President Franklin Roosevelt and His women

Many thanks to a well-made 12 documentary series “The Roosevelts” in Netflix, I, a never-history person, found myself in a regional library looking for books about Franklin D Roosevelt (known as FDR). I ended up borrowing three of them, and finished one “Franklin and Eleanor” in three weeks.  Written by Hazel Rowley, this book depicted in detail and depth, the First Family Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt from early 1900s to mid-1900s, their marriage and entangled extramarital love,  their visions, their contributions to the nation and the world, and how they helped define and shape the history.

 

As the only president who were elected four times, FDR was the longest-serving president in American history. It was him, who the emphasized the government roles in banking system, assuring people with FDIC, upended with New Deal, and initiated the Social Security system etc. He started the fireplace chat over the radio, through which he transmitted his sincerity, his belief, his promise and love to millions of American people in abyss. It was him who led American out of the Depression, fear and despair. He won people’s hearts. To a lot of Americans in the era, he was a fatherly figure. Internationally he blazingly took America to join the World War II, establishing the U.S. the dominant position in the world arena. His contributions and legacy are immense and unsurpassed, earning himself as “one of the three greatest U.S. presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.”

 

FDR was stricken with polio in the summer of 1921 at the age of 39, leaving him permanently paralyzed from the waist down.  But he smiled through the hard time, and never gave in to the fact that he could no longer stand up unaided.  It is beyond imagination today that a person who paralyzed could be elected as president.

 

As the saying goes, with a great man there must be a great woman behind the scene.  In FDR’s case, there are far more than a woman, but women in his life, in whose attention and affection that FDR enjoyed basking. The first lady Eleanor, with whom Franklin wedded at the age of 23,  had given birth to 6 children (one died at a few months old) in her first 10 years of marriage.  Eleanor was actually given away by her uncle, the then President of U.S. Theodore Roosevelt.  Traditional and grand the wedding was, their marriage was not in any way a conventional one, especially after Franklin’s betrayal was found out in 1918. It became political and open, with “both FDR and Eleanor had other intimate companion, other loves”.  “They kept up a gracious façade in public, finding their escape in politics and close friends.” Despite this, “their bond was strong enough to withstand FDR’s polio and the White House.” For a long time after FDR’s paralysis, Eleanor was like Franklin’s ears and eyes, who traveled extensively around the nations getting first-hand information. She was like a “trial balloon” testing the waters for Franklin. Flawed their marriage is, their partnership remained indissoluble, and above all, they shared a vision of a better future and the commitment to make the world a better place for next generations.

 

Lucy Mercer, a beautiful woman who started as Eleanor’s secretary, is FDR’s lifelong lover. It happened that in 1918 when FDR was seriously sick and unconscious, being transported back from abroad, Eleanor discovered in his suitcases the correspondences between him and Lucy.  Franklin wanted a divorce, but surrendered to his rich mother who threatened that she would cut off entirely the financial support to him, and that not a penny would be given to him if he chose to divorce. Eleanor, devastated and heart-broken, had Franklin promise two things. Number one, never go to her bed for the rest of life.  Number two, never see Lucy again. Lucy was later married off to a wealthy business man.  But the story never ended there. Lucy was one of the persons who were present when FDR died in the Warm Springs of Georgia, while Eleanor was away in Washington DC at the time.

 

In FDR’s life, there was another very important woman who might be overlooked by the history. That is Missy LeHand, who worked as FDR’s secretary for more than 20 years.  Missy skillfully took care of all day-to-day secretarial works, as well as FDR’s personal life wholeheartedly  An autobiography book, titled “The Gatekeeper” written by Kathryn Smith, was devoted to her. In every sense, Missy was the White House Gatekeeper, any one who wanted to see the President had to go through her.  She was the “Right-hand woman” of FDR, his confidant, an inseparable companion, who idolized and loved the president and made him laugh all the time.  She was” romantically involved with William Bullitt, Jr. U. S. ambassador to Russia and later France, from 1933 to 1940”, but her devotion to FRD was an impediment to the relationship, and she never got married.   When she had a stroke in 1941, Franklin wheeled himself to the hospital to see her, re-wrote his trust to give half of the annual income from his estate (more than 3 million) to Missy to help her with medical bills and care of life until her death. Missy died of stroke at the age of 44.  The president issued a statement on July 31, 1944, that

 

“Memories of more than a score of years of devoted service enhance the sense of personal loss which Miss LeHand’s passing brings. Faithful and painstaking, with charm of manner inspired by tact and kindness of heart, she was utterly selfless in her devotion to duty…….”. Missy acted not just out of devotion. She acted out of love, her deep immense love to FDR.

 

“Roosevelt’s women were essential to FDR’s survival as a politician.” Being the most powerful man in his era, FDR was powerless over his paralysis. It was these women, their love that helped made Franklin stand up as a towering man. It was with their affections that Franklin could smile through the hardship and get out of his low tide, who always radiated courage and confidence in public, telling his country men that the only thing to fear is fear itself.