Eleanor and Hick
Page 38
in 1933 alone: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:152–53.
“should be reading”: ER to Hick, January 9, 1934, FDRL.
“three quiet evenings”: ER to Hick, January 16, 1934, FDRL.
busybody and troublemaker: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:155.
“Hick dearest,” Eleanor wrote afterward: ER to Hick, January 23, 1934, FDRL.
“I had a little ache”: Hick to ER, January 22, 1934, FDRL.
“trees and swamp”: Hick, One Third of a Nation, 157.
a man with a blacksnake whip: Ibid., 157–58.
In North Carolina: Ibid., 194–96.
“When their slaves”: Ibid., 186.
“take all that trouble”: Ibid., 211.
“We are carrying on relief”: Ibid., 231–33.
“As he came trailing”: Ibid., 288–89.
“a holdup which netted them”: Hick to ER, June 23, 1934, FDRL.
“I would have felt”: ER to Hick, June 25, 1934, FDRL.
“I evidently answered”: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:166.
Their visit also led: Streitmatter, Empty Without You, 108, footnote 32.
member sent a “stern reproof”: ER to Hick, April 20, 1934, FDRL.
“And now I’m going to bed”: Hick to ER, April 20, 1934, FDRL.
“I thought about you”: ER to Hick, January 14, 1934, FDRL.
“What wouldn’t I give”: ER to Hick, January 27, 1934, FDRL.
“I know I’ve got to fit in”: ER to Hick, February 4, 1934, FDRL.
“The ‘what might have happened aspect’”: ER to Hick, telegram and letter, April 29, 1934, FDRL.
“Incidentally, sir, you have”: Hick, One Third of a Nation, 238.
“You, Washington, the apartment”: Hick to ER, July 3, 1934, FDRL.
“I can’t understand”: ER to Hick, July 10, 1934, FDRL.
CHAPTER NINE: GETTING AWAY WITH IT
“This is my vacation”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 157–60.
was trying to “lose herself”: “First Lady Striving to ‘Lose Self,’” AP, July 13, 1934.
“looked as though”: “First Lady Takes Her Coffee Black but Windmill’s Apple Pie Breaks Through Resolve,” clipping from Doris Faber papers, n.d., FDRL.
“I’ll be glad”: ER to Hick, February 4, 1934, FDRL.
“Yes, dear, I think you will”: ER to Hick, June 28, 1934, FDRL.
“kept thinking of the mess”: ER to Hick, June 3, 1934, FDRL.
was making Eleanor “boil”: ER to Hick, June 25, 1934, FDRL.
“How could you”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 161
her first published essay: Faber, Life of Lorena Hickok, 43–44, from an article in the Lawrentian, no. 19 (1913).
“Long busy days”: Hick to ER, December 8, 1933, FDRL.
“I learned that nobody”: ER, This I Remember, 142.
“It’s a wonderful experience”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 167.
“the first rays”: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:205.
“in Central Park”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 166.
“Franklin was right”: Ibid., 176.
“All you need”: ER, This Is My Story, 143.
“If I had charge”: Berkeley Daily Gazette, August 2, 1934.
“Darling, how I hated”: ER to Hick, August 3, 1934, FDRL.
“There have been times”: Hick to ER, August 8, 1934, FDRL.
“I’m afraid,” Eleanor observed: ER to Hick, August 11, 1934, FDRL.
“I hope you are”: Hick to ER, August 15, 1934, FDRL.
“I don’t need anything”: ER to Hick, August 21, 1934, FDRL.
“Oh dear one”: ER to Hick, August 31, 1934, FDRL.
“Yes, I am happy here”: ER to Hick, August 13, 1934, FDRL.
“Franklin was always”: ER, This I Remember, 19.
“The sun is out”: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:107.
“one corner cupboard”: April 18, 1934. Streitmatter, Empty Without You, has “probably won’t argue” rather than “probably won’t agree.”
“My real trouble”: ER to Hick, April 1, 1934, FDRL.
“the worst of the lot”: Hick to ER, November 21, 1934, in Faber, Life of Lorena Hickok, 181.
CHAPTER TEN: NOW OR NEVER
She was pleased: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:219.
“congressman-at-large”: The position was created because of a growth in population not yet reflected in the apportionment of districts. From 1932 until 1945, when reapportionment was finally undertaken, a congressman-at-large represented the increase on an interim basis.
“I believe in certain things”: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:223.
“When politics is through with us”: Ibid., 1:324.
“Are you going to stop”: Ibid., 2:223.
“do not believe”: Hick to Aubrey Williams, August 15, 1934, in Hick, One Third of a Nation, 306.
monumental Boulder Dam: Hick to Aubrey Williams, August 23, 1934, ibid., 316–17.
“This ain’t a job”: Hick to Hopkins, September 9, 1934, ibid., 331.
“All we need”: Hick to ER, September 14, 1934, ibid., 335.
“Human patience,” Hick wrote Hopkins: Hick to Hopkins, September 9, 1934, ibid., 330.
“They don’t want to be ‘rehabilitated’”: Hick to ER, September 14, 1934, ibid., 335.
“Boys, this is our hour”: Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), 65.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: BLOWING OFF
slept through the entire thing: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 41–42.
“Why do you have to feel”: ER to Hick, June 25, 1936, FDRL.
reports for being “explosive”: ER to Hick, September 25, 1935, FDRL.
“People keep asking them”: Hick to ER, September 29, 1935, FDRL.
“We’re getting a bad reputation”: Hick report to Hopkins, October 10, 1935, FDRL.
“We’re in this mess”: Hick to ER, December 10, 1935, FDRL.
“And God help us”: Hick to ER, October 16, 1935, FDRL.
object in tenderness: Interview with Martha Gellhorn by Emily Williams, oral historian, February 20, 1980.
“Poor Marty!” Eleanor wrote Hick: ER to Hick, June 11, 1935, FDRL.
“Since I backed her”: Hick to Hopkins, May 31, 1935, FDRL.
“They told me”: Carl Rollyson, Nothing Ever Happens to the Brave: The Story of Martha Gellhorn (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 76.
Back in 1933, Hick: August 22 and 23, 1933, FDRL. Hick retyped and seemingly combined several long letters she wrote to Eleanor from West Virginia in 1933, then edited them fiercely, crossing out entire passages of vivid writing. Presumably she was thinking of including them in her collection of reports to Hopkins. They have never been published.
“Get those families”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 138.
“every last, horrible one”: Hick to ER, September 17, 1935, FDRL.
“A set of harness”: Hick to Hopkins, September 22, 1935, FDRL.
“That WAS an experience”: Hick to ER, January 16, 1936, FDRL.
“chances of re-election?”: ER to Hick, April 17, 1935, FDRL.
“Now I ask you”: ER to Hick, April 27, 1935, FDRL.
“And they say”: Hick to ER, February 7, 1935, FDRL.
“I’ve been ready”: ER to Hick, April 28, 1935, FDRL.
“Hick darling, I’m sorry”: ER to Hick, May 2, 1935, FDRL.
“It’s sometimes rather tough”: Hick to ER, July 31, 1936, FDRL.
“I think you can”: ER to Hick, February 20, 1935, in Streitmatter, Empty Without You, 148.
“You have a feeling”: ER to Hick, May 13, 1935, FDRL.
“Are you taking”: ER to Hick, June 10, 1936, FDRL.
“I supp
ose I shall”: Alicent Holt to Hick, June 14, 1936, in Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:365.
“a swell person”: Hick to ER, July 27, 1936, FDRL.
“What I’ve tried to do”: Hick to ER, August 2, 1932, FDRL.
“This is it”: Hick to ER, June 27, 1936, FDRL.
“Dearest, how I wish”: ER to Hick, July 11, 1936, Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:375.
“It is a strange world”: ER to Hick, July 18, 1936, FDRL.
“It wouldn’t be satisfactory”: ER to Hick July 22, 1936, FDRL.
“I’m wondering if you”: Hick to ER, July 31, 1936, FDRL.
“One can be”: ER to Hick, August 3, FDRL.
“I’m back at my worst”: ER to Hick, August 9, 1936, FDRL.
“All your fight”: ER to Hick, September 25, 1936, FDRL.
“What happens tomorrow”: “My Day,” November 3, 1936.
“riotous cheering” greeted: New York Times, January 7, 1937.
“get a cross-section”: Ibid., January 8, 1937.
CHAPTER TWELVE: LOOKING FOR A HOME
“This isn’t my house”: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 1:395 (from Perkins Oral History, Columbia University).
“There was a sense”: Davis, Invincible Summer, handwritten words in scrapbook pages, center section.
“It was one of the most pleasing”: Gellhorn Oral History, February 20, 1980, FDRL.
“remarkably deft performance”: Unpublished autobiography, Hickok papers, FDRL.
“a delightful oval room”: Nigel Hamilton, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 136.
he had them blocked: According to Blanche Wiesen Cook, this was “no casual gesture.” Eleanor had “placed a similar piece of furniture in front of shared doorways to end her mother-in-law’s unannounced intrusions on the bedroom floor of their twin East 65th Street home.” Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:33–34.
“It would be impossible”: “My Day,” January 12, 1938.
contained Lincoln’s bed: In the Roosevelt years, this was called the “Lincoln bedroom,” but that has since changed.
Hick’s little room: All details of Hick’s White House stays are from unpublished autobiography, Hickok papers, FDRL.
“very amusing to go up”: “My Day,” December 25, 1936.
“All the preparations”: Curtis Roosevelt, Too Close to the Sun: Growing Up in the Shadow of My Grandparents, Franklin and Eleanor (New York: Public Affairs, 2008), 95–97.
“felt very sad”: ER to Anna, Christmas Eve 1935, FDRL.
establish a World Court: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 1:345.
“The easy unconventionality”: The WPA Guide to New York City (New York: Pantheon, 1939), 131.
Willa Cather, whose work: Eleanor described Cather as “one of my favorite authors” in “My Day,” July 10, 1947, and Hick once suggested that Eleanor should read Cather’s “The Diamond Mine,” a short story about a successful diva exploited by her family. Hick recommended the story in connection with the problems of her friend the actress Judith Anderson, but Eleanor’s own situation sometimes resembled that of the story’s protagonist.
“about as rakish”: Rick Beard and Leslie Berlowitz, eds., Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990).
“mecca for exhibitionists”: George Chauncey, “Long-Haired Men and Short-Haired Women: Building a Gay World in the Heart of Bohemia,” in Beard and Berlowitz, Greenwich Village.
“Now I am here”: ER to Hick, October 25, 1936, FDRL.
bring a robe: What she wrote was “bring a wrapper.” The wrapper seems to have suggested an intimate time. On May 22, 1938, Eleanor wrote Hick that she was “glad to keep your wrapper as a hostage that you mean to come more often in the future!”
“a man with whom”: Unpublished autobiography, Hickok papers, FDRL.
“It seems to me, Hick”: Hick, Reluctant First Lady, 147.
“The dresses are going”: Hick to ER, December 9, 1936, FDRL.
“My God,” Hick wrote: Hick to ER, December 8, 1936, FDRL.
“You two haven’t”: Unpublished autobiography, Hickok papers, FDRL.
“her reports on conditions”: Tugwell diary about Puerto Rico, Lash papers, FDRL.
“Now if you could”: ER to Hick, August 3, 1935, FDRL. Dated August 30, but the context suggests that is a mistake.
“amused at your idea”: Hick to ER, August 7, 1935, FDRL.
“I don’t worry about Marty”: Hick to ER, March 17, 1937, FDRL. Years later, in a homophobic tirade, Gellhorn insisted she barely knew or remembered Hick, except as someone very ugly. There is strong evidence to the contrary. “Probably one of the finest features of having returned to America and become a slave in the great forward movement of progress,” Gellhorn wrote Hick on January 8, 1935, “is to have found you in the midst of it all. I consider you a definite addition to my life and am quite childishly delighted about the whole thing.” Bauman and Coode, Eye of the Great Depression, 28.
“To Hick, who could have”: Democratic Digest announcement of Hick’s departure, April 1945.
“I’d hate you to”: ER to Hick, September 10, 1936, FDRL.
“War Correspondent Finds Many Troubles”: New York Times, December 8, 1935.
“The White House”: Unpublished autobiography, Hickok papers, FDRL.
“Really some of it”: Hick to ER, November 20, 1936, FDRL.
“Dear, whatever may have happened”: Hick to ER, December 6, 1936, FDRL.
“depress me horribly”: Hick to ER, December 7, 1936, FDRL.
“Poor, poor Mabel”: Hick to ER, December 8, 1936, FDRL.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TRADING JOBS
“tell him with a little fire”: ER to Hick, January 4, 1937, FDRL.
“Good Lord, are you always”: Hick to ER, November 13, 1936, FDRL.
“pleased to have it settled”: Hick to ER, November 17, 1936, FDRL.
“I read the notice”: Hick to ER, November 21, 1937, FDRL.
“a painter of pictures”: “My Day,” October 21, 1937.
“very much in earnest”: Ibid., January 26, 1937.
“as a rule”: Ibid., March 6, 1937.
longed for more: Ibid., July 24, 1937. Eleanor had already expressed this idea at greater length in a Ladies’ Home Journal article published on August 24, 1936.
“the same group”: Ibid., February 10, 1937.
“That isn’t my worry”: ER to Hick, March 15, 1937, FDRL.
“Really this trip”: Hick to ER, March 15, 1937, FDRL.
“Why must I”: Hick to ER, November 11, 1936, FDRL.
pleasing all parties: ER to Hick, November 12, 1936, FDRL.
“All day I”: Hick to ER, July 16, 1937, FDRL.
“Why can’t someone”: ER to Hick, January 21, 1937, FDRL.
“give Alicent what she wants”: Hick to ER, August 27, 1937, FDRL.
“most painless house guest”: Hick to ER, June 16, 1937, FDRL.
“It’s this drifting”: Hick to ER, September 8, 1937, FDRL.
“I didn’t realize”: ER to Hick, September 9, 1937, FDRL.
“Yes, I had a good time”: Hick to ER, October 5, 1937, FDRL.
“Don’t dress,” Eleanor instructed: ER to Hick, December 18, 1937, FDRL.
“a lovely ‘Christmas’”: Hick to ER, December 22, 1937, FDRL.
grandmother’s “visceral dislike”: Curtis Roosevelt, personal communication with the author.
“I’m being perfectly honest”: Hick to ER, January 19, 1939, FDRL.
“It won’t help you”: ER to Hick, January 19, 1938, FDRL.
“never in your life”: Hick to ER, January 18, 1938, FDRL.
“WHY can’t I”: Hick to ER, December 28, 1937, FDRL.
CHAPTER FO
URTEEN: THIS PLACE!
“If you like it”: Hick to ER, in Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:518.
“He’s such fun”: Hick to ER, March 4, 1937, FDRL.
“the one dependable”: Howard Haycraft, Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story (New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1968), ix.
“most insightful, perceptive”: “Howard Haycraft Is Dead at 86; A Publisher and Mystery Scholar,” New York Times, November 13, 1991.
“Golly—this place!”: Hick to ER, May 15, 1937, FDRL.
“brief visit with a friend”: “My Day,” October 19, 1937.
“a grand week”: ER to Hick, August 5, 1938, FDRL.
“I wouldn’t live”: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:519.
a “personal triumph” she achieved: “My Day,” August 4, 1938.
“A kind friend”: Ibid., August 5, 1938.
“we have turned over”: Ibid., December 22, 1938.
She looked forward: Ibid., August 25, 1937.
“like a drunken sailor”: Tommy to Anna Roosevelt Boettiger (later Halsted), May 1937, Halsted papers, FDRL. Tommy began her letters to Anna with the salutation “Dear Gorgeous.”
On another occasion: Tommy to Anna Roosevelt, September 10, 1937, Halsted papers, FDRL.
“When Earl first came”: Joseph P. Lash, Love, Eleanor: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1982), 116.
she became godmother: Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 2:93.
“a little thing”: ER to Anna, August 12, 1938, Halsted papers, FDRL.
“It leaves Nan”: Tommy to Anna, summer 1938, ibid.
“so listless that I begin”: ER to Anna, August 1938, ibid.
“a calm talk”: ER to Anna, August 12, 1938, ibid.
“long and tragic talk”: Davis, Invincible Summer, 150.
“[Nan] told me”: ER to Nan and Marion, November 9, 1938, Dickerman papers, FDRL.
“You are dears”: ER to Marion Dickerman, February 7, 1927, FDRL.
“I left the tables”: ER to Hick, August 27 and 31, 1938, FDRL.
“I realize,” she wrote Marion: ER to Marion Dickerman, May 17, 1939, in Davis, Invincible Summer, 155.
“I shall only come”: ER to Nan and Marion, October 29, 1938, FDRL.
“Nancy has made”: Tommy to Anna, September 5, 1938, Halsted papers, FDRL.
“I can’t imagine”: Tommy to Anna, November 12, 1938, FDRL.