by Susan Quinn
From her screened-in porch, Patsy can see the apartment where Hick lived in her final years. Eleanor sometimes visited Hick there, and the two of them would sit out under the maple tree in the front yard and talk quietly. When Patsy worked in the local drugstore, Hick came in often to pick up a paper. By that time she had become kind of a town character—a cranky, heavy woman in baggy pants and men’s T-shirts. Patsy thought she must be an embarrassment to Mrs. Roosevelt.
Then, thirty-one years after Hick died, a small theater company put on a play by Pat Bond called Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt: A Love Story. Patsy, interested in all things Roosevelt, went to see it, and came away newly impressed with Hick. It didn’t seem right that she had been so completely uncelebrated. Patsy was especially troubled when she learned that Hick’s ashes had been dumped in the unclaimed remains area of the Rhinebeck cemetery. She got in touch with the feminist and activist Linda Kavars, whose company, Great Dames, had produced the play. Linda went to work, raising money for a memorial. On May 10, 2000, thirty-two years and nine days after Hick died, Linda Kavars and her partner, Dr. JoAnne Myers, along with Patsy Costello, Eleanor Roosevelt biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook, and a small group of others, staged a simple ceremony in a quiet corner of the Rhinebeck cemetery. Since Hick had wanted her ashes to fertilize a tree, the celebrants planted a dogwood and had a bluestone bench installed nearby. In the shade of the dogwood, there is a brass plaque that reads:
Lorena Hickok
“Hick”
Mar. 1893 May 1968
East Troy, WI. Hyde Park, NY
A.P. Reporter
Author
Activist
and
Friend of E.R.
The Roosevelt family in July 1932. Seated from left: FDR; Eleanor with granddaughter “Sistie” (Eleanor); Anna with son “Buzzie” (Curtis); Sara. Standing from left: Franklin, Jr.; James; John; Curtis Dall (Anna’s first husband). Elliott is absent.
Eleanor and her friends during a summer visit to Campobello in 1926. From left: Marion’s sister, Peggy Levenson; Nancy Cook; Eleanor; and Marion Dickerman.
Lorena Hickok during her time at the Minneapolis Tribune.
Hick on assignment for the Tribune. Dressed in engineer’s overalls, she climbed aboard the legendary locomotive Old Lady 501 for its regular run out of St. Paul.
Hick on a visit to her aunt Ella, who had rescued her from life as a hired girl in South Dakota.
Hick on the road for Harry Hopkins in 1936 with the car she and Eleanor named Stepchild.
Hick and Eleanor at the Pan American Day concert, April 16, 1935.
Eleanor and Hick exchanged well over three thousand letters. Both women wrote that they “ached” for each other, but Eleanor was more open in her expression of longing to touch and hold Hick. In this letter, Eleanor finds confirmation of Hick’s love in the ring Hick has given her (a ring presented to Hick by her friend the contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink). In the second paragraph, Eleanor begins the “diary” the two have agreed upon—a daily report of the life of a First Lady that will eventually become her column, “My Day.”
Hick’s letter from the road, two and a half years later, in September 1935, suggests how important Eleanor’s letters were to her mood and well-being.
Eleanor and Hick on their inspection tour of Puerto Rico, March 1934.
An injured miner and his family in Pursglove, Scotts Run, West Virginia, September 1938.
Eleanor visiting a wounded soldier in the Pacific during World War II.
Eleanor and David Gurewitsch in India in 1952.
Hick in 1932, the year she and Eleanor met. Eleanor once told Hick that this was her favorite photo of her.
The plaque at the Rhinebeck Cemetery pays belated tribute to Hick.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Roosevelt Library became almost a second home during the years of this project: I always looked forward to my return, and to the warm and helpful staff—especially Virginia Lewick, Matt Hanson, Kirsten Carter, and Bob Clark. I am grateful also to Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves, Curtis Roosevelt, and Nina Roosevelt Gibson, who provided memories of Hick and of their grandmother. Thanks also to Patsy Costello, Richard Peck, and Edna Gurewitsch, who filled out the story of Hick in her last years.
I am indebted to early readers, including Susan Ware, Michael Lipsky, Nigel Hamilton, Mark Schneider, Anna Wolff, Bob Erwin, and both Peg and Tom Simons. Thanks to fellow researcher Emily Wilson, who enriched my understanding of Val-Kill, to David Blumenthal for his expertise on presidential health, to Gillian Gill for thoughts on English girls’ schools, and to Lucy Cleland for help with the book title. Hilary Maddux and Susan Heath’s charming house was a haven during many visits to Hyde Park, and Mary Kruser made me feel at home in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I am especially grateful to Mary Jane Coulter and Patty Thomas, who welcomed me to the Scotts Run Museum in Osage, West Virginia, and shared their own memories of mining life. Thanks also to Jeanne Goodman, director of Arthurdale Heritage, Inc., and Vanessa Mulé, AmeriCorps worker and guide, for providing a window into life in the first New Deal homestead community at Arthurdale, West Virginia. My lunch group—Alison Cohen, Kathryn Kirshner, and Evy Megerman—have listened thoughtfully and given me excellent advice. And, once again, I am grateful for the wisdom of my biography group: Joyce Antler, Fran Malino, Megan Marshall, Lois Rudnick, Judith Tick, and Roberta Wollons. I have benefited over many years now from the warm companionship of other women writers at a retreat in Duxbury, Massachusetts—especially Kathi Aguero, Sally Brady, Ruth Butler, Judith Cohen, Christopher Corkery, Erica Funkhouser, Lydia Nettler, Marnie Mueller, and Judy Richardson. I am grateful as well to my children and their partners, Tom and Irina, Anna and Gretchen, all of whom have provided insights and support along the way. For joy, I thank my grandchildren: Alejandra, Daniel, David, Carolina, and Ecco.
I feel very lucky to have worked on this book with Emily Cunningham, an astute editor who has contributed mightily to improving the final product. Then there is Jill Kneerim. Jill is my agent, but that word doesn’t begin to describe how much she means to me as a writer. She has sometimes been a critic, with tough words I didn’t want to hear. But she has always also been a friend and a believer. Finally, I must once again thank my husband, Dan Jacobs, who has spent more hours listening, advising, reading, and rereading than anyone else, and whose love and support mean the world to me.
A NOTE ON SOURCES
I have relied most heavily on the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park (abbreviated as FDRL in the notes), where I made extensive use of the Hickok papers as well as the papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Doris Faber, and Anna Roosevelt Halsted. I also used correspondence from the Mary Norton papers at Rutgers University, from the papers of Gladys Avery Tillett in the Southern History Collection of the University of North Carolina, the papers of Helen Gahagan Douglas in the Carl Albert Center at the University of Oklahoma, the Nannine Joseph papers in the University of Oregon archives, and the Dorothy Thompson papers in the Special Collections at Syracuse University. The Library of Congress was the source for Hick’s correspondence with Bess Furman and also for the Democratic Digest. The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at George Washington University has been invaluable. I am especially grateful for the digital access the project has provided to Eleanor Roosevelt’s “My Day” columns.
In addition to the published writings of both Eleanor and Hick, I have depended most on a handful of major works: Blanche Wiesen Cook’s two-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt has been an important source, as has Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time. I have also relied on Joe Lash’s very inclusive biographies, especially Love Eleanor, A World of Love, and The Years Alone. I am grateful for the work of Roger Streitmatter, who edited and annotated many of the three-thousand-plus letters between Eleanor and Hick for Empty Without You, and for the work of Maurine Beasley and Richard
Lowitt, who edited and provided context for Hick’s reports in One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
“Oh! How I wanted”: Eleanor Roosevelt (hereinafter ER) to Lorena Hickok (hereinafter Hick), March 10, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library (hereinafter FDRL).
“There have been times”: Hick to ER, August 8, 1934, FDRL.
She was also a reporter: Lorena Hickok, Reluctant First Lady (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1962), 67.
“This valley is the”: Hick to ER, July 3, 1934, in Lorena Hickok, One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression, ed. Richard Lowitt and Maurine Beasley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 304.
“run the Red Cross!”: Hick to ER, October 31, 1933. One Third, 61.
“I’m back at my worst”: ER to Hick, August 9, 1936, FDRL.
“How could any reasonably”: From “How This Book Came to Be Written,” a draft of the material that appeared in the preface, afterword, and “personal note” of Doris Faber, The Life of Lorena Hickok: E.R.’s Friend (New York: William Morrow, 1980).
“something like a classic state of shock”: Ibid., 330–31.
“an uncontrollable craving”: Ibid., 321.
“the Eleanor Roosevelt who emerges”: Ibid., 6.
“akin to turning over Sappho’s poems”: “E.R. & Her ‘Friend’: A Timid Look Back,” Big Mama Rag, vol. 8, #2, 1980.
“pink right down to her underwear”: Colleen M. O’Connor, “‘Pink Right Down to Her Underwear’: Politics: The 1950 Senate Campaign of Richard Nixon Against Helen Douglas Reached an Unequaled Low. Comparison Is Unfair to John Van de Camp,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1990, http://articles.latimes.com/1990-04-09/local/me-664_1_helen-gahagan-douglas.
CHAPTER ONE: BEGINNING TO TRUST
“It’s nice to be back”: I have chosen not to annotate FDR’s public speeches, because they are widely available from many sources.
“It seems undignified”: ER to Hick, July 27, 1936, FDRL.
On her honeymoon: Eleanor Roosevelt, This Is My Story (New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1939), 134.
Isabella had been a bridesmaid: Ibid., 124.
“Most women,” fellow reporter: Walter B. Ragsdale to Hal Faber (Doris Faber’s husband), December 13, 1978, Doris Faber papers, FDRL.
a red rash tended to develop: Jane Bancroft to Doris Faber, December 8, 1978, Doris Faber papers, FDRL.
didn’t trust her: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 14.
stories of hardship: Lorena Hickok, “Country Girl in Prison Cell Sobs Warning of City’s Lure,” October 2, 1921; “Job Hunt Futile, Man Crawls Under Bridge to Await Death,” November 14, 1921; “Hurdy Gurdy Man, Already Deep in Despair, Told Wife Is Dying,” January 22, 1922, all in Minneapolis Morning Tribune.
“Many times, she came back”: Walter B. Ragsdale to Hal Faber, December 13, 1978, Doris Faber papers, FDRL.
“deeply tanned, grim-faced farmers”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 36.
family secrets she would keep: Thirty years later, in Reluctant First Lady, Hick was still protective. John Boettiger was singled out because he “had become friendly with Anna and Jimmy,” she wrote. Reluctant First Lady, 38.
“Lorena was as excited”: Walter B. Ragsdale to Hal Faber, December 13, 1978, Doris Faber papers, FDRL.
“I gave as little information”: ER, This Is My Story, 314.
FDR’s admirable efforts: Lorena Hickok, “Roosevelt Makes His Farms Pay,” AP, April 11, 1932.
Yet it didn’t show up: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 32–33.
“the dame has enormous dignity”: Western Union telegram, n.d., Hickok papers, FDRL, box 14, 15.
“She’s all yours now”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 43.
“good to be middle-aged”: Ibid., 44.
“Most of the time”: Lorena Hickok, AP story datelined Potsdam, NY, sent by teletype, October 30, 1932.
Eleanor operated by complicated rules: Lorena Hickok, “Roosevelt’s Wife Takes State Stump,” AP, October 18, 1932.
“If you and I”: Lorena Hickok, AP story datelined Potsdam, NY, sent by teletype, October 27, 1932.
“may have many”: “Ten Rules for Success in Marriage,” Pictorial Review, December 1931, quoted in Maureen H. Beasley, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Media: A Public Quest for Self-Fulfillment (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 15.
“I’m longer than you are”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 49.
“May I write”: Ibid.
CHAPTER TWO: ELEANOR ACCORDING TO HICK
the AP bureau: The office was at 383 Madison Avenue.
an orgy of baby talk: Jane Bancroft to Doris Faber, December 8, 1978, Doris Faber papers, FDRL.
The Turtle Bay neighborhood: The WPA Guide to New York City (New York: Random House, 1939).
“Hick batted out”: Gardner Bridge to Doris Faber, November 3 and 9, 1978, Doris Faber papers, FDRL.
“neither Roosevelt nor any”: Gardner Bridge, AP series, November 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 1932.
“He was grand”: Lorena Hickok, AP, November 18, 1932.
“For the next ten years”: One child died in infancy.
“Sometimes,” she told Hick: Lorena Hickok, AP series, “Never Wanted to Be ‘First Lady,’” November 9, 1932; “War Gave Mrs. Roosevelt ‘Emancipation and Education,’” November 10, 1932; “Mrs. Roosevelt Is Tireless,” November 12, 1932.
“liked teaching better”: Kenneth S. Davis, Invincible Summer: An Intimate Portrait of the Roosevelts Based on the Recollections of Marion Dickerman (New York: Atheneum, 1974), 87.
read periodicals instead of textbooks: Ibid., 78.
“something almost like a note of hope”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 53–54.
“But I’m not the wife”: Lorena Hickok, “Wife of Next President Arrives at School to Teach Current Events,” AP, November 9, 1932.
“When I came in”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 58.
“the first person”: Lorena Hickok, unpublished autobiography, Hickok papers, FDRL.
“one of the most beautiful women”: ER, This Is My Story, 1.
“Attention and admiration”: Ibid., 22.
looked like a queen: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 52.
“I was reminded of a fox”: Ibid. 53.
CHAPTER THREE: JE T’AIME ET JE T’ADORE
That December, eight thousand: New York Times, December 3, 1932.
Over a thousand: Ibid., December 4, 1932.
When it snowed: Ibid., December 18, 1932.
“this Christmas belongs”: Ibid., December 25, 1932.
“Roosevelt noncommittal in parley”: Ibid., November 23, 24, December 21, 1932.
“too much respect for myself”: Jonathan Alter, The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 147.
“high time to begin”: New York Times, December 17, 1932.
“a pleasant man”: Alter, Defining Moment, 80–81.
“Some crackpot in Miami”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 78.
“To a man”: Alter, Defining Moment, 177.
“That drive to the hospital”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 82.
“I’m not that important”: Ibid., 83.
“very good friends”: Ibid., 61.
“je t’aime et je t’adore”: ER to Hick, March 6, 1933, FDRL. “Jimmy was near and I couldn’t say ‘je t’aime et je t’adore’ as I longed to do but always remember I am saying it and that I go to sleep thinking of you and repeating our little saying.”
“I do wish you were here”: Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, vol. 1, 1884–1933 (New York: Penguin, 1992), 198.
make trouble when she could: Ibid., 220.
It may also have aroused: In f
act, according to Cook, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd came to the inauguration in an arranged car and spent some time on that day in the White House with FDR. Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 1:491–92.
Ellie was tiny: Faber, Life of Lorena Hickok, 62.
“Friends,” Hick explained: Lorena Hickok, notes on Ellie for essay “The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met,” ca. 1954.
gave parties together: Faber, Life of Lorena Hickok, 63. Hickok notes.
Hick was sent to Smith College: Faber, Life of Lorena Hickok, 69–71.
“never another word was said about it”: Ibid., 79. Notes in Doris Faber papers, FDRL. In her book, Faber uses a pseudonym for Grace Beebe, “Barbara Hanson,” but it is clear in the notes that the reporter was Beebe.
“A Very Merry Christmas”: Christmas card, Hickok papers, FDRL.
In December 1932: Lorena Hickok, “Mrs. Roosevelt Borrows Fare to See 4th Grandchild,” AP, November 17, 1932; “Mrs. Roosevelt Walks to Inspect the White House,” AP, January 28, 1933; “Roosevelt’s Wife Selects Gowns for Inauguration,” AP, February 10, 1933.
“Accompanied by her two dogs”: Lorena Hickok, “Wife of Next President to Drive Alone to Capital,” AP, February 13, 1933.