Grandmère

by David B. Roosevelt

  Robert B. Roosevelt3

  The flatlands of the Island of Tholen. In The Netherlands, believed to be the original birthplace of my ancestors.

  Public and Private

  For many people in the United States and in other countries as well, Eleanor Roosevelt has been a character of almost mythic stature, one of the most admired and influential people in history, the first First Lady to give definition to that role, the inspiration to and right hand of her husband, the first woman goodwill ambassador to represent the ideals and international policies of this country abroad, and, perhaps most important, a friend to literally millions of people. Her life, both public and private, encompassed momentous times in the history of the United States and the large questions of a society coming to terms with ruptures and change. Her life and career covered that period in American history during which the United States grew from an isolated nation, not only geographically but by national policy, into the most powerful country in the world, the most advanced industrial society, and a nation of great international social conscience.

  An official portrait from 1960. Grandmère always believed that her strength and energy had been inherited from her Dutch forebears.

  My grandmother understood that her life was a dense and rich tapestry that wove public history into her personal and intimate world, and whenever and wherever she could she would weave in those precious moments with her family, friends, and most intimate entourage.

  Throughout my life I have been asked over and over again, “What was Eleanor Roosevelt really like? Who was she?” And as one reads the many biographies written about her, it becomes clear that this single individual touched more people during her lifetime, had more influence on the personal lives of men and women, than perhaps any other person in modern history. She was loved and revered by so many, ridiculed and despised by others, and most certainly not always respected for her unwavering beliefs in the innate goodness of humankind. It is documented, for example, that her untiring support of racial issues so angered the extremists in the South that in 1957 the Klu Klux Klan placed its highest bounty ever on her life. But no one, neither historian nor close friend, knew Eleanor as “Grandmère,” and no one’s lives were influenced in quite the same way as were the lives of her own grandchildren.

  Even today, after all these years, there continues to be a high level of interest in Eleanor Roosevelt and her role as a life model for so many. A popular e-mail occasionally appears uncalled for on people’s computer screens across the country, sometimes from a friend who has been inspired by the words, sometimes anonymously. Although erroneously attributed to Grandmère, it offers what might well have been her insight on friendship and her unique approach to life:

  Grandmère in 1962.

  Many people will walk in and out of your life,

  But only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

  To handle yourself, use your head;

  To handle others, use your heart.

  Anger is only one letter short of danger.

  If someone betrays you once, it is his fault;

  If he betrays you twice, it is your fault.

  Great minds discuss ideas;

  Average minds discuss events;

  Small minds discuss people.

  He who loses money, loses much;

  He who loses a friend, loses much more;

  He who loses faith, loses all.

  Beautiful young people are accidents of nature,

  But beautiful old people are works of art.

  Learn from the mistakes of others.

  You can’t live long enough to make

  them all yourself.

  Friends, you and me…

  You brought another friend…

  And then there were 3…

  We started our group…

  Our circle of friends…

  And like that circle…

  There is no beginning or end…

  Yesterday is history.

  Tomorrow is mystery.

  Today is a gift.

  Eleanor Roosevelt continues to be a role model for women in government, for First Ladies, and for young girls who are inspired by her ideals and life’s work. But her influence and inspiration are not limited to women; her impact on men has been just as profound. I find it interesting that as I speak with people of all ages in the classrooms of today, it is apparent that they know little about my grandfather but always seem to know of and ask about Eleanor. I have helped many young people write term papers and do projects about Eleanor. A few years ago three young girls from Houston wrote to me asking help on a project they were doing concerning Eleanor for a national essay competition. More recently a fifth-grader wrote seeking any information I could offer on who “your grandmother and grandfather defeated to become president of the United States” (I explained that only FDR had become president, not Eleanor, which the young girl found hard to believe). And two years ago I had the opportunity to visit several universities in South Korea and to meet with students at each, and still the same questions, the intense interest in Eleanor. I spent hours talking with these young Korean students, trying as best I could to explain who, in my own life, Eleanor Roosevelt was. Why does this great interest endure? I can’t say for certain, but perhaps, just maybe, she epitomizes perhaps the best the world has to offer and thus becomes everyone’s grandmother. Yes, at times I know that my siblings, cousins, and I share our grandmother with thousands if not millions of others.

  As different as we all may be, as divergent as our paths in life, the members of our family share the fact that our lives were shaped in so many ways by a single force: Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. Some of the greatest joys of my life have been the family gatherings where we would listen to and share the individual stories, remembrances, and anecdotes of Grandmère. And so it is my intent to share in this book the force that was Grandmère, neither as a historical biography nor scholarly treatise, for I claim to be neither historian nor scholar, but rather as a personal perspective of her life and work. It is my intent to chronicle her life and accomplishments as well as some of those indelible circumstances of her childhood, marriage, and continuing evolution throughout her years that came to bear on her inner self. Many assume that Grandmère’s life was a product of her own making, but I believe she was driven by external circumstances over which she had little control but which together formed the psyche of this most incredible individual.

  A Family’s Deliverance

  I have heard it said that we are all the sum product of our heritage, and that in many respects we become that which those before us have instilled. For Eleanor Roosevelt I think that may well hold true, and certainly for the generations of Roosevelts since. Although not universally, the majority of my family has been raised with a sense of duty and obligation, whether to serve our nation in some governmental or political capacity, or merely through civic responsibility and volunteerism. For some, their life paths have led them into professions in the charitable sector, while others have pursued careers in business and numerous others have served in government positions. But whatever their callings, most have contributed generously of their time to causes for the betterment of their communities and society.

  In an interview with Joe Lash, Grandmère’s close friend and biographer, my cousin Alice Roosevelt Longworth said that politics and social duty were for our family a way of life, even though she seemed to be the exception to the rule:

  Politics were always being talked about at Sagamore (Theodore Roosevelt’s home at Oyster Bay, New York). Eleanor Roosevelt would have heard politics there. She was a do-gooder and they started a junior league group. She got that from my grandfather whose interest in charity took with Eleanor but not with me. I never did those things; they bored me.4

  For me personally, I think it was a legacy passed from Grandmère, one learned by the example of her own inspiring life of giving, that compelled my interest and professional path in philanthropy. Indeed, one of Eleanor’s earlies
t recollections was of being taken by her father, my great-grandfather Elliott, to the Newsboys Thanksgiving dinner in New York, an annual engagement that confirmed her family’s commitment to young people whose unequal fortune, circumstance, and education had landed them inside institutions. Her paternal grandfather, Theodore Roosevelt Sr., had always been devoted to the causes of social welfare, public concern for poverty, and philanthropic enterprises—relatively novel charitable ideals for the fashionable and wealthy set of New York in the 1800s—and he involved his own children and grandchildren in his activities of taking responsibility for those of lesser means.

  Grandmère inherited her grandfather’s “troublesome conscience,” a conscience that at times would put him at odds with those of his own class. He helped found the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Children’s Aid Society; helped start the Orthopedic Hospital; and was considered one of the most significant philanthropists of his day, contributing substantial amounts to the city’s many charities. That social conscience became in Grandmère’s own adult years a powerful character trait and a potent force in her life work.

  Merchants and patriots who count themselves among America’s oldest families, the Roosevelts first settled in Manhattan in 1647, when Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt (Nicholas son of Martin of the Rose Field), with his wife, Jannetje, arrived from Holland and landed in New Amsterdam, then the tiny Dutch settlement of eight hundred hardy citizens at the foot of Manhattan Island. It is unclear exactly why Claes and Jannetje left the Netherlands to embark upon the long and treacherous trek to New Amsterdam, for Holland at the time was enjoying a “Golden Age” of prosperity and culture. Claes’ family had been established farmers and respected citizens of, we believe, the small village of Oud-Vossemeer on the island of Tholen. It is here, in the south of Holland at the mouth of the Rhine River, and in the provincial capital of Zeeland, Middelburg, that reference is made to the family Rosevelt (or Rosenvelt, among other variations) and recognition given in the Town Hall among the coats of arms of the region’s fifteen most prominent families. As President Theodore Roosevelt described them, “our very common ancestors” were people of the land, teachers, clerics, and even an “inspector of the dikes” (an obviously important position given the village’s below-sea-level location).

  Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt, c. 1613, the first of our ancestors to settle in New Amsterdam in 1647.

  The first documentation of our family in New Amsterdam appears in the baptismal records of the Dutch Reformed Church, which records the baptism of Claes and Jannetje’s first child, a boy named Christaen, on October 23, 1650. By this time, however, Claes had already established himself as a farmer; his forty-eight-acre farm adjoining the bouwery of the dictatorial wooden-legged governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant. Although Christaen died in infancy, the van Rosevelts had five more children, four daughters and a son. In 1659 Claes died, leaving Jannetje to raise their four existing children and pregnant with the fifth, Anna. Jannetje did not long survive the birth of this child, for official records show that on December 10, 1660, the welfare of the van Rosevelt children was entrusted to the “orphanmasters,” as was the custom under Dutch law.

  Despite Jannetje’s sad fate, New York City became a home and a place of prosperity for her children and the generations of Roosevelts who descended from them. Like her ancestors, Grandmère loved New York, having lived in the city as a child and as a young woman, returned there from her European education, and as my grandfather’s bride. She continued to maintain a home in Manhattan until the end of her life. She found that New York City reflected the values and passions dearest to her heart:

  A view of Manhattan in the 19th century, when my family thrived in the fast-growing city.

  Whoever seeks artistic and intellectual stimulation (whoever hungers for knowledge and beauty) can find it in New York, in the masterpieces of sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art, in the treasure of past civilizations at the Museum of Natural History, in the expressions from other times at the Metropolitan Museum, in the exhibits of New York’s Heritage at the Museum of the City of New York; in the schools and in our universities, in the words stored in our libraries, in the medieval masterpieces at the Cloisters. Out of the hustle and bustle, often from within the very center of industry, rise the spires of many faiths. Here men, women, and children of every religion worship in peace and dignity and mutual respect and understanding.

  Some place in New York is a bit of every land on earth (Mott Street, Mulberry Street, Delancey Street, Yorkville) but New York claims them all as its own. The old is mingled with the new and the new is wiser for the old. New York today is the home of peoples of all nations (a living demonstration of racial brotherhood, a permanent example of a United Nations) the pragmatic approach to one world. It represents to men in all lands a symbol of what can be achieved by the human spirit when it is unterrified. For New York is the greatest community of human endeavor on earth. Here are people from the cotton belt and the corn belt (each with ambition), writers, engineers, artists (actors, doctors, students, bankers, lawyers), among them the potential of the present for the great of the future.

  New York is a small island where the tall sky-scrapers, rising from the sea, pierce the atmosphere and silhouette the blue skies which blanket our churches, our cathedrals, our synagogues. It is a city of 8 million striving for sanctuary, sustenance, inspiration, fulfillment. Here are people of every race and creed and nationality to whom New York is home, haven and hope.

  This is My New York City.5

  Claes’ grandsons, the brothers Johannes and Jacobus, took the family into real estate opportunity by purchasing land in the Beekman Swamp, an enterprise that was to have lasting financial effect on their own family and the city’s fortune. It was Johannes and Jacobus who are credited with starting the two branches of the family that would eventually be known as the Oyster Bay (descended from Johannes) and Hyde Park (descended from Jacobus) Roosevelts. Of course, most recent history ascribes the two sides as being the “TR side” and the “FDR side.” Jacobus’ son Isaac is often referred to as the first Roosevelt, since he conducted business in English rather than in the Dutch the family had spoken until the mid-1700s.

  Over the ensuing centuries the Roosevelt family prospered, at times marrying distant relatives within the two branches, and became the solid, trust-worthy burghers of that rapidly growing city that led the way in the cycle of economic boom and expansion on the American continent. In the seventeenth century the Dutch patrons, or gentry, were granted large estates of land throughout the Hudson Valley, and it was remnants of these early land grants made to members of Sara Delano’s family (FDR’s mother) and the Livingstons (Eleanor’s side) that established the strong tradition of Roosevelts along the Hudson River. At one time the Livingston portion, which included the 1730s estate Claremont of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, stretched for more than fourteen miles along the shores of the Hudson.

  Ivory miniatures of Isaac Roosevelt (1726-1794) by James Peale, and of his wife Maria Eliza Wolfon Roosevelt (1760-1794) by Robert Fielding. Isaac, also called “The Patriot,” was second in the line of the Hyde Park Roosevelts.

  Roosevelt Point, named after our family, in the Hudson River Valley.

  For Grandmère, the Hudson River Valley held an almost spiritual significance; it was a place where she could find herself again and take respite from the chaos of the world and the never-ending stream of activities in her public life. So much of her, and indeed of my grandfather, could be traced back to the idyllic and significant times they spent on the banks of the great river as children and then as husband and wife, president and First Lady, or simply as Eleanor and Franklin. My father explained the emotional significance that the valley held for Grandmère:

  The Hudson River Valley was extremely important to her because after Mother was orphaned at the age of twelve, she spent all her springs, summers, and falls up at Tivoli. That became really her childhood home. She as
sociated her youth with the Hudson River Valley and the Livingstons and all the people that lived in the Rheinbeck-Barrytown-Tivoli area. Of course, the Livingstons were cousins of hers, and her ancestors on the Livingston side had been very important in the early parts of American history in this valley…. The Hudson River Valley was extremely important to my mother’s “psyche,”…

  That’s why she started the Val-Kill Industries with Nancy Cook and her friend Marion Dickerman. She built the Stone Cottage over at Val-Kill as a hide away where she could get away and she could relax. Father built that house for her; it was his design and his selection of a spot. He also built the swimming pool over there, and that became a favorite place for their children and even Father to go when they were having a picnic or something of that nature.6

  An 1870 painting of the Hudson River and its highlands by George Harvey. It reflects the beauty and serenity of the setting that both my grandparents would always call “home.”

  A view of Hyde Park in the winter, when it became a setting of many winter sports for both FDR and Grandmère as children, as well as for us later as young children.

  Her paternal grandmother was Martha Bulloch, a dark-haired Southern belle who had greatly impressed the antebellum society of Savannah, Georgia, with her vivacity, good looks, flirtatious ways, and audacity in horsemanship. The courtship of Theodore and Martha (Mittie, as she was known) began in 1850 with the arrival of a young Theodore at the Bulloch Hall plantation in Roswell, Georgia for a social visit with the Bulloch family. During his visit, however, his attentions focused more and more on the fifteen-year-old blue-eyed brunette daughter of his hosts, James and Martha (Stewart) Bulloch. Although it would not be until May 1853 that Theodore and Mittie would be together again in Philadelphia, it was obvious that Theodore had left his heart in Georgia on that first visit. Within a month of their reunion he had proposed marriage, a proposal accepted without hesitation by Mittie. When she married Theodore Sr. later that same year, Martha rapidly became one of the five or six leading women of New York society whose manners and civic activities were an inspiration for other hostesses of the day. Theodore and Martha had four children: Anna, born in 1855; Theodore Jr., born in 1858 and who was to become the president of the United States; Elliott, born in 1860; and Corinne, born in 1861. Theodore Sr. and Martha became instant and prominent members of New York’s Knickerbocker society and active participants in the city’s thriving banking, business, and civic community.