Loving Eleanor

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  In Yosemite Valley, Eleanor checked us into the room reserved for us at the luxurious Ahwahnee Hotel while I headed straight to the El Dorado Diggins Bar—wet clothes and all—and ordered a double scotch, followed immediately by a long, hot bath. By the time I was dressed, Eleanor had ordered dinner to be delivered to our suite, which had a magnificent view of Yosemite Falls. We dined on prime rib, with broiled potatoes, fresh asparagus, Yorkshire pudding, and a lemon chèvre cheesecake. And Eleanor ordered an elegant Cabernet for me.

  “I didn’t realize that the camping trip was going to be such a big effort,” she said contritely. She reached across the table for my hand. “I’m sorry, dear. I should have told Tommy it was a mistake.”

  I took another sip of wine. I was beginning to feel human again, and charitable. “But you had a good time, didn’t you? You were obviously in your element. And once I got used to the altitude, I was fine—until Sweetie Pie dumped me in the river. Humiliating, that’s what it was.”

  But now, fortified by a fine dinner and an excellent wine, I could see the humor in it. I chuckled when Eleanor said, quite seriously, “I thought you were clever to dismount so quickly, Hick.”

  There were no reporters in Yosemite, but the enormous swarms of tourists made up for the lack. They recognized Mrs. Roosevelt immediately and followed us around the park all the next day, snapping photos and demanding autographs. But it wasn’t just the recognition that troubled me, or the rudeness of their cameras poked in our faces wherever we went. It was the realization, unavoidable and undeniable, that Eleanor Roosevelt had become a public figure. She was a personage, and everyone who had read a newspaper or seen a Movietone newsreel in the past year was half in love with her. They thought she belonged to them.

  What’s more, she seemed to enjoy the celebrity. She smiled and chatted amiably with those nearby and signed any scrap of paper that was thrust into her hand. For my part, I was struck by the irony of the thing. I was the one who’d encouraged her to seek the spotlight and had coached her in ways to get her message across to the media. She was a star, while I was reaping the predictable harvest of my good intentions.

  We left the following morning. “Thank God that’s over,” I said as I put the Plymouth in gear and began inching forward through the mob of tourists who had gathered in front of the hotel to see us off. The top was down, and Eleanor was smiling and waving cheerily. It took a while to escape the crowds, but at last we were on our way.

  “It’ll be better in the city,” she comforted me, as we swung onto the highway. “We can be anonymous there, dear. We’ll be tourists, like everybody else, and have a simply wonderful time.”

  I had made reservations for us at a hotel on Post Street where I had often stayed. It was a small place and not well known, but very nice, and the manager and I were acquainted. I hadn’t mentioned that Mrs. Roosevelt would be accompanying me, but when we checked in, the desk clerk recognized her. We sent the Plymouth off with a valet to a nearby parking garage and were still unpacking when a large basket of flowers arrived from the manager, along with a note promising that he would personally make sure our privacy was respected. When I read it aloud to Eleanor, she crowed, “There! What did I tell you, Hick? Nobody will know us. We’ll just be Jane and Janet Doe.”

  It was Saturday night in the city, and the streets and restaurants were crowded. While Eleanor attracted a few startled glances, we walked comfortably to my favorite French restaurant, a nondescript little place on Pine known just to the locals. After a wonderful dinner, we took the cable car to the top of Russian Hill, where I pointed out the apartment house where Ellie and I had lived. We walked a few blocks to a tiny green park on Chestnut Street and sat in the silvery moonlight, gazing at Alcatraz Island moored like a lighted ship in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

  On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for ice cream sodas. “An evening like this is such a treat,” Eleanor said as we slid into a booth. “I can’t tell you how glad I’ll be when I can be myself again. Sometimes I think I’ve created this other woman who does the First Lady’s job.” She turned her straw in her fingers. “She’s the president’s wife, not me. And I sometimes feel that she’s taking over—taking me over, I mean.”

  I wanted to reach for her hand, but I couldn’t, not in this public place. I held her glance instead. “That may be the only way to survive,” I said. “But you’re still you. You’re not the persona, the performer. Somewhere deep down inside, that’s where you are, the real you.”

  “I used to think so, my dear, but now I’m not so sure.” She gave me a long, sad look. “She’s strong, stronger than I am. She gets stronger every day. I’m afraid that pretty soon, there won’t be anything left of me.”

  I was startled. I had never heard her talk about herself in such a way, and it alarmed me. I shook my head. “Don’t say that, Eleanor. It’s not true.”

  “But what if it is?” she asked quietly. “What if I will never be me—the person you loved—ever again?”

  That question stopped me, and I didn’t know how to answer it. Later, I would think that this was as close as we would ever come to understanding what was happening to her—and not just to her, to us. But it was already too late. What was to come had already been set in motion. There was nothing either of us could do about it.

  We finished our sodas and started back to the hotel, talking about our plans for the next day. At the corner, we were met by the manager of our hotel. “I didn’t tip them off!” he cried frantically, waving his arms. “I swear I didn’t! It must have been the bellboy!”

  “Oh, no,” I groaned, understanding his panic. “How about the alley? Is there a back entrance?”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid they’re camped out there, too.”

  “Well, then, we’ll just have to face them,” Eleanor said matter-of-factly.

  We walked into the hotel lobby and straight into a barrage of exploding flashlamps—not the flashbulbs that photographers use now, but trays of flash powder that ignited with a sharp bang, a flash of blinding light, and a puff of acrid smoke. We made it to the elevator with the manager running interference for us and the First Lady smiling nicely and saying, “Thank you, but I’m really rather tired tonight. Thank you, thank you. Perhaps tomorrow. Thank you. Goodnight.”

  Upstairs, we found another gang of reporters jamming the hallway outside our door. They wouldn’t leave until the manager threatened to call the police.

  On Sunday morning, it was the same story. We walked a block to the Hotel Clift for breakfast, trailed by another, even larger gaggle of reporters and photographers—and by that time, tourists, as well. After breakfast, the same rabble followed us to Fisherman’s Wharf and boarded the ferry to Sausalito with us. It was a gorgeous day, the blue sky decorated with puffs of white cloud, the waters of the bay glinting in the sunlight, and in Sausalito, the resinous scent of eucalyptus, fresh and invigorating. But the clamoring crowd pursued us everywhere we went, and we couldn’t get more than a dozen private words.

  What’s more, I was beginning to be deeply worried. Neither of us had imagined such crowds when Eleanor refused to allow the Secret Service to protect her on our trips. Her husband had been shot at by a crazy anarchist—what’s to say there wasn’t one of them in the mob around us? I found myself, apprehensive, searching the faces of the people pressing in close to get a glimpse of her. They seemed to be admiring, even loving, but as they reached out to touch her arm or her shoulder, I could feel a knot of fear tightening inside me. If anything happened to her, I would blame myself. And the president of the United States would certainly blame me, too.

  I wanted to get the Plymouth and drive up to Twin Peaks to show Eleanor the view, but both of us were tired. And what if we found ourselves at the head of a parade of cars, trailing us to see where we were going? We could create a traffic jam that would keep us out until all hours of the night.

  “Better just give it up,” I told Eleanor, and she agreed.

  At dinner
time, we crept down the back stairs and hurried into a taxi waiting in the alley. It took us the few blocks to the St. Francis Hotel, where the menu was too pricey for the average tourist and reporters were not allowed in the dining room. We enjoyed our dinner. But we had to fight our way to the taxi through the noisy crowd waiting on the sidewalk out front, and there was another mob in our hotel lobby. Finally alone, we collapsed into bed, both of us utterly exhausted.

  After a few moments, Madam spoke into the darkness, so low I could barely hear her. “I hate to say it, but I think we might as well leave in the morning. Don’t you agree, Hick?” She took my hand. On her finger, I could feel the shape of the ring I had given her with such eagerness, such hopes. She sighed. “Now that they’ve found us, they’ll be after us everywhere we go. This isn’t what either of us wanted.”

  I wished I could disagree, but I couldn’t. “Well, then, we’d better get up very early,” I said at last. “With luck, we can get out of town without being followed.” I turned toward her and touched her cheek. It was wet. She was crying.

  We weren’t followed, as it turned out. But we were utterly dismayed when the Plymouth was brought from the garage where it had been parked. Souvenir hunters had stripped the automobile bare, taking anything they could carry off—sunglasses, chocolate bars, maps, suntan lotion, a pair of my favorite gloves, cigarettes and my lighter, even the dear little St. Christopher medal Eleanor had given me after Bluette took her fatal tumble on that Arizona road.

  As we drove off, I kept looking in the rearview mirror, fearing that a gang of reporters might be on our tail, but finally, we were out of the city. We were headed to Portland, where Eleanor was to meet Steve Early and Louis Howe, and then go on with them to meet FDR in Seattle.

  The three-day drive up the coast was scenic, calm, and without incident—until nearly the end. We managed to visit Muir Woods without attracting the attention of tourists and spent a lovely, almost-anonymous night at the guest lodge on the southwest rim of Crater Lake, where we sat under a pine tree, holding hands and watching the full moon swim in the silver waters.

  The next evening, we stopped at the Pilot Butte Inn, a lovely rustic hotel in Bend, Oregon. We’d been driving with the top down and both of us were sunburned and wind-blown. We were hungry, too, so we didn’t bother to wash off the dust—we just headed for the dining room. But at the door, the hotel manager stopped us. “Mrs. Roosevelt!” he cried excitedly. “I was told you were here! Several people have seen you and the news is spreading fast. Everybody loves you, you know, for all you’re doing to help people. They’ll want to meet you.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “Thank you but no, please. My friend and I have been driving all day and we have to leave early in the morning. We’d just like a quiet dinner, if you don’t mind.”

  In the dining room, we sat down, alone, to a breathtaking view of snowy mountains painted pink and lavender by the setting sun and a splendid dinner of planked trout fresh from the Deschutes River, not twenty yards away. But we stepped out of the privacy of the dining room and into the apologetic arms of the mayor, who had been powerless to turn away the town fathers and mothers who came to greet their unexpected guest. The reception line stretched across the hotel lobby and out the front door. While I stood and watched, the First Lady shook everyone’s hand and hugged those who wanted to tell her how much they admired and loved her.

  Back in our hotel room at last, she sat down on the bed and began to cry, low, soft sobs that wrenched my heart. I sat beside her and put my arm around her shoulders.

  “It’s no use, is it?” she said, after a few moments. “We can’t do this again, Hick. It’s not just the press, it’s everybody. They’ll hound us as long as Franklin is in the White House. And even after, I imagine.”

  I pulled her closer, her face against my shoulder. I could see myself, see her, as if from a great distance, huddled together, holding each other against the forces that threatened to pull us apart.

  “No,” I said, very softly. “We can’t. We can’t do it again.” The words were a physical pain.

  She sat back a little, her eyes on my face. “But it’s not the end, Hick. For us, I mean. I don’t want us to change. Tell me we can wait it out, until this is over. Until I’m me again.”

  I picked up her hand and kissed her ring, but I couldn’t tell her what I already knew. It wasn’t the end, and with luck, we might be able to wait it out. We could hope that her celebrity—her notoriety, really—would fade after she was out of the White House, and people would forget who she was. Perhaps they would even forget that they loved her.

  No, it wasn’t the end. But it was the end of the beginning. And that was what I could not say.

  Part Four

  1935–1945

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Loving Eleanor

  Love changes, you know. It’s silly to believe that people love someone in the very same way day in and day out, year after year. Circumstances change, needs change. Lovers change and grow, discovering new desires and new energies, dreaming new dreams. The California trip changed me. It showed me very clearly what I wanted, what I needed, what I dreamed of: a relationship that was the center and anchor of my life, not a bottom-of-the-page footnote to a busy day’s activities. I accepted the fact that an infinite succession of things pulled Eleanor in hundreds of different directions, and it was hard to imagine a future when she would no longer be a national celebrity. I loved her still, but loving Eleanor was loving a dervish, whirling, whirling, whirling away.

  After we said goodbye in Portland, she wrote in much the same way she always had. Darling, how I hated to have you go. It is still a pretty bad ache and I’ve thought of you all day. Later: I wish I could lie down beside you tonight and take you in my arms. She looked forward to the autumn months, she wrote, when we would be together in New York, quietly and unobserved. I found her phrase ironic. She knew now what I had always known: how important it was to our friendship to be unobserved.

  I also knew, if she didn’t, that our relationship had sailed into new waters. I had felt sidelined and even jealous during our camping trip in Yosemite, while Eleanor had enjoyed the young rangers’ admiring attentions. And I knew that even though she was annoyed at the crowds of reporters and tourists in San Francisco, some part of her was fed by their attention. I was afraid she’d been right when she said she felt as if she was being taken over by the woman who does the First Lady’s job.

  I was reminded of this one night at the White House. It was late October, and I was there for a few days between trips for Hopkins. She changed her schedule so we could be together, but I didn’t get the message and we missed our connection. Her response made me aware that she might be thinking of me as just another of the First Lady’s appointments. I was back at 6:45, she wrote later that evening, and I lay on the sofa and read from 7:15 to 7:45 which was the time I had planned for you.

  The time she—or the First Lady—had planned for me? Well, as I said, love changes, lovers change. One day you look at the person you loved and see someone you haven’t seen before—and then you look at yourself and you see that you are altered as well. Eleanor was becoming someone else, and while I continued to love her—yes, deeply and tenderly—I began to think it was time to find a new direction for myself.

  I had been pushed into the FERA job by Louis Howe and FDR because it served their purposes to get me out of Washington. But the work had quickly become absorbing, and it wasn’t long before I realized that I had a unique, firsthand view of the effects of the Depression in all parts of the country—east to west, north to south—and on all levels of American society, from the poorest to the richest. What I saw wasn’t pretty, and it tore at my heart like a thousand lions. But someone had to take the journey, someone had to look at what was out there and tell the truth about it, the whole, ugly truth. I began to understand that the reports I was writing provided a documentary history of a remarkable era, an era that should never be forgotten.

  But
I was already thinking seriously about what I would do when the FERA money ran out, as it was bound to do. I couldn’t go back to newspaper reporting, for the same reasons I had left the AP in the first place. I could have found a job in the burgeoning federal bureaucracy—Harry Hopkins would have been glad to recommend me—but if I wanted a new direction, Washington wasn’t the place to find it.

  Then Harry came through by sending me to work in New York City. The sublease on my Mitchell Place apartment had expired, so Prinz and I were back home. 1936 was an election year, and while the president was playing his cards close to his chest, Eleanor was certain that he intended to be the Democrats’ nominee. For her part, she might protest that she would love nothing better than to be simple Jane Doe and live in the country with me. (I’ve always thought of it as in the country, she had written, but I don’t think we ever decided on the kind of house we wanted.) But it was clear that she hadn’t tackled all of the items on her progressive agenda. Still playing the role of a reluctant First Lady, she might say that she wished Franklin wouldn’t run. But Tommy and I both knew that secretly, she was hoping for four more years of getting things done.

  For myself, I had thought of something else. Internationally, there were dark rumblings of troubles to come. Mussolini’s occupation of Ethiopia and Franco’s fascist challenge in Spain were making international headlines, and it was clear that these conflicts might well become a dress rehearsal for another world war. Before it was over, a half-dozen well-known American writers and journalists would make their way to the Spanish front: John Dos Passos, Josephine Herbst, Lillian Hellman, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway and his friend (and mine) Martha Gellhorn. It was Martha—a compatriot of mine at FERA and, later, Ernest Hemingway’s third wife—who first suggested that I put my reporting skills to work as a foreign correspondent.