered first of all.” Cousin Susie also thought it would be all right to tell Eleanor’s grandmother what they had decided, and Eleanor went to Tivoli to see Mrs. Hall. “I have told her that I shall not be definitely engaged until next year and she has promised me to tell no one that I am even thinking of such a thing, so I hope all will go well.”17

  Was she sure that she was really in love, her grandmother asked. “I solemnly answered ‘yes,’” she wrote in her autobiography, “and yet I know now that it was years later before I understood what being in love was or what loving really meant.”18

  * Efforts by the Library of Congress and others to trace the poem from the line quoted by Eleanor were unsuccessful. Perhaps it was written by young Franklin Roosevelt, in which case the loss to history caused by Mrs. Roosevelt’s destruction of his courtship letters is even more regrettable, even though the last part of the line, indeed the whole sentence, echoes the Bible, Revelations 2:10.10

  † Eleanor’s father had been addressed as “Boy dear” and “Boy darling” by his Aunt Ella.

  11.MOTHER AND SON

  AT THE OLDER WOMAN’S REQUEST, ELEANOR MET SARA Roosevelt two days after Franklin’s return to Cambridge. The session turned out to be quite painful, the first of many duels that in time would cause all of them great agony. The gracious lady, despite her protestations of regard for “the delightful child of nineteen whom I had known and loved since babyhood,” was determined to create difficulties for the two young people. And in the contest of wills that Sara foresaw with her equally stubborn son she did not scruple to take advantage of Eleanor’s touching eagerness to “always try to do” what the older woman wished. But if Sara had seen the letter that Eleanor wrote at her request to Franklin, she would not have drawn much comfort from it. Although Eleanor had transmitted Sara’s views to Franklin, as Sara had asked, in doing so she made it perfectly clear what she herself wanted.

  [Dec. 4, 1903]

  Friday evening

  Boy darling,

  I have rather a hard letter to write you tonight & I don’t quite know how to say what I must say & I am afraid I am going to give you some trouble, however I don’t see how I can help it.

  I went to the apartment this morning & saw your Mother there for a few minutes & then we went out together & had a long talk. She is coming down next Friday to meet you & she wants us to lunch & dine with her & then she wants you to go to Hyde Park with her Sunday morning. Helen and Cousin Rosie have been asking when you were coming home. She thinks they are sure to hear you are in New York & say that you are loafing & never coming home & she also says that if we go to church together we are sure to be seen. She also thinks that you ought to go home on account of the place, & your interest in it. She asked me to write you & I tell you all this dear because I think it only fair. Of course it will be a terrible disappointment to me not to have you on Sunday as I have been looking forward to it & every moment with you is very precious as we have so little of each other but I don’t want you to stay if you feel it is your duty to go up & I shall understand of course. I realize that we may be seen if we go to church together, but we will have to choose some small church. However, I suppose your Mother feels more strongly on the subject than I do & I am afraid I must leave the whole thing to you to decide. Whatever you do I shall know to be right but I don’t think your Mother quite realizes what a very hard thing she was asking me to do for I am hungry for every moment of your time, but you mustn’t let what I want interfere with what you feel to be right dearest.

  Now for the second thing. Cousin Sally said she did not think you would want to go on a trip now & she said she thought of taking a house in Boston for three months. She said she hoped I would come & stay once or twice during that time but if she took the house she did not want you to be coming to New York. I can understand how she feels but I’m afraid I can’t promise not to want you more than twice in all that time. However I think you & she will have to talk it over next Saturday & decide that also. We also spoke about the holidays but I think that will wait until I see you as these were the only two things she asked me to write about.

  I haven’t had a letter from you this evening & I am wondering what has happened. I did so want it, but I hope it will come in the morning. I am going to Tivoli by the early train & coming down by the 7.19 on Sunday.

  Oh! boy dear, I want you so much. I’m worried & tired & cross & I don’t know what I ought to do. Please be very careful of yourself dearest & don’t work yourself to death & when you can write me what you decide about Sunday.

  Always your loving

  Eleanor.

  The decision was now up to Franklin, who was already aware of his mother’s feeling; she had taken the precaution of writing him herself. As she had anticipated, he was not impressed by her arguments, although as a devoted son he was prepared to abide by her wishes if she insisted on them.

  Alpha Delta Phi Club

  Dec. 6, 1903,

  Sunday.

  Dearest Mama—

  Yours of Friday came yesterday & I have been thinking over what you say about next Sunday—I am so glad, dear Mummy, that you are getting over the strangeness of it all—I knew you would and that you couldn’t help feeling that not only I but you also are the luckiest & will always be the happiest people in the world in gaining anyone like E. to love & be loved by.

  I confess that I think it would be poor policy for me to go to H.P. next Sunday—although, as you know and don’t have to be told, I always love & try to be there all I can—I have been home twice already this term & I feel certain that J.R.R. & Helen w’d be sure to smell a rat if I went back for part of a day just a week before the holidays, for they would know I had been in N.Y. a whole day. Also if I am in N.Y. on Sunday not a soul need know I have been there at all as if we go to Church at all we can go to any old one at about 100th St. & the rest of the day w’d be in the house where none c’d see us. Of course I suppose you have told no one you w’d see me Saturday. Now if you really can’t see the way clear to my staying in N.Y. of course I will go to H.P. with you—but you know how I feel—and also I think that E. will be terribly disappointed, as I will, if we can’t have one of our first Sundays together—It seems a little hard & unnecessary on us both & I shall see you all day Saturday which I shouldn’t have done had the great event not “happened.” . . .

  I am going to accept all invites for Xmas but don’t you think we might have a house party for one or two days—Go ahead & ask whoever you want, we might have two girls & E. and if you name date & telegraph I will try to get two or three fellows—Indeed I don’t intend to give up things—it w’d not be right to you or E—& she also will keep on going to things—You can imagine how completely happy I am—it gives a stimulus to everything I do. . . .

  Ever your loving son

  F.D.R.

  All week the battle of wills raged, although it was couched in terms of endearment and respect; and all week Eleanor was on tenterhooks awaiting the outcome. He should not work too hard, she cautioned Franklin, “for I don’t want to receive a wreck next Saturday. I am growing more and more impatient as the time draws near and I can hardly bear to think that you may not be able to stay here on Sunday.” That was Tuesday. On Wednesday she still was hopeful that Sara
would not insist on Franklin’s going to Hyde Park, “for then I shall have you all to myself on Sunday,” but she was afraid that his mother was going to want him on Sunday. “You see it is hard for her to realize that any one can want or need you more than she does, so I suppose I ought not to mind, only I do mind terribly, as you only can understand dear, however I mustn’t complain, must I?” Sara evidently tried to force their hand by telling Rosy and his daughter Helen that Franklin was coming to Hyde Park. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am about Sunday,” Eleanor wrote resignedly the next day, “but I am not in the least surprised as I knew your Mother would insist on your going to Hyde Park and since she has told Cousin Rosie and Helen it is certainly impossible for you to stay here without running the risk of their knowing it.”

  But young love prevailed over filial affection. However Franklin managed it, he and Eleanor spent Sunday as well as Saturday with each other. “We have had two happy days together,” she wrote him after he had returned to Cambridge, “and you do not know how grateful I am for every moment which I have with you.”

  “She had already lived through so much unhappiness,” a cousin commented, “and then to have married a man with a mother like Cousin Sally.”1 James Roosevelt had died in 1900 when Franklin was in his freshman year at college, and from that time on the forty-six-year-old Sara had focused all her thoughts, love, and energy on Franklin. For two winters she had rented a house in Boston to be close to him; they had traveled abroad together; when they were apart he wrote to her with a remarkable faithfulness. There was almost nothing she would not grant him except what was perhaps beyond the power of a lonely woman to grant an only child—independence.

  “She was an indulgent mother but would not let her son call his soul his own” was the way a loyal friend of Eleanor’s, quoting P. G. Wodehouse, sought to describe the strong-willed dowager’s relationship with her son.2 Except for Eleanor, no one ever exercised so strong a sway over his development, and Eleanor would always insist that not even she had so great an influence. Sara claimed Franklin as her own, even against her husband: “My son Franklin is a Delano, not a Roosevelt at all,” she would assert with a proprietary air after he became president, and, strangely, in his final years his face came more and more to resemble his mother’s. But the kinship was more than physical. In his will James Roosevelt had written: “I wish him [Franklin] to be under the influence of his mother.” It was an unnecessary stipulation. He already was.