- NAME – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Library of Congress - NICKNAME(S) – FDR
- BIRTH / DEATH – Jan. 30, 1882 Hyde Park, NY / Warm Springs, Ga. (age 63
- FATHER – Vice President of a railroad, lawyer, financier
- MOTHER – housewife
- COLLEGE – Harvard / Columbia Law School
- WIFE – Eleanor Roosevelt
- KIDS – 6 (5 boys)
- PETS – Scottish terriers (Fala & Meggie); Lewellyn setter (Winks); English sheepdog (Tiny); Great Dane (President); mastiff (Blaze)
- RELIGION – Episcopalian
- ANCESTRY – Dutch
- AGE – 51
FIRSTS:
– first to appear on TV (1939 World’s Fair)
– first to have a Presidential Library
– first to visit South America, Africa, Haiti, Iran, Soviet Union, Hawaii
– first to make a transatlantic flight (Casablanca Conference)
– first Time Magazine Man of the Year
MA AND PA: His father was born into a wealthy family. He graduated from Harvard Law School and became a successful financier who soon retired to a country estate. He hired a substitute in the Civil War. He suffered a debilitating heart attack, but still taught Franklin outdoor activities like swimming, fishing, and riding horses. Every day they would walk to the local town to get the mail. He took him on eight trips to Europe. His first wife died when he was 48 and he remarried Franklin’s mother at age 52. She was half his age. Sara grew up rich. Her father made a fortune in the Chinese opium trade. She grew up feisty and met her match in her father’s friend. She produced the future President two years later. When James died, Franklin was eight years old. He was totally a momma’s boy. When he went to college, she bought a house near the campus so they could spend weekends together. She vetoed all his girlfriends as mates until he rebelled and married Eleanor. She and Eleanor did not get along as Sara insisted on dominating the household. She was the first Presidential mom to vote for her son for President. Parents
BACKGROUND:
– tutored at home
– graduated from Harvard where he was a C student
– flunked several classes and dropped out of Columbia Law School, but still passed the bar exam to become a lawyer
– elected to New York state senate
– Assistant Secretary of the Navy (same job Teddy Roosevelt had held)
– 1920 – ran for Vice President
– 1921 – stricken with polio
– 1929 – elected Governor of New York
FIRST LADY: Eleanor came from an upper class family, but her childhood was difficult. Her father, the younger brother of Teddy Roosevelt, was an alcoholic, but she adored him. Her mother was a beautiful socialite who was disappointed with her ugly duckling daughter. She called Eleanor “Granny” and referred to her as a “funny child”. She was orphaned by age 10. Her life changed when she was sent to finishing school in London and learned self-confidence. She also began to overcome her shyness. Back in New York, at age 18, she awkwardly participated in debutante balls where she caught the attention of distant cousin Franklin. He shocked everyone and disappointed his mother when he proposed. He entered politics and she started her career of helping the downtrodden by working in a settlement house. During WWI she knitted (she loved knitting) for the Red Cross. When Franklin contracted polio, she agreed with Louis Howe’s insistence that he continue in politics. She became his “eyes and ears”, travelling all over and reporting back what she saw of peoples’ lives. She visited prisons, hospitals, asylums, and even coal mines. She traveled 38,000 miles in the first year of his presidency. Newspapers nicknamed her “Public Energy Number One”. During WWII, she visited troops in combat zones. She nagged FDR about the underprivileged, civil rights, unions, and women’s rights. After his death, she served in the United Nations and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She died in 1962. Kelly 334-336
Library of Congress
TRIVIA:
– when he met President Cleveland at age 5, Cleveland told him: “I am making a wish for you. It is that you may never be President.”
– had a governess until age 14
– he had a stamp collection that had 25,000 stamps that was valued at $200,000; he also liked to build model ships
– he was an average student in high school and college
– he was the editor of the Harvard Crimson; he stayed in the job for an extra year and claimed it prepared him for public service better than anything else he did
– he ended each day with a martini
– one of his first orders as President was that every call made to the White House asking for help be answered by a staff member and dealt with
– he slept with a gun under his pillow as President and Eleanor carried one in her purse and glove compartment; the servants called them “His” and “Hers”
– favorite foods: seafood (terrapin), cheese, ice cream, hot dogs
– he feared fire because of his disability; he never wanted to be alone in a room with a fire in a fireplace
– at his last inauguration, all 13 grandkids attended
– for a while, daughter Anna and her two children lived in the White House; she wrote two children’s books – “Scamper, the Bunny Who Went to the White House” and “Scamper’s Christmas: More About the White House Bunnies”
– at a White House barbeque hosted by Eleanor, ten year old superstar ShirleyTemple could not resist such a tempting target. When the First Lady bent over to pick something up, Shirley shot her in the butt with a pebble with her slingshot. Eleanor did not react to the sting and just continued flipping burgers. Whitcomb and Whitcomb 15
– he was born and grew up on a 187 acre estate
– he had twelve ancestors who came over on the Mayflower
– he had toured Europe eight times by age sixteen
– as President, against doctor’s orders, he smoked thirty cigarettes a day
– his parents got him a pony when he was four
ANECDOTES:
THAWING UNCLE JOE – FDR met Josef Stalin for the first time in 1943 at the Teheran Conference. Normally, FDR could make friends with anyone, but he found Stalin to be immune to his charms. After three days, the President was getting desperate so he tried a different tact. He started chumming up to Stalin by teasing Churchill. He broke the ice with: “Winston is cranky this morning. He got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” This elicited a smile and FDR followed with comments about Churchill’s Britishness, his cigars, and his other habits. Soon Stalin was laughing, and Winston was fuming. Boller p. 262
CLEVELAND’S WISH – When he was a little boy, Franklin’s father took him to the White House to meet President Cleveland. When Cleveland shook his hand he said: “I’m going to make a strange wish for you, young man. I wish that you never become President of the United States.” Boller p. 263
THE DIVERSION – FDR was a student at Harvard and he was late for a trip to New York. When the street car taking him to the train station developed trouble and stopped, he decided to go on foot. He was hurrying down the sidewalk with his suitcase when he ran into a little boy coming out of an alley. The kid started bawling and his mother started yelling at him from a second floor window. FDR decided to create a diversion by offering the boy a dollar bill. The kid balled up the bill and tossed it. He then began to curse Franklin out. When FDR retrieved the bill, it looked to bystanders like he was taking it from the poor kid, so the neighbors became enraged. Franklin tried to hustle away, but a crowd followed him. He was soon sprinting to the station with a mob chasing. He managed to jump on the moving train and got away. Boller pp. 263-4
TEN SERVANTS – During the Depression, a New York Times reporter interviewed Eleanor for an article about economizing at the White House. The article reported how the First Lady did the shopping and the servants made sure no food was wasted and were creative with leftovers. Mrs. Roosevelt was quoted: “Making ten servants help me do my saving has not only been possible but highly profitable.” Eleanor was proud of her publicity coup, until her husband wrote her: “All I can say is that your latest newspaper campaign is a corker and I am proud to be the husband of the Originator, Discoverer, and Inventor of the New Household Economy for Millionaires. Please have a photo taken showing the family, the ten co-operating servants, and the scraps saved from the table.” Boller pp. 264-5
SAME OLD FANNY – The novelist Fanny Hurst was a friend of the President. One day she visited the White House after being on a diet from which she had lost a lot of weight. She was looking forward to showing off her new figure. When she was shown into the Oval Office, FDR made her do a slow turn and said: “The Hurst may have changed, but it’s the same old fanny.” Boller p. 270
ELEANOR IN PRISON – Eleanor was once scheduled to visit a prison in Texas so she left the White House early before her husband woke up. When FDR arose and came to his office he asked his secretary where his wife was, he was told she had gone to prison. FDR: “I’m not surprised, but what for?” Boller p. 274
NOTHING TO HIDE – During one of Churchill’s visits to the White House in WWII, FDR suddenly came up with the name “United Nations”. In an excited mood, the President had himself wheeled down to Churchill’s room and barged in with a brief knock to find Winston butt-naked having just finished a bath. What could have been an embarrassing situation was diffused when Churchill said: “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the President of the United States.” Boller p.275
FDR ALMOST TORPEDOED – On Nov. 14, 1943, the USS Iowa was on its way to the Cairo Conference with President Roosevelt on board. In a simulated torpedo attack by the destroyer William D. Porter, a live torpedo was accidentally fired at the Iowa. Absolute panic ensued for the next five minutes. The Iowa made a high-speed turn and the torpedo exploded in its wake. FDR forgave the skipper of the Porter. It was later sunk off Okinawa. Whenever the President was aboard a ship, a Secret Service agent who was an excellent swimmer was always by his side. maroon p. 17
TR/FDR SIMILARITIES – The two Roosevelt’s were from different parties, but there were some similarities.
– both graduated from Harvard
– both attended Columbia Law School for one year
– both were elected to the New York legislature
– both were Assistant Secretary of the Navy
– both ran for Vice President
Hover 118
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT – In the period between his election and his inauguration, there was an attempt on FDR’s life. He had landed in Miami after a cruise of the Bahamas and was at a meeting with the Mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak. After the meeting, FDR got in his limousine. The gunman shot at the president-elect, but hit Cermak instead. FDR ordered his driver to stay for Cermak to be picked up and taken to the hospital. FDR cradled Anton as they sped to the hospital. FDR: “Tony, keep quiet – don’t move. It won’t hurt if you keep quiet.” At the hospital, FDR insisted on staying until Cermak was out of surgery. Unfortunately, the mayor died a few days later. Kelly 175
LUCY MERCER – After the birth of their sixth child, all of whom were over 10 pounds at birth, Eleanor proclaimed that she had done her wifely duty and would not have any more babies. The best way to ensure not getting pregnant was to abstain, so the Roosevelt’s stopped sleeping together in 1916. Franklin, was still a young man and was not yet crippled by polio, so he looked for love elsewhere. He found it in Eleanor’s social secretary Lucie Mercer. Lucie had been working for Eleanor a couple of years before she and Franklin began an affair. Two years later, Eleanor found out when she read some love letters that the two had exchanged. She wanted a divorce, but Franklin’s mother intervened. She pointed out to Eleanor that she could accomplish a lot as the wife of a politician, and possibly a future President. She told her son that a scandal would ruin his political career, plus she would disinherit him if he didn’t break off the affair. Franklin listened to his mom and promised Eleanor never to see Lucie again. They stayed together, but more as partners than lovers. They slept in separate beds and when Franklin was President, they slept in separate wings. Sadly, Franklin broke his promise and began seeing Lucie again in the 1940’s, even though she was now married. In fact, she was with him at Warm Springs, Georgia when he had his stroke. Eleanor did not find out about the breach of promise until soon after his death. Another woman in Franklin’s life when he was President was Marguerite (Missy) LeHand who ran the household in the White House and took care of the family finances, including Eleanor’s spending money. She idolized Franklin and would sometimes be seen sitting on his lap, in her nightgown. Most likely, they were just good friends. Like Eleanor and Lorena Hitchcock, a journalist friend who lived in the White House for several years. The two women exchanged many letters and some are quite intimate. Weird 256-7