fdr and missy lehand relationship fdr and missy lehand relationship

Eleanor did not enjoy or entirely approve of the bohemian lifestyle FDR was engaging in, fishing and drinking and frivolous pastimes, and so she spent little time onboard. But if his need for company was prodigious, it could also be promiscuous. FACT: Though not as depicted in Atlantic Crossing. She was laid up in her bed for weeks, then transferred to a hospital. She was, according to Jean Edward Smith's "FDR," the president's constant companion for 21 years, his attendant on excursions where Eleanor was not present, and the only one to refer to him with the pet name "F.D." While fond of his niece, Theodoremade the wedding into a St. Patrick's Day "pit stop," according to Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer's book "Hissing Cousins." Surely the monumental demands ER made on her husband were proof of her belief in his ability to rise to them. He always enjoyed other peoples discomfort, Averell Harriman Over the years FDR would invest a good portion of his fortune into Warm Springs, and created the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation which raised millions of dollars for polio research. Missy arrived in Washington to much fanfare and excitement. She had a long face and a prominent jaw and nose, but a sweetness of expression that spoke of her good nature. The White House staff grew quickly as the work load of the First 100 Days and the ever growing volume of correspondence demanded attention. There was no shortage of people eager to try. FDR and ER, in contrast, battled endlessly to make America a more inclusive society at home and a force for democracy abroad. They provided FDR with an important escape from the pressures of the White House, and their personal bonds allowed them to speak truth, sometimes uncomfortable truths, to the Boss. It rotted in the basement. Their daughter Anna tells of one evening in the White House when her mother so infuriated her father with her insistence that he address a sheaf of papers this high during the 20 minutes permitted for two very small cocktails that he flung the entire stack across the room. Eleanor Roosevelt was the greatest obstacle I faced when I started the research for Lucy, a novel about the love affair that altered and almost derailed twentieth-century history. During the four years I spent with Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, I never stopped wondering at the imaginations of those two children of privilege who came to intuit hardship they had never endured. Copyright 1949-2023 American Heritage Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved. The wife of his aide Edwin ("Pa") Watson called him the loneliest man in the world. In 1943 FDR told his distant cousin and close companion Margaret Suckley, Im either Exhibit A or left completely alone.. Missys role as Gatekeeper gave her enormous influence in who the president spent time with. The Sad Truth About Franklin And Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage, Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage. Daisy Bonner, who cooked for Franklin Roosevelt for twenty years in the Georgia White House, recalled his favorite dish. She once bought out an entire farm stand so the woman running it could close for the day. [5] According to historians Joseph Persico and Hazel Rowley, the affair between Mercer and Franklin likely began in 1916, when Eleanor and the children were vacationing at Campobello Island to avoid the summer heat, while Franklin remained in Washington, D.C.[6][7] In 1917, Franklin often included Mercer in his summer yachting parties, which Eleanor usually declined to attend. When the stock market crashed in October 1929, Governor Roosevelt immediately took action. There were supposedly several dinners in the White House's second-floor private quarters during Roosevelt's last year which were attended by Rutherfurd in a group with Anna's presence and obvious acceptance. Throughout their lives together, ER never stopped casting a pall over the short cocktail hour that gave FDR enormous pleasure. Then it would revert back to Eleanor. In addition, the relationship was covered in an episode of The President's documentaries for the PBS American Experience series on American history, as well as in the 2014 PBS miniseries The Roosevelts, directed by noted documentary film-maker Ken Burns, with an accompanying companion pictorial book by Geoffrey Perrett. On February 11, 1920, Mercer became his second wife. The series creators/writers reveal whats real history and whats not. WebThe Role: Missy LeHand served as private secretary to President Roosevelt, and according to biographer Kathryn Smith, eventually served as Chief of Staff in all ways but in name. related_content_links_0_open_in_new_window: related_content_links_1_open_in_new_window: related_content_links_2_open_in_new_window: related_content_links_3_open_in_new_window: related_content_links_4_open_in_new_window. Now closed to the public as part of the enlarged White House security zone, the Square has witnessed many historic moments over the last two centuries. Both branches of the Roosevelt family enjoyed wealth and privilege, yet the future first family were raised in markedly different circumstances. [42] Roosevelt's second private secretary Grace Tully (19001984), who had also been at Warm Springs at the time of his death, did briefly mention Rutherfurd's presence in F.D.R., My Boss, her 1949 memoir, but gave no further hint of the relationship. Even Earl Miller, the slippery, selfaggrandizing New York State trooper who started as her bodyguard, was unstinting in his devotion. Just a few months later FDR would be stricken with polio, and Missy would become his companion and gatekeeper. She was dubbed FDRs Right Hand Woman and when Eleanor traveled Missy would act as the hostess for dinners and other social events. As she had cherished Franklin, Sara showered affection on her grandchildren. Grace Tully described Missy as the Queen of the White House staff, and her authority was rarely challenged. But the siren call of political life drew FDR back into the arena and in 1928 he ran for Governor of New York and won. While Sara had initially frowned on her son's marriage, she now threatened to cut off his inheritance should he follow through with a divorce. Just in the late 1920s, Hazel Rowley (via NPR) documents 116 weeks that Franklin was gone. She did not fight for jobs for the nations destitute, or decent homes for families living in automobiles, or safe consumer products, or rural electrification, or racial equality, or rearmament. It was up to him, if it was up to anyone, to help her reach some sort of accommodation with married life and with her peculiar new surroundings. The statement is both chivalrous, in keeping with Alsops old-school background, and idealistic, in its faith in the power of marital devotion, but the seemingly throwaway clause if it was up to anyone is the operative phrase. That glimpse of a vigorous ambulatory self was not the only reason he returned to her at the end, but surely it was a happy side effect. Support with a donation>>. WebWidely considered the first female presidential chief of staff, Marguerite "Missy" LeHand was the right-hand woman to Franklin Delano Roosevelt - both personally and professionally - But she did. Dont, I murmured when on FDRs first presidential visit to Campobello a dozen years after hed been stricken with polio and carried off the island on a stretcher, she scolded him publicly for bringing the assembled guests to the dinner table late. Unlike a formerly unpublished letter from which I finally got permission to quote, it wasnt even classified. Alice Roosevelt Longworthdaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, and a cousin of Eleanor'sencouraged the affair, inviting Mercer and Franklin to dinner together several times. In the years before widespread birth control for women, sex was coupled with potential pregnancy, and the one surefire prevention abstinence was rarely appreciated by young husbands with healthy sexual appetites, as Franklin was. Her personal conduct was no less inspiring; she was the embodiment of one of her husbands favorite wordsgrand. Each left their mark as individuals, Franklin Roosevelt as New York governor and as the longest-serving United States president, and Eleanor Roosevelt as the longest-serving first lady and as first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Their relationship was a complicated one, marked by numerous episodes of hardship and heartbreak until Franklin's death in 1945. This knowledge did not keep him from straying again. FDR continued to have other affairs, including one with his secretary, Missy LeHand. After a major White House renovation in 1934 Missy was moved into a prime office with a view of the rose garden, and a door that opened directly into the new and improved Oval Office. I can forgive, but never forget. At the time of their marriage, Eleanor's uncle Theodore Roosevelt joked that "there's nothing like keeping the name in the family." Aware of Rutherfurd's role in her parents' early marriage, Anna was at first angry that her father had put her in such a difficult position. Missy LeHand, FDR's closest companion for two decades, was crippled by a stroke followed by a nervous breakdown. [39], In 1947, Rutherfurd's sister Violetta committed suicide after her husband requested a divorce, and only a month later, on Christmas Day 1947, her mother Minnie died at age 84. In the first decade of their marriage, Eleanor was pregnant five times, four within the first four years. [25][26], Despite Roosevelt's promise to Eleanor, he kept in contact with Lucy Rutherfurd after her marriage, corresponding with her by letter throughout the 1920s. Missy lived in the Governors Mansion with the Roosevelts, and was part of the family in every way. I mean a contagious genius for living joyously. After the election, Eleanor asked Missy to come to her home in Hyde Park and help finish up the correspondence. Both were dedicated to the idea of public service and worked to lead America out of the Great Depression. In their united efforts against Sara Roosevelt's resistance to her son's marriage, they demonstrated early on their skill as a goal-oriented partnership. Dasch and his partner Ernst Burger (lower right) received prison sentences; the others were sentenced to death. [35], In early April 1945, Anna arranged for Rutherfurd to come over from her South Carolina estate in Aiken to meet her father at his "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia, the small plain rustic cottage built at the polio therapy center by the heated mineral water springs resort that Roosevelt helped develop beginning in the 1920s. target: "#hbspt-form-1682997151000-4739201604", But FDR never gave up on her. Already getting in the party mood! In an era when it was very difficult for women to rise to the highest levels of government, she was truly FDRs Right Hand Woman. Hopefully The Gatekeeper will finally put to rest the sexist gossip that Missy gained her power because she was FDRs mistress. She was an exquisitely sensitive and engaging companion and later a constant and competent nurse to a husband who doted on her. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt wed on St. Patrick's Day of 1905 in New York City in the home of Eleanor's grandmother, perHistory Today. I am not talking about giving up a career to stay home and raise children, or nursing an aging parent, or other instances of worthy self-sacrifice. Only a sliding door separated 49 East 65th Street (Franklin and Eleanor's residence) from Sara's next door. Mrs. Nesbitt told him it was unavailable, though when his secretaries chipped in to buy some, they managed to find it in the local stores. Crowds flock to beaches and parks as traditional May Day celebrations One of many women: Franklin D. Roosevelt was said to have carried on a 20-year affair with his secretary, Marguerite 'Missy' LeHand. Marguerite (Missy) LeHand was FDRs longtime personal secretary and confidante. It is covered with a penciled note in the kind of cryptic shorthand I and most writers I know use when insight or inspiration strikes. (Mostly) FICTION: A similar telegram existed, but American intelligence never caught it nor implemented security measures based on it, say Atlantic Crossing co-writers; their research revealed the telegram became known only after the war. The affair lasted two years, with one of his friends posing as Mercer's escort. Joseph Lash was a faithful intimate during ERs life and an excellent friend in the books he wrote about her after her death. The Episode 6 scene of Roosevelt and Martha in a basement lockdown is fiction. [8], In June 1917, Mercer quit or was fired from her job with Eleanor and enlisted in the US Navy, which was then mobilizing for World War I. His wife turned the White House over to a kitchen moralist who believed in plain food plainly prepared. Admirers sent the President wild game, of which he was particularly fond. The Roosevelts' son James later described the state of the marriage after the incident as "an armed truce that endured until the day he died. Eleanor discovered the affair in in 1918 when she found love letters in her husband's suitcase. Her descendants speak of the insouciance with which she met early hardship. She inquired if hed answered it. Another woman close to FDR was Princess Martha of Sweden, a royal who was forced to flee Scandinavia in 1941 after the Nazi invasion, Denial: Dorothy Schiff, a former publisher of the New York Post who is pictured in 1963, admitted to her biographer that she had an affair with Roosevelt, then later recanted, according to the biographer, Gifts from Suckley: Franklin D. Roosevelt relaxes with his Scottish terrier, Fala at Hyde Park. Winthrop Rutherfurd died in March 1944 after a long illness. I discovered secrets I wanted to sweep under the rug. Olav confronts his wife about rumors of an affair. They brought explosives and cash and had plans that included disrupting New Yorks water supply. She was a devoted and successful mother to five stepchildren and one biological daughter, all of whom adored her. After Missy LeHand suffered a stroke in 1941, Grace became FDR's primary personal secretary. ", Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt shared a mutual respect and affection. He was so engrossed in his work and campaigns that he hadn't the time to spare, and he believed not unusually for his time that it was the job of the mother to raise the children, or at least to hire a nanny to handle them. Sara Roosevelt's attentions helped give her son a happy childhood, but she remained protective of him well into adulthood, a tendency that would later mar his marriage to Eleanor. FDR was not the sexual rake certain historians have made him out to be, but he did subscribe to the philosophy of the E. Y. Harburg song that would appear the year after his death, When Im not near the girl I love, I love the girl Im near. Missy once said he was really incapable of a personal friendship with anyone. Some found him almost sadistic. [45] Well-known historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (19172007) stated of the affair that if Rutherfurd "in any way helped Franklin Roosevelt sustain the frightful burdens of leadership in the second world war, the nation has good reason to be grateful to her."[46]. A few years later, when FDR contracted polio and was paralyzed from the waist down, their lives changed. Now in his fifties, Rutherfurd was considered one of society's most eligible widowers. This week marks the 72nd anniversary of the death and subsequent funeral of President Franklin Roosevelt. She would be the first woman to hold the position of the secretary to the president. But the woman who is perhaps least remembered but most Continue reading Their long distance relationship proved both exhilarating and frustrating for Missy. When I thought about their personal flaws, I marveled at the public good to which they put them. I shared her frustration when FDR declined to make an antilynching law a top priority, and refused to open the door to the Jewish victims of Hitlers persecutions, but wasnt she sufficiently astute to appreciate the adage that to be a great statesman, one must first be a good politician? They mention her soft heart. When his half-nephew Taddy ran off with a woman from New Yorks Tenderloin district called Dutch Sadie, he wrote to his mother from Harvard that one can never again consider him a true Roosevelt. The years tempered his priggishness. His health had declined throughout World War II. LeHand dropped unconscious at the end of a late dinner with White House staff. Ikes son, historian John Eisenhower, recalls attending meetings with the British wartime leader and reflects on his character and accomplishments. After Ambassador William Bullitt attempted to sabotage the career of Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles by spreading rumors of a homosexual scandal, FDR predicted that on the Day of Judgment, Welles would receive a rap on the knuckles for giving in to his human predilections but that Bullitt would burn in hell for ruining another mans life. Roosevelt faced the challenges of a widened war at the moment when he lost a key member of his circle. Their union lasted for 40 years, and Franklin and Eleanor supported each other's ambitions and ventures throughout it. 'The bottom dropped out of my world,' she later said. She advocated unsuccessfully against the internment policy; when it went through, she kept up a pragmatic front in public speeches and mitigated and challenged interment where she could in private. WebBesides children and grandchildren, several other longtime aides and friends also lived in the White House during the Roosevelt years. FDR confidant and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter regarded her as the "fifth most powerful person in the country" at the time. Doris Kearn Goodwin counters in"No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt" that Franklin doted on his children when he could give them his time. The difference of several weeks would not seem important but for who else was in the White House at the time. Polio struck without warning on August 10, 1921, while he was vacationing at his home on Campobello Island in Canada. Roosevelt left Missy half of his $3 million estate. I never wish to hear money, jewels, or labels mentioned again. In 1917, on an official trip to Haiti, FDRs behavior to his hosts was as unfailingly courteous as his enjoyment of his colleagues racist jokes was hearty. He started the first unemployment program and fought a corruption scandal with the mayor of New York. He bought an old boat with his friend John Lawrence and christened it the Larooco (Lawrence, Roosevelt Co.) and in the winter of 1924, FDR, Missy, and Leroy set sail for the warm Caribbean waters near Florida. The annual parade was a fixture of New York even then, and the festivities outside reportedly drowned out the exchange of marriage vows. A new PBS documentary based on a book he wrote shows why. But many of those papers belonged to Missy. In A First Class Temperament, Geoffrey C. Ward recounts a telling conversation between the young FDR and his wife. [22] The Rutherfurds had one child, Barbara Mercer Rutherfurd (June 14, 1922November 6, 2005),[23][24] who married Robert Winthrop "Bobby" Knowles, Jr. in 1946. Debate over America's involvement in World War II came to a head in July 1941 as the Senate argued over a draft extension bill. She was, to begin with, a researchers nightmare. Rutherfurd continued to meet more frequently with Roosevelt in the months that followed. The young FDR did not take socially unsanctioned sex lightly. Harvey Shapiro, himself one of our most distinguished poets, examines a powerful and undervalued legacy. [37][38] Finding Shoumatoff's unfinished preliminary watercolor among Franklin's possessions some time later however, she mailed it to Rutherfurd, to which Rutherfurd responded with a warm letter of thanks and condolences. Whatever difficulties they had with intimacy, fidelity, and child-rearing, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were united as a political partnership. A nationwide gene-purity movement promoted methods that eventually were adopted by the Third Reich. A complete collection of their correspondence can be found here:The Grace Tully Collection Finding Aid. The Presidents official schedule for June 5, 1941, reads in part: "1130: To Marguerite A. LeHands apartment, "1555-1740: Returned from Office to Study White House accompanied by Mrs. Johnson, "1740: To Marguerite A. LeHands apartment. He left the table to answer the letter. Because it was not her looks but her extraordinary talent, commitment, and dedication that earned her the privilege to work by FDRs side for more than 20 years. Schiff's biographer, Jeffrey Potter, claimed in his 1976 book, 'Men, Money and Magic: The Story of Dorothy Schiff,' that she admitted to having an affair with FDR between 1936 and 1943.