The Three Graces of Val-Kill

by Emily Herring Wilson

  Elinor Morgenthau increasingly had heart problems that restricted what she did, and she died in 1949 when she was only fifty-seven years old. At her memorial service Eleanor spoke of her great admiration for Elinor as a wife and mother. Elinor’s choice to put her husband and children at the center of her life had been different from Eleanor’s, and Eleanor admired that decision even as she made a different one.

  For more than thirty years Eleanor maintained another relationship that may have been more a romance than a friendship, but in the absence of any correspondence that may have been exchanged between them, we cannot be certain. It was different from the earlier friendships I have described because this friend was a man, often single—he married and divorced several times. He was Earl Miller, whom Eleanor first met in 1918 when he was assigned to be FDR’s navy escort. But in 1929 when he was assigned to serve as bodyguard to the First Lady in the New York governor’s mansion, their friendship blossomed. She was forty-four, and he was thirty-two. It was a dangerous, tantalizing age for both of them; each had had failed marriages. Earl saw something others did not see: a woman who needed the kind of emotional companionship that he needed himself as an orphan, and they began to confide in each other; he could make her laugh, and encouraged her to smile for photographers. He showed respect—he called her “the Lady”—but he did not hesitate to stand close to her or to touch her. Of course, because they spent so much time together, family members and friends wondered whether they were lovers. There is no evidence that they were. Earl had a unique place in Eleanor’s life: she was first among his relationships, which may have contributed to his three failed marriages. He protected her against any and all critics and thought that Franklin had been cruel in his faithlessness. No one was going to alter the fact that they had an exclusive loyalty to each other. Earl accompanied her on many trips, and he gave her the horse she loved to ride and the dogs that were also her protectors. He taught her to dive into the Val-Kill pool (never very successfully) and to target shoot. She blossomed under his attentions: he was a young, fit, handsome athlete who liked to show off his body, moving about the swimming pool in his brief bathing suit, preening and prancing, and thus offending Marion and Nan but apparently delighting Eleanor. She was flirtatious with this much younger man whom everyone found handsome. She took time off from her busy schedule to help him move into new apartments, which she cleaned and furnished. Above all, she could count on him to put her first. And he was more circumspect than any of her other intimates; their letters have never been recovered, and he refused to divulge any details about their relationship. His loyalty to her was absolute.18

  All in all, Eleanor had a crowded dance card. She had always had a great knack for making friends. At Allenswood she had been singled out as the most popular girl in the school, and Mlle. Souvestre wrote to Eleanor’s grandmother that Eleanor had the warmest heart of anyone she had ever known. That popularity continued over a lifetime, and she held together many circles of friends. When her close friends eyed one another jealously, she managed to ignore the rivalries and did not hesitate to invite one friend to come in as the previous one left. So what if Marion and Nan didn’t like Earl or Esther and Elizabeth, and what if many friends found Elinor difficult? She ignored what she did not want to confront. She had learned that tactic from the master, FDR.

  Eleanor had another tactic for managing her relationships: she liked being one of three. This preference perhaps allowed her to be part of but distant from an exclusive relationship with one person. (The threesome of Eleanor, Franklin, and Mama, however, was impossible.) Before setting up housekeeping with Marion and Nan, she had already enjoyed a close friendship with Esther and Elizabeth, spending many evenings in their apartment in Greenwich Village, where Eleanor herself would rent a small “hideaway” during the White House years. Perhaps it was Eleanor’s pleasure in the romance of an all-female household that worked so well with Elizabeth and Esther that led her so quickly to build the cottage with Marion and Nan. When they met Eleanor, they had been a couple for more than a decade, so that part of the three-sided triangle was already securely in place. Eleanor was careful not to come between them. As long as she deferred to them, harmony prevailed. As she became more independent, however, she began to require more space for herself.

  Fifteen-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt, a student of Allenswood, in the back row, third from right. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Nan Cook and friends play cards at home in Massena, N.Y. Courtesy Bonnie and Gary Cook.

  Nan Cook, Marion Dickerman, and Eleanor Roosevelt packed and ready for camping. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Peggy Levenson (Marion’s sister, who taught French at Todhunter), Nan Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Marion Dickerman during a July 1926 camping trip. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Eleanor Roosevelt, Nan Cook, and Marion Dickerman en route to Campobello. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Dickerman, and Nan Cook at the Roosevelts’ summer home, Campobello Island. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Roosevelt Summer Home, Campobello Island. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Marion Dickerman, Russell (the Roosevelt boys’ tutor), Captain Calder, Franklin Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Roosevelt (Eleanor’s brother Hall’s son), John, and George Draper (the son of Eleanor’s doctor) picnic on the beach at Campobello. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Franklin Jr., Marion Dickerman, John Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt on the deck of the Regina, headed for Europe, summer 1929. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Early pencil drawing of Stone Cottage. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Stone Cottage, 1920s to 1930s. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Springwood in the snow, 1920s. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Anna Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt in a Val-Kill snow. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR, Missy LeHand, and Earl Miller at the Val-Kill swimming pool. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Nan Cook (seated), Eleanor Roosevelt, Caroline O’Day, and Marion Dickerman work in the office of the New York City Democratic Women. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Esther Lape and Eleanor Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., on the way to a congressional hearing for the Bok Peace Prize. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Stone Cottage main room, 1930s, with interior furnishings designed by Nan Cook and produced by Val-Kill Industries. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Eleanor Roosevelt and Nan Cook at Nan’s drawing board at Val-Kill Industries. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Nan Cook and Eleanor Roosevelt with a National Recovery Administration poster at Val-Kill Industries. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Nan Cook finishes furniture at Val-Kill Industries. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Eleanor Roosevelt in class at the Tod
hunter School. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Eleanor Roosevelt with her first grandchild (Anna’s daughter), Ellie (often called “Sistie”), on their way to the Todhunter School. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Todhunter School students at Val-Kill pond. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Marion Dickerman seated on steps near the cottage at Val-Kill. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Cuff Links Gang celebrating FDR’s birthday on January 30, 1934, with costumes as Emperor Roosevelt and his court. Nancy Cook and Eleanor Roosevelt are to FDR’s right, and his daughter Anna is on his other side. Marion Dickerman is to FDR’s far left, above Louis Howe in helmet. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Eleanor Roosevelt square dances at the federal homestead in Arthurdale, West Virginia. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Eleanor Roosevelt and Nan Cook with some of FDR’s advisers at a Val-Kill picnic. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  Marion Dickerman at the wheel with Eric Gugler, sculptor of the UN monument to Eleanor Roosevelt. Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service.

  Eleanor Roosevelt visiting Nan Cook at St. Joseph’s Manor in 1962 with one of the Carmelite sisters in charge of the nursing home in Trumbull, Connecticut. Courtesy of the Trumbull Times.

  Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Bench (1966), United Nations Garden, New York City. Sculpted by Eric Gugler. UN Photo/Lois Conner.

  9: IT’S UP TO THE WOMEN

  Furnish an example in living. . . . Have a knowledge of life’s problems and an imagination. . . . Allow your children to develop along their own lines. . . . Have vision yourself and bigness of soul.—Eleanor Roosevelt

  As Eleanor anxiously anticipated moving to the White House after the March 1933 presidential inauguration, she hurried to establish her own identity, editing her father’s letters to her (Hunting Big Game in the Eighties) and writing It’s Up to the Women, a primer for getting through hard times. She reached back to the past, and she looked forward to the future, but there was more poignancy than a sense of urgency. Her father’s letters affirmed his love for her, and she clung to that love like a lost child. It’s Up to the Women was a guide to what women could do to help their families, communities, and nation through hard times. Both books were the product of wishful thinking and did not plumb the depths of her subjects. Her father did love her dearly, and she, him, but he abandoned her and died an alcoholic. She observed that women could be good wives and mothers, that they should economize even if they are women of wealth, and that even the average homemaker could find ways to make do and should consider getting a job outside the home—perhaps the most challenging idea in the book. All of these efforts should be done with a “bigness of soul,” a phrase she had used in an earlier (unpublished) essay describing “Ethics of Parents.” For many women, what she expected of them was a staggering assignment, though couched in the most reasonable way, well beyond the reality of their lives. It hardly reflected her own difficulties. Her view that women had always carried America through hard times was true enough, but for most women, saving their families and their country was an unattainable goal. She was whistling in the dark, while facing daunting prospects in her own life of what lay ahead when she moved to Washington.1

  “It’s up to the women,” however, was a colloquial phrase and an apt description of the way she, Marion, and Nan were trying to hold the Roosevelt family together, keep their own projects going, and further FDR’s career. It is as apt today as it was then: women really are expected to do it all, and Eleanor’s determination to live up to that standard both thrilled and exasperated her friends. How could anyone keep up with Eleanor Roosevelt? Marion and Nan must have asked themselves that question every day. Sometimes their dear friend Eleanor’s charge to herself seemed to be, “It’s up to me.”

  During FDR’s two terms as governor of New York (1928–32), Eleanor, Marion, and Nan were able to stay closely connected because they were sharing both their own work and FDR’s. Eleanor and Marion taught together. Marion and Nan were invited to Albany to attend special events. Eleanor saw them often in New York City and at Hyde Park, where Sara invited them to meals at Springwood, and they invited their own guests to Val-Kill. Each of them engaged individually in many public activities and projects as well. With FDR’s political career and the large Roosevelt family’s needs added, their lives were a rich brew. Eleanor could have given up her own ambitions and tended to hearth and home, but of course she did not. She had found the ideal life—shared public interests with close personal friends.

  Eleanor urged women to work for paid wages out of the home, and she took her own advice. Soon after they built the cottage, she and Marion and Nan started Val-Kill Industries to make reproduction furniture, and they bought a private school (subjects of later chapters). The success Eleanor enjoyed as a teacher at the Todhunter School empowered her as nothing else had. She prepared lessons, she presented complex materials in a way that high school girls could understand, she kept up with current events that she wanted her students to be aware of, she arranged field trips, and she did it all on the run—racing to catch a train for the commute between Albany and New York. She also was paid her first earned income—except for being paid for magazine articles, which became a steady source. Marion’s schedule as director and teacher at the school was also demanding, especially given her constant concerns about satisfying parents and recruiting new students for each new year. Back in the shop at Val-Kill Industries, Nan was dealing with craftsmen who had their own ideas about how things should be run.

  Another factor played a big role in the women’s lives: the five Roosevelt children. Allowing children to develop along their own lines, as Eleanor recommended in It’s Up to the Women, wasn’t exactly working out for Anna, James, Elliott, Franklin Jr., and John. Eleanor was often emotionally upended as her children chose to marry young and then divorce: the first, Anna, married in 1926 and was divorced in 1934, a pattern the other four children experienced. Eleanor was determined to remain friends with the former spouses of her children. Remembering how she and Franklin had suffered when Sara interfered in their lives, Eleanor tried to stay out of her children’s lives. Sara, however, still tried—and failed—to control her grandchildren’s lives, especially when it came to their disastrous marriages. The tensions between her and Eleanor resurfaced as each of them failed to discipline the children. Eleanor made more of an effort to ignore Mama, perhaps because she now had her own life. Mama, for her part, remembered Eleanor’s heroic role in nursing Franklin at Campobello. She was rarely, if ever, critical of Franklin, and now she was less likely to be critical of Eleanor, especially as it became clear that her son’s election as New York governor put him exactly where he wanted to be. Sara did not, however, think that Eleanor was a very good mother because she had failed to teach the children “right from wrong.” Eleanor was not sure that her own notions of right and wrong—if she knew them herself—would satisfy her mother-in-law. Bringing up the Roosevelt children was a hit-or-miss affair, and although they went to the best schools (except for Elliott, who refused to go to any college), traveled, drove new cars, and chose new romantic relationships whenever it suited them, there is a case to be made that they were not well parented. The children said so themselves, some in letters, some in publications. FDR himself said it was a terrible thing to be a child of the president of the United States.

  Eleanor as a “bad mother” became a popular stereotype led in part by Eleanor’s own sense of guilt and, after her death, aided and abetted by he
r sons in books about their parents. In recent years, however, now that the complexity of women’s lives has become better understood, Eleanor Roosevelt is due a reprieve. Fortunately, she had grandchildren who adored her, and that adoration has continued down through the generations. Some who have been interviewed often—Anna’s first child, Eleanor “Ellie” or “Sistie” (Seagraves), and her cousin, Nina Roosevelt (Gibson), John and Anne’s daughter, remember the guest house in Stone Cottage and Val-Kill as “paradise” and remember Grandmère with respect and affection that surpasses even her public reputation.2 Periodically, a wedding notice appears in the New York Times announcing that a relative of Eleanor and Franklin has married.