Loving Eleanor

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  The next morning, I set off on another trip for Harry Hopkins. We didn’t get to say a proper goodbye because—yet another in the infinite succession of things—the First Lady was swamped by a flood of Girl Scouts. She regretted that in the letter she wrote that evening, but reminded me that we would have years of happy times together, and in the meantime, there was our summer trip to look forward to. July is a long way off, she added, but when it comes, we’ll be together.

  Ah, July. We were planning to spend nearly three weeks together, just the two of us, in California. We were clinging to the hope of it as pilgrims crossing a desert might cling to the vision of a faraway mirage, shimmering and dreamlike at the far edge of the world.

  The next few weeks were strenuous, the June heat was terrible, and I exhausted myself with day-long visits, one after another, to Tennessee Valley Authority sites. But my physical weariness was lightened by what I saw of the TVA, where nearly ten thousand people—both men and women—were at work on various parts of the project, earning a “really living wage,” as I wrote to Harry Hopkins. That number barely made a dent in the need for paying jobs, but the mood throughout the region was upbeat and hopeful, a contrast to that in next-door West Virginia, where I had visited nearly a year before.

  In Dayton, Ohio, I met with Elizabeth Nutting, who was managing the homesteading cooperative there. Elizabeth (we were on a first-name basis immediately) held the wonderful if enigmatic title of Director of the Division of Character Building for Dayton’s Council of Social Agencies. To Eleanor, I wrote of my admiration: Elizabeth is a very attractive woman and yet has the mind of a man. Eleanor took exception to my remark: Why can’t a woman think, be practical and a good business woman and still have a mind of her own?

  I stood corrected. Yes, of course, she could. Elizabeth Nutting did—have a mind of her own, that is. She and her partner, Margaret, knew exactly what they both wanted and how they were going to get it. The war intervened, but afterward, the two of them established the American Homestead Foundation and built the community of Melbourne Village in Florida, where they spent the rest of their lives together.

  From Ohio, I traveled across the Midwest on to the sugar beet fields of Colorado and beef-producing Wyoming, but always and every day with one golden destination in mind. California in July, with Eleanor, for three lovely weeks—as delightful, we both hoped, as our French Canadian adventure of the previous summer, a sweet dream of a holiday that neither of us would ever forget.

  We would never forget the California holiday, either. But not because it was a sweet dream.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The End of the Beginning

  Every trip you make with someone teaches you something important about the person you travel with—and about yourself. The three weeks that Eleanor and I spent together on the West Coast revealed some truths about each of us, truths that changed the way we understood each other. In those weeks, I was challenged in ways that showed me who I was, essentially, what I wanted in my life, and what I didn’t want. It reminded me of something I already knew from personal experience: every love affair has a beginning, a middle, and an end. California would be the end of our beginning. Eleanor and I would go on loving each other for the rest of our lives, dearly, deeply, tenderly. But not in the way we began.

  After Puerto Rico, I drew the line. When we were traveling together, there would be no more First Lady doings, no entourage, and no media. “I absolutely agree,” Eleanor said when we discussed it on the phone. “That’s what I want, too, Hick. The California trip will be our private getaway.”

  Well, almost. We would be driving—I had replaced Bluette with a used gray Plymouth roadster—and planned a few days with friends and family. Otherwise, we would be alone. We would be tourists, as we were when we drove through New England and Quebec. And we would be anonymous: no fanfare, no fuss, no Secret Service. If reporters asked about her vacation plans, she would tell them her trip was off the record, and that would be that. After Puerto Rico, she understood. We must be careful this summer and keep it out of the papers when we are off together, she wrote.

  That pleased me. I was glad to see that Eleanor was being discreet. But I knew how determined reporters could be when they’re on the trail of a story, and a visiting First Lady was a very juicy story indeed, especially when she’s trying to avoid the press. It wasn’t going to be as easy to keep ourselves out of the newspapers as it had been the year before. But when I tried to suggest some ways we might escape press scrutiny, she brushed my concerns aside with a blithe, I can’t quite understand why you are so worried, dear. We’ll just be natural. We’ll have a wonderful time together. I hoped so—oh, how I hoped so!

  The longer I thought about our trip and the more deeply I looked into myself, the more clearly I understood why it was so important to me. The time we had together was precious—and terribly, terribly brief. The best times had been the summer Northeastern trip the year before and the weekend at Warm Springs. She shared Val-Kill with Nan and Marion, who didn’t welcome me. The White House was a three-ring circus, complete with clowns—and lions. We’d had some lovely moments in Puerto Rico, but it had been a publicity stunt, with that gaggle of girl reporters tagging along.

  I didn’t ask myself whether the antagonism I felt toward the press might have something to do with the fact that I was no longer a respected member of that profession. More likely, I thought, my desire for anonymity had to do with the fact that, like other women who have loved women, I had learned how important it was to keep my friendships private.

  But I did know one thing. I didn’t want to spend a day, or three weeks, or the rest of my life traveling with the First Lady of the United States. I wanted to spend it with Eleanor. For me, the California trip was beginning to feel like a test case. If we couldn’t make it work now, I was afraid it might never work.

  Things couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start. Eleanor was flying to Sacramento from Chicago, and somebody—most likely an airline ticket agent—tipped off the Bee that she was coming to town. When I got to our hotel the evening before her arrival, they were already camped out in the lobby, a noisy, clamoring swarm of reporters. I was chagrined when they recognized me, but I wasn’t surprised. My photograph had been in Time magazine and in the newspaper reports of the Puerto Rico trip. Like it or not, I was recognizable. And I was news.

  Early the next morning, I picked Eleanor up at the airport and drove her back to the hotel, where I told the waiting reporters that she was going upstairs to wash her face and would meet them in the lobby in a few moments. Thinking ahead, I had planned to use the old elevator-and-alley-door trick and had recruited a pair of California state troopers to help with the deception. We took the elevator upstairs, then took another elevator down to the rear entrance, where a uniformed trooper waited at the wheel of my car, another in a squad car behind. We tossed our luggage into the Plymouth’s rumble seat, squeezed in beside the trooper, and off we went.

  A few minutes later, we were on the highway, heading out of town. The top was down, the sun was bright, and I was happy. So was Eleanor. “As they say in the movies, we’ve made a clean getaway,” she said, patting my knee. “Good work, Hick.”

  “Uh-oh.” The trooper checked the review mirror. “Afraid we’ve got company.”

  I turned to look and there they were, a half-dozen reporters crammed into an old green Buick. They had cut in ahead of our police escort. “Damn,” I muttered.

  “Hold onto your hats, ladies,” the trooper said cheerfully and jammed down the accelerator. “We’re going to outrun them.”

  The Plymouth began to fly. Sixty, seventy. My hat whirled off, and Eleanor’s silk scarf whipped like a flag in the wind. Eighty, ninety. The Plymouth had wings. But the Buick was heavier, with more horsepower. It stayed on our tail.

  “Stop!” Eleanor cried breathlessly, as we took a sharp curve. “Oh, please stop! This is too dangerous—not just for us, but for them.”

  Personally, I wouldn�
�t have cared if that damned Buick had careened off the road and killed the whole damned carload. But if that happened when they were chasing the First Lady’s getaway car, the headlines would stretch not just across the country but around the world.

  “Yeah,” I said, between gritted teeth. “Stop. We have to talk to them.”

  “You’re the boss,” the cop said and pulled off the road. I got out and walked back to the Buick, which had pulled in behind.

  “Okay, fellas.” I bared my teeth in a grin. “You got us. Let’s cut the Keystone Cops act.” I had seen a billboard advertising a coffee shop in Roseville (“Jim’s Coffee Shop, Booths for Ladies”), a few miles ahead. “How about meeting Mrs. Roosevelt over a cup of coffee at Jim’s?”

  A burly guy stopped popping photos of the car and growled, “You’re not going to try to outrun us again, are you?”

  “Nope. See you at the coffee shop, boys.” I walked around to the driver’s side of the Plymouth, thanked the trooper, and sent him on his way with his colleague, then drove off with Eleanor. I was seething, but if she was angry, she didn’t show it. To my surprise, she seemed to be rather enjoying herself.

  We ordered breakfast while the reporters clustered noisily around our table, shouting questions. For me, it was worse than Puerto Rico—much worse, actually, since the women journalists on that trip had been friends. Here, I felt like a carnival sideshow. But Eleanor was her usual First Lady self, casually eating her breakfast and pleasantly answering questions, all but one. She refused to tell them where we were going.

  “I am simply trying to get away from the White House for a few days,” she said with a smile. “This little auto tour is my vacation. It’s off the record.”

  The reporters grumbled, but they had to content themselves with reporting that the First Lady breakfasted on California peaches, toast, and coffee, while her friend, Lorena Hickok, smoked a cigarette and scowled—which I certainly did, since I knew what to expect. The next day’s Sacramento Union headline read, President’s Wife Tells Union She Plans “Secret” Auto Tour of California. The implication was inescapable: Mrs. Roosevelt had something to hide.

  For the moment, we seemed to be safe. When we got in the car and headed for the little town of Colfax and Ellie Dickinson’s house, the reporters drove off in the other direction. I knew they had photographs of my automobile and its license plate, however. They wouldn’t leave us alone.

  But they did—at least for a while. Ellie was a perfect hostess and our two days with her and her husband Roy were exactly what I had hoped for. A pleasant picnic in the mountains, suppers on the back porch of their small cottage, evenings talking and listening to music on the radio. Long before, I had told Eleanor about the eight years Ellie and I had spent in Minneapolis and her sudden decision to elope with Roy. She knew we’d kept in touch since the marriage, both of us holding on to the memory of an important chapter in our lives. Eleanor had admitted then that she was nervous about the meeting. I know I’ve got to fit in gradually to your past and with your friends, she had written to me, so there won’t be any closed doors between us later on. “Fitting in” wasn’t any problem. It was an easy, comfortable time, and both of us felt very much at home.

  When we left Ellie and Roy, we crossed the Sierras at Donner Pass and drove north to Pyramid Lake, to a sprawling Nevada ranch named the Arrowhead D where the Roosevelts’ daughter Anna had been staying, waiting to get a Nevada divorce. The ranch was owned by Bill and Ella Dana, longtime friends of the Roosevelts. During the four days we were there, Madam and I played with Anna’s children, swam in Pyramid Lake, and sang cowboy songs to the accompaniment of Bill’s banjo. And we went horseback riding, Eleanor on a golden palomino with a platinum blond mane and tail and I on a sleepy gray horse named Old Blue. Blue was retired from active duty and needed to be nudged with a toe every few minutes to keep him awake and moving.

  Riding wasn’t my idea of fun, but I thought I’d better get in some practice, for when we arrived at the ranch, Eleanor had a surprise for me—not a very pleasant one. As we were unpacking, she told me that she had asked Tommy to look for a couple of quiet tourist cabins for our trip back to San Francisco. Tommy had written to Bill Nelson, the chief ranger at Yosemite National Park, thinking he might be able to recommend a place or two.

  “I’m afraid Nelson misunderstood,” she said apologetically, handing me a packet of information. “He’s asked us to be guests of the Park Service. It’s to be my first official visit to Yosemite.”

  I opened the packet warily. “Official visit?”

  “Just for a night or two.” She added hurriedly, “I’m so sorry, Hick. I know it’s not what we planned, but—”

  “And what’s this about horses?” I said, looking down at the sheets of National Park Service stationery she had handed me. As I scanned the page, I saw that the First Lady’s “official visit” included a backcountry camping trip and that a horse had been requested for me: “‘A quiet, gentle horse,” I read aloud, “since Miss Hickok has not ridden for some time.’”

  “Well, you haven’t, have you?” Eleanor asked.

  I shook my head. “Riding is your thing, dear, not mine. And you could have told me ahead of time, so I could bring the right clothes.” I took a breath. “But that’s not the point, Eleanor. The point is this ‘official visit’ thing. You promised there wouldn’t be any of that. You promised.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” Contritely, she added, “But it’s just a little camping trip—nothing like a banquet or a reception line. This will be fun, Hick. We’ll be getting into the backcountry wilderness that tourists rarely get to see.” She smiled happily. “And it’s really quite fitting, you know, dear. Uncle Teddy camped in Yosemite with John Muir in 1903. Just thirty-one years ago this summer.”

  “Another chapter of Roosevelt history,” I growled. “There’s no getting away from it.” I was only half-teasing.

  Ella had dug up some corduroy trousers and a blue plaid shirt for me, and Old Blue and I spent several hours of every day together. By the end of our time at the ranch, I was reasonably comfortable in the saddle. I loved the slow, sunlit days, the cool star-studded nights, the noisy hours with the kids, the private times for talks—and even the riding. If Eleanor and I could have spent the rest of our vacation with the Danas, I would have been entirely happy.

  But that wasn’t the plan. A few days later, a pair of rangers arrived to pick us up in a Park Service car. With one of the rangers following in my Plymouth, the other drove us over Tioga Pass to Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows. There, we met the escort for our backcountry camping trip: four rangers plus Chief Ranger Nelson, seven saddle horses, and five—five!—pack animals loaded with gear. A little camping trip? More like an African safari.

  If Eleanor was surprised, she hid it very well, greeting Ranger Nelson with what seemed like genuine pleasure and shaking hands with each of the other rangers. That’s when it dawned on me that she had been expecting this, or something like it, and hadn’t wanted to tell me, perhaps because she didn’t want to spoil the time we had together at the ranch. But the size of the rangers’ entourage and their respectful attention to her was a reminder to me (as if I needed one) of just who my companion was: like it or not, the most famous woman in the United States—perhaps in the world. The awareness was disconcerting and added to my uneasiness about the “little camping trip” we were about to take.

  The pack train was ready to leave when we arrived, and I was introduced to my mount, a little brown mare named Sweetie Pie. She was easygoing, mild-tempered, and actually fun to ride, although I was grateful for the saddle time at the Arrowhead D. We started off single file and rode for several hours along narrow, straight-up and straight-down mountain trails, to the lowest of the three Young Lakes, lovely alpine lakes above the timberline.

  The altitude was bothering me and I was glad that I could sit and watch the rangers—experts, every one of them—set up our camp. The lake was around eleven thousand feet, high enough to
be a serious problem for somebody who wasn’t used to the mountains, especially since we had gotten up that morning at thirty-seven hundred feet and hadn’t paused to acclimate ourselves to the higher altitude.

  It didn’t bother Eleanor, though. The woman was indefatigable. She helped set up camp that evening, got up at dawn the next morning to swim in the lake’s icy waters, then climbed to thirteen thousand feet to help Bill Nelson stock another lake—named Lake Roosevelt, in her honor—with rainbow trout fingerlings. She clearly enjoyed being the center of the rangers’ attention. When one of them remarked admiringly on her stamina, she tossed her head. “It’s just my constitution. People tell me I’m like my Uncle Teddy, always on the move.” She laughed when she said this, giving the ranger the same kind of flirtatious glance I had seen her give Earl Miller. She enjoyed having men admire her. Nothing wrong with that, I thought, although I had to confess to feeling sidelined—and maybe a little bit jealous.

  Our camping partners went out of their way to make sure we enjoyed ourselves. We were well fed by a ranger whose flapjacks, fried trout, and baked beans were beyond belief. The days were warm, and while Eleanor rode off with Nelson, I lazed beside the lake. At night, we sat around a blazing campfire and listened to the rangers’ stories about wilderness life. An umbrella tent had been set up for us, but we carried our sleeping bags out to the edge of the camp and slept on the ground, with the enchanted stars filling the sky over our heads. The only thing I could wish for was some private time for Eleanor—and a hot bath and change of clothes. I might have to burn Ella’s shirt and trousers when we got back to civilization.

  On the way back down to the valley, though, my relationship with Sweetie Pie turned sour. We were fording a narrow river when, with a great splash, she stepped off into the deeper water and began to roll. I managed to slide off before she rolled on me, landing in icy water up to my chin. As it turned out, this wasn’t the first time the little mare had pulled this dangerous trick. When she saw a pool she liked, she simply stopped to take a bath, no matter who was in the saddle. It would have been kind, I thought darkly, if someone had bothered to warn me.