While I was touring the projects yesterday, six men keeled over on one project, and we had to close part of the office down on Michigan Avenue in the afternoon. So I guess the old lady still has some endurance left in her if she can stand ten hours of it—8 a.m. to 6 p.m.—driving around in the heat, climbing in and out of the car, tramping around over the projects.
Tonight we [Lorena and a local relief administrator] dined at Colisimo’s, one of the less lurid night clubs, which is famous chiefly for its Al Capone connections. For the most part, we found it depressing. The inanities of sin! There was one funny thing. They had billed one June St. Clair, “America’s most alluring woman.” After waiting all evening, we finally saw her. She was fat, forty, very much bleached. Her hair looked like cotton. She bustled about the floor for a few seconds, looking for all the world like a worried, frowsy, housewife. Then she stopped in front of the curtain, dropped her dress, which was all she had on, and stood there for a split second—naked and very UNlovely. We laughed and left. Came back and found several dozen flat-chested gals and anemic young men, delegates to a Baptist young peoples’ convention, singing “Old Black Joe” in the lobby!
I’ve got to try for some sleep now.
Good night. I hope it’s cooler there!
H
Lorena’s next destination was the Dakotas, taking her back to where she had spent her miserable childhood. Meanwhile, the president and his sons were returning from a sailing trip.
July 27th [1936]
Campobello Island
New Brunswick, Canada
Dearest, Your Friday night letter came to-day & I hate your driving alone thro’ that country & it sounded so depressing & you had to spend the week end there poor child!
The “boys” sailed in for an hour to-day just to show off their beards! F. has side burns & looks just like his Father’s portrait. Funny how men love to grow hair, I think it makes them feel virile!
I have a feeling the tide is setting pretty hard against F.D.R. just now but there is time to turn it. I feel, as usual, completely objective & oh! Lord so indifferent!
Good night dear & bless you. I wish I could send you some of our cool air or better still that you could get on the magic carpet & come & share my room to-night, but you wouldn’t enjoy these days any more than I do!
Be careful of yourself dear on bad roads. I love you very tenderly always,
E.R.
July 31st [1936]
St. Charles Hotel
Pierre, South Dakota
Dearest:
Your Monday night letter came today, and I’m wondering if you or I—or any other enlightened person—really has any right to be as indifferent about the outcome of this election as you are. Oh, I know—you hate it all. The “position.” And so do I when I’m with you. I can’t even be polite about it. You can. I know that you at least think you would be happier if you were not in Washington. Perhaps you would. And you are disillusioned, being too close to the whole thing. I get that way, too, when I’m around there too much. A daily dose of Missy,16 along with all the fuss and pomp and adulation the man receives, will distort anyone’s view. And you, personally, would like to be free. Well—it all boils down to this: All your personal inclinations would be to rejoice in defeat. And, so far as evaluating the president and his administration go—you “can’t see the woods for the trees.” I think I may have a little better perspective now. I’ve been out of the mess, more or less, for a couple of months. With all the faults—and the faults of some of the people around him—I still think he is a very great man. His defeat—and I’m awfully afraid he may be defeated—will be a terrible calamity for millions of people in this country. The poor and the lowly. Forgive me if I have offended you.
I wonder if that Spanish business is going to lead to an European war!17 Boy, if it happens, I’ll be tempted to drop everything and go to New York and try to land a job as a war correspondent in Europe!
Good night, darling. I’ll wire you tomorrow.
H
August 3d [1936]
Val-Kill Cottage
Dearest one, Your letter sounded like an effort to convert me but really my dear I am doing all I can do without being accused of trying to run F.D.R. One can be personally indifferent & yet do one’s duty. As a matter of fact it is only when one is oneself very unhappy that one ever thinks about the individual right to the pursuit of happiness. When you reach my age, it comes less & less often & I judge that for the moment you are not thinking about it much either. Europe is in a bad state but F. hopes it won’t blow up & after [the] election perhaps something can be done.
Let me tell you a secret dear. I know I’ll not be happy in Washington nor out of it so the surroundings don’t matter much. I’ll get on alright anyhow & tho’ I’m not sure anyone is very important still I agree that we must make all effort for what is apparently best! Incidentally tho’ I don’t flatter myself that it matters if I care or don’t care! Your reports are read carefully I know so don’t get to feeling you are off in the wilderness forgotten by all!
Had a good ride this morning, worked & swam before lunch. Sat in on a conference of the bigwigs from 2:30-4:30.18
Tommy & I are now off to spend the night with Elizabeth [Read] & Esther [Lape] in Connecticut to-morrow.
Darling, I feel like a beast to be having such an easy life when you are so uncomfortable,
E.R.
This letter provides an example of Eleanor giving Lorena support even to the point that the first lady was willing to denigrate her own accomplishments.
August 9th [1936]
Val-Kill Cottage
Dearest, I’m afraid my reasons for thinking I will probably never be much happier than I am are different than yours dear. You think some one thing could make you happy I know it never does! We are not happy because we don’t know what would make us happy, we may want something & when we have it, it is not what we dreamed it would be, the thing lies in oneself! Of course dear it matters if we care enough about people not to be greedy hogs but my particular variety of imaginative interest is not very useful & I truly don’t think that what I do or say makes much difference, someone else could do equally well what I do. Now you are different. You have gifts & can really get somewhere & I think you will.
You are a swell person dear & deserve to get that inner satisfaction or peace which we all should acquire.
I made popovers which came out well & so feel very satisfied with myself. Had hair & nails done, went to a meeting of colored preachers & then up to my new exercise lady. Boy, does she work you! I’ll have some good ones [exercise tips] to give you & I think I’m going to learn someday to stand on my head!
A world of love,
E.R.
This letter contains references to two major undertakings by Eleanor and Lorena. Eleanor had decided, at her friend’s urging, to become the only first lady ever to write her autobiography while she was still in the White House. Lorena’s project was to begin, in earnest, efforts to find a job that was more personally gratifying to her.
[September 10, 1936]
Val-Kill Cottage
Dearest, Mr. [George] Bye has two firms of publishers bidding for my autobiography up to 1920! I told them you were writing my biography but the most interesting time for that came after 1920 I think.
Went to lunch with Mama. Told her about the book & she is horrified.19
I’d hate to go to Europe & see a war but if you really want it I’ll speak to Roy Howard if you think it would help.20 Tommy thinks [Grover] Whalen would give you the N.Y. Fair publicity job.21 Well, we can talk things over.
A world of love,
E.R.
Eleanor’s activism remained an issue throughout the campaign, with the wife of Republican candidate Alf Landon proudly proclaiming that she was not joining her husband in campaigning and, if he was elected, would not be involved in reform issues but would devote all of her time to caring for her family. ER wrote this letter while the FDR campaign trai
n was headed for Nebraska and Wyoming.
just left St. Louis
[October 14, 1936]
Hick dearest, We are surfeited with candy & flowers & crowds! I never have seen on any trip such crowds or such enthusiasm. If it doesn’t mean votes then we are a dissembling people for they answer F.D.R.’s questions with a roar. I begin to feel they are getting on the band wagon & if they really have all this faith I hope he can do a good job for them.
Another stop so good night dear one. Take care of yourself & much love always,
E.R.
How I hate being a show but I’m doing it so nicely!
FDR’s re-election victory was decisive. He won 62 percent of the popular vote—the most he received in any of his four races for the White House. Immediately after the election, Eleanor contacted Grover Whalen and arranged for Lorena to interview with him for a job on the World’s Fair public relations staff. On the morning of the interview, Eleanor sent Lorena a telegram wishing her good luck.
November 11th [1936]
10 Mitchell Place
New York City
Dearest:
You were a dear to send the wire. Oh, you always do the nice things—and I always blunder. How you can even like me is beyond me.
I wrote the enclosed for Mr. Whalen today. I hope I haven’t puffed myself too much. Darling, I’ve got to land that job if I can. I’m taking it down there tomorrow after I’ve been to the dentist. I don’t think Ishbel [Ross] would mind my using her book to help land a job.22 Grover impresses me as the sort of person who would probably be impressed by that sort of thing. I hope I’m not wrong!
I’m not very well satisfied with myself, darling. I never am, but these last few days I’ve been even less so than usual.
I love you a very great deal!
H
Hon. Grover A. Whalen, Chairman
New York World’s Fair Inc., 1939
Empire State Building
New York City
My dear Mr. Whalen:
You asked me yesterday to send you a memo about myself and what I had done.
I have been most of my life a newspaper reporter. I was in the business for twenty years. The last five years I was with the Associated Press, in New York. I have covered just about every kind of story that happens—including sports. While I was with the Associated Press I covered, among other things, politics. I covered Democratic National headquarters in 1928 and again in 1932 and in 1932 made the big campaign swing around the country with President Roosevelt.
If you wish for more details, you will find them in the accompanying volume, Miss Ishbel Ross’ “Ladies of the Press.” I have clipped together the pages dealing with my biography.
In the Summer of 1933 I went to work for Mr. Harry Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief administrator. My job has been to travel about the country, watching the relief load, the physical condition and mental attitudes of people on relief and WPA, and so on. I have also done a little investigating for the president. All my reports to Mr. Hopkins have been confidential. They have been read by Mr. Hopkins and Mrs. Roosevelt, and, from time to time, by the president and other people in the Administration.
I wish to leave the Government because I think it is a very bad thing for people in the government service to think they have a so-called “vested interest” in their jobs. Being a friend of Mrs. Roosevelt and therefore—in the attitude of many of my confreres, possibly—in a protected position, although no one who knows either Mrs. Roosevelt or Mr. Hopkins well would believe that, I felt that it would be a good thing for me to set a good example by quitting, now that the election is over. I believe that the field of public relations offers me my best opportunity.
I think I could do my best work for you in publicity or in some sort of “contact” job. Mrs. Roosevelt suggested that I might go out with a small model of the World’s Fair and sell the fair to small town commercial clubs, women’s clubs, and the like. I don’t mind travel. In fact, I love it!
Thank you very much for seeing me yesterday.
Yours very truly,
[November 13, 1936]
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
Hick darling, How you do castigate yourself!
The letter to Grover [Whalen] was grand, [I] hope & pray you get it & you’ve certainly done your best. If you get it, we’ll have some fun planning your campaign [to promote the fair]. I think I can help.
Darling, will you never learn that love can’t be pigeon holed & perhaps we love people more for their weaknesses than for their best qualities of which you have a lot tho’ you forget them when you are down.
A world of love,
E.R.
Just before writing this letter, Lorena learned that she had been hired for the World’s Fair job.
November 17th [1936]
10 Mitchell Place
New York City
Dearest:
I am pleased, naturally, to have it settled. It takes a big load off my mind. I don’t know just what I’m going to do yet, except that I’m to be in the promotion end. I’ll probably be doing some traveling, I was told. And I report for work at 9 a.m. on January 4th. I came on home and celebrated before my simple, home-cooked meal, with a whiskey and soda, all by myself.
I must do some packing. My deep gratitude to you for your assistance.
Good night, dear.
H
This letter must have been a painful one for Lorena to receive. The first lady’s casual reference to the sapphire and diamond ring that Lorena had given her four years earlier was a poignant reminder of the reduced intensity in the women’s relationship.
November 21st [1936]
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
Dearest, I thought of you when Madame [Ernestine] Schumann-Heink died. Would you like to wear her ring now or put it into safe keeping? I am careful of it but I never want you to feel you can’t do what you want with it.
Ever so much love,
E.R.
Lorena had talked to Eleanor’s literary agent about writing a book describing the Depression from her perspective as a relief investigator, drawn partly from the letters she had written to Eleanor. So while the first lady was in Hyde Park, Hick was at the White House reading the letters she had written during the previous three years. Lorena then made her first decision related to preserving the correspondence.
December 6th [1936]
Dearest:
A long, dreary, rainy Sunday. I have spent the whole day in Louis Howe’s room, while I plodded through those letters. I should say I am now about half way through. Today I stumbled into a lot of the early letters, written while I was still with the AP. Dear, whatever may have happened since—whatever may happen in the future—I was certainly happy those days, much happier, I believe, than most people ever are in all their lives. You gave me that, and I’m deeply grateful. There were other times, too—many, many of them.
What do you want me to do with these letters when I have finished? Throw them away? In a way, I’d like to keep them, or have them kept somewhere. They constitute a sort of diary, as yours to me probably do, too. They might be of some use when I get around to that biography.23 What do you think? In a way, I haven’t minded reading them so much today, although some of them make me feel a little wistful. I don’t suppose anyone can ever stay so happy as I was that first year or so, though. Do you?
Good night, dear. You have been swell to me these last four years, and I love you—now and always.
H
On the day before Christmas when Franklin Jr. developed a sinus problem so serious that doctors confined him to a Boston hospital for the holidays, Eleanor made plans to go to his bedside. Never eager to be alone, Eleanor called Lorena in New York and asked if her favorite companion might be willing to board the train in New York, ride up to Boston with her, and then turn around and return to New York. So at the last minute, Eleanor and Lorena ended up spending Christmas Eve together on the train.
> Christmas night [1936]
Hotel Statler
Boston
Hick dearest, Fjr. enjoyed some of his presents but he didn’t get at them till late for the doctors came to fuss with his nose. At 12:30 F. called & Fjr. talked with him & James & Elliott[,] & then he had another hemorrage [sic]. The Dr. says his resistance is low & perhaps he should have a transfusion so they tested both our blood to-day. He asked me to stay till they could see a definite improvement so I think I’m here for quite a time.
I saw all the newspaper men at the hospital & one man said I’d be saved a lot if I had the Associated Press girl along who used to travel with me! I told him you came up with me but had returned to N.Y. Bless you dear for coming up with me, the trip was fun & it was the nicest Xmas present you could have given me tho’ I love all those others you did give me. The quilt, underclothes, raincoat, etc. are all a great joy & will be very useful. You yourself were the grandest present. Thank you ever & ever so much & good night dearest,
E.R.
At the first of the year, Lorena had begun her job with the World’s Fair. Her office was in the Empire State Building, and she was living in her midtown apartment. In this letter, Eleanor apologizes for not calling Lorena as she had promised—and then apologizes again for not being able to meet her in New York in two weeks as they had planned.
[January 13, 1937]
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
Empty Without You Page 19