FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT LIBRARY COLLECTIONS

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT LIBRARY COLLECTIONS

HYDRANGIA KISS

ONE YEAR TO MARRIAGE? OPINION BY MISSY

QUESTION FOR MISSY

Dear Missy,

My parents tell me that it's not a good idea to date someone for more than a year. That by then you should marry them or give it up.  They're a little vague about WHY.  What's your opinion?

David
New York

ANSWER FROM MISSY


Dear David,

I heard something like that too. I think it had to do with the idea that one could not hold back their sexual desire much longer back in the day when celibacy was expected until marriage. Plenty of people have married without knowing each other as long as a year and been successful with it.  A year (or any amount of time) can also seem rather arbitrary.  So what I think is that dating is a process of getting to know other people - AND YOURSELF.  And the more dating you do, one could say the older you get, it's more likely that you're going to know if someone is for you or not more quickly.  (But don't skip over the getting-to-know-you step!) We all know the odd couples who get along famously even though they would never have been "matches" in an on-line dating club. Blame chemistry.

Another thing to consider is GOAL ORIENTATION. Some people are real good at coming up with a goal such as wishing to be married within a year and they go about dating as if they were interviewing and have a strategy.  While others take what life offers them without so much work.

If you meet someone you know you want to marry but they need to do something first, such as finish their college year or find a decent job, I'd say it's worth a wait. If it goes on and on without marriage, and it's not clear that you want to marry the person, but you think of dating as finding a partner rather than having some fun, you must decide if this is worth it to you or if the energy has gone out of the quest.

Missy

HYDE PARK ON HUDSON - THE FILM

Taking place in June 1939  when the King and Queen of England come to stay at President Roosevelt's family home, wives, mistresses, and others conspire (and compete) to make the visit memorable. The film came out in 2012 and was considered a British comedy.  Actress Elizabeth Marvel acts as Missy LeHand

HELLO HYDRANGIA

LUCY MERCER RUTHERFURD and FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE

From the book Franklin and Lucy.

The question Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, who married an older man, might have had, was if it was possible she and the President might someday go into a private life together.  Certainly after he broke with her, they kept in touch.  She moved on, but still was not completely absent from his life.

She was there for all four of his swearing in ceremonies. At the time that FDR was sworn in for the third time, and Lucy attended, her husband was now a 79 year old stroke patient who she brought along to Washington in a wheelchair.  She asked FDR to recommend a doctor for him.  She was just 50.

Lucy called the White House code name Mrs. Paul Johnson and visited the President during the time that Missy LeHand prevailed as his personal assistant - when Eleanor was away.  After Missy LeHand had her stroke and was sent away to try to recover at Warm Springs, "The Little White House,"  Lucy began to visit the White House in Washington D.C. for dinners.  Sure, she might be in town visiting her sister.

While Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and World War II brought crisis to the White House and Franklin was so busy he barely called the ailing Missy LeHand back, he still had contact with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd.  She visited the White House on October 20, 1942.  When the President, in failing health, was sworn in for his fourth term, Lucy was there again. 

She packed up and left when FDR fell ill but she called from the road to learn he had died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage only 83 days into that fourth term as President. 

QUESTION FOR READERS: ARE YOU A WIFE STAYING MARRIED EVEN THOUGH HE HAS A MISTRESS?

I'd like to hear from the wives out there who know their husband has a Mistress and have decided to stay married, just like the marriage vows state, till death.

What is your motivation(s)?

Status?
Money/Wealth?
Raising children?
Being able to have relationship(s) outside the marriage?
Believing this too shall pass?
Retirement?
Health/ Health insurance?
Competing with another woman and winning him?

You tell us!

Missy

TORMENT FOR LUCY MERCER AND FRANKLIN

Page 115-116 quote from Franklin and Lucy by Joseph E. Persico

"The torment for Lucy was no less. She was flying in the face of her (Catholic) Churches' teaching, which had been her moral compass since childhood. She had sacrificed crucial years when a young woman should be seeking the security of a good marriage. Her foreboding was assuaged by the hope that someday they might marry.  But what if in the end Franklin would not leave his wife?  Their lives had become a melange of happiness and anxiety, pleasure and guilt, risk and deception.  yet the price was paid and the affair went on."

MEET YOU HALF WAY

MISTRESSES OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

This month - and next - here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT - we'll focus on two of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's mistresses. His marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt endured and was his only marriage - but one in which they were ill suited and very much went their separate ways, especially after she discovered he had an extramarital relationship. Eleanor was crushed and clearly went into a depression, suffering mentally, emotionally and physically, wasting away unable to keep food down when she learned about his mistress Lucy Mercer. Rumors that Eleanor was lesbian surfaced after she kept company with other women who were lesbian.

Though upper crust Americans loathed divorce and he and Eleanor were both from historical American families and very much upper crust, it's said that affairs were tolerated. One of the issues to consider is that at the time contraception was frowned upon, even banned by their Episcopal Church, and that Eleanor went into her marriage an innocent when it came to sex or family planning.  He wanted a large family. After six births and five children to raise, she and he very likely agreed enough was enough and refrained from sex. For her it was easy, for him not.  

Although sexual incompatibility or women worn out from child bearing are contemporary reasons why, it would seem that available contraceptives, legal abortion, and the accommodation of having other sexual relationships before and after marriage may help to preserve marriage today. They want soul mates.  Consider also that in the Roosevelt's day women's opportunities for income earning were limited and gender appropriate activities and roles were emphasized. FDR's mistresses in their relationships with him fulfilled traditional feminine roles of nurturing and assisting a man they admired.

One of FDR's mistresses came from the upper class, though living in "genteel poverty," while they were involved while the other came from a working class family but had acquired polish and poise. They were both employees.

Those of you who are familiar with FDR may know that he was our only four term president and he came into office at a time when the United States was in deep financial problems, after the Roaring Twenties, when poverty meant going hungry; wearing their best clothing purchased years before even middle class Americans were seen mining garbage dumps for food. It was 1933.

FDR is credited with establishing numerous projects and governmental benefits that are functioning today as a safety net, so to speak, to save Americans from ever being that desperate again, which his own class at the time considered a treason against his own. He is considered one of our greatest Presidents. FDR is also a fascinating character because, with the help of so many people in his life and a gentleman's agreement with the press as it was in his day, he hid a severe disability, the inability to walk due to surviving Polio which killed most people who acquired it.

Before we begin our adventure of getting to know these Mistresses, let's learn a bit about Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE : FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL and PARK

HISTORY COM :THE GREAT DEPRESSION and ROOSEVELT'S NEW DEAL

Those of you who are interested in Presidential Mistresses may want to go into my archives of past posts using the Side Bar listings or the Google Search Feature on this blog.

LUCY MERCER RUTHERFURD : FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT's MISTRESS WHOSE EXISTENCE WRECKED ELEANOR and ENHANCED HIS LIFE

LUCY MERCER RUTHERFURD

1891-1948

Their relationship never really ended, though after they ended the affair and she married another man, it may have been a deep friendship; Lucy Mercer managed to attend his Presidential Inaugurations (four of them) as Mrs. Rutherfurd; she'd married an older rich man after Franklin said he could not leave his marriage. She called him at the White House, using the code name Mrs. Paul Johnson. She came back into the President's life and visited him at the White House, Hyde Park, and Warm Springs (The Little White House) when in her 50's and fifteen years after their affair. She was there at Warm Springs, the Polio rehab resort that Roosevelt purchased and turned into a non profit, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. 

When they first met, she was an upper class woman living in genteel poverty who needed to work to pay the rent and help her mother. Lucy Mercer was hired by Franklin's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, to be her social secretary, thus entering the Roosevelt home as an employee. She was 18 and had just finished school in Europe. She was paid $30 a week - not bad for the times. She was ladylike and some thought her bearing regal.

Lucy began her relationship with the future President of the United States before Polio crippled his legs. Before he entered politics.

*

Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife and eventual First Lady of the United States, is a feminist icon today but back in the day she was primarily a loyal and dutiful wife and mother who was defined by the expectations of Upper Crust Society and Christian womanhood. Eleanor was just fifteen years old when she went to Allenwood, a private school in England, to be educated, the founder an "out" lesbian. At eighteen she came to New York and debuted in 1902 as marriage ready, a spectacle she dreaded and fled as soon as she could. (Shades of our Mistress of the Month Edie Bouvier - Mistress of the Month - August 2014). No great beauty and unsure of herself, Eleanor was destined to do charity work and be a wife and mother. She joined the Junior League and would later work with the poor in a Settlement House but as Camilla Parker Bowles (our Mistress of the Month for May 2010 and April 2016) and  Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman (March and April this year), also experienced, finding a husband was the reason for being a debutante. Importantly, in 1902, President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was more related to Eleanor than Franklin, but the families had high expectations since one of their own achieved this most important office.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt came from one of America's oldest families Old Dutch and Protestant. His mother's wealth kept him in line with her expectations. He was a Preppie, graduating from Groton and then onto Harvard where he was most known for his athletics, his membership in The Fly Club, a graduate of the class of 1904.  

It was FDR's dominating mother who threw him a three day house party at their estate, Hyde Park. Eleanor and her maid stayed the duration. Their connection as cousins wasn't first cousins as their common ancestor lived five generations earlier and she was more closely related to Teddy, the President. He was still at Harvard, not yet in Columbia Law School. Perhaps FDR wanted a broodmare of a wife and nothing more at that age. Oddly, when their surprising engagement occurred, it was his mother who was so against the marriage that she asked them to keep it a secret for a year. For the rest of their lives just about everyone thought them to be an ill matched couple. When the marriage fractured upon the revelation l of his relationship with Lucy Mercer, it was his mother who was against divorce.

Though he was tall, handsome, and known for his energy and she was plain and awkward, her looks being commented upon as such for her entire life, both had their own incomes. Eleanor brought to the marriage an annual $8000 a year (about $169,000 in 2008 dollars), while he brought $5000.  This was not enough for the lifestyle they wanted and his mom provided the extras such as private school educations for their children. The couple destined for an enduring but not happy marriage wed March 17, 1905. She was 20 and he was 23, both likely virgins. They both left others with broken hearts - or at least others who were interested. Their wedding was shared with New York - a parade even - attended by New York Society. But the poor Mercers did not attend.  Lucy Mercer was just fourteen years old.

Tall, blue eyed, with almost blonde thick hair, with beautiful skin and voice, poised and chic, Lucy Mercer was hired (as May Pang, May 2012 Mistress of the Month had been by Yoko Ono, ex Beatle John Lennon's wife) to be an in home secretary. Franklin had begun his law career and four years later was still a clerk - nothing illustrious to brag about. He went clubbing - the Knickerbocker, Harvard, the Yacht Club, without Eleanor and started thinking about politics, even dreaming about the American Presidency.  After bearing two children, his mom, in 1908, bought them a brownstone in New York and decorated it - right next door to hers - leaving Eleanor to feel she had no home of her own. Summers for Eleanor and the children were spent at Campobello Island, also dominated by his mom. The Roosevelt's were starting to live separate lives.

In 1913, eight years married, FDR achieved his first step towards the Presidency, when he was sworn in as assistant to the Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. He wasn't going to be home much.  Eleanor's social obligations to visit other women increased her work load as she was expected, in those days so long before social networking on the Internet, to physically call on others to say hello. She could leave a card or end up spending hours. She had to make about thirty (30) calls each afternoon, visiting other wives of government officials. Lucy Mercer and her mom were now living in Washington D.C.  When in late 1913 Lucy Mercer was hired part time to help Eleanor as her Social Secretary, the children liked her too.  By now there were five.  So did Franklin, who also started giving her work.  He was 34 years old.

By 1916, World War I era, Lucy and Franklin were in love. He kept delaying his visit to Campobello Island. In 1917 Eleanor was still oblivious and having Lucy over for dinners and including eligible men as guests. But the dutiful wife pickled up a vibe and fired her.  Five days later FDR found the way to keep her around.  He got Lucy hired as a Yeoman  (or Yoemanette) 3rd class (F) Serial 1160, in the Navy, with a year taken off her age of 26 to his 35.  She was enlisted.  In uniform now, she also earned enough money to pay the rent for her and her mother.  She still went to the Roosevelts home and did work for Franklin in Eleanor's absence. 

Among the gossips in their family and social circle the affair was known. Certain people were providing them places to meet up and invited them to social events as a couple.  Yet Lucy in 1917 also met Winthrop Rutherfurd, an older and rich man, a widower with six children who needed a mom. As the passion of their relationship heated up, Franklin and Lucy became reckless.  Lucy was a Catholic and there was speculation that the two were just sweethearts, not sexually involved.  But shortly after Lucy got promoted as a Yoeman because of her perfect work, she was suddenly discharged from the Navy by Special Order of the Secretary of the Navy. Clearly some people thought what Franklin was doing to Eleanor was wrong and wanted to break them up.  As a result Lucy had to go work for Franklin at his office and he he had to support her.

In the summer of 1918, with World War I keeping him busy, he left town for a couple months.  Eleanor found the letters that Lucy had written to Franklin in his absence. She was utterly devastated, injured emotionally, psychologically, and physically, and become so ill she could not stomach even a Communion wafer. He arrived home ill so she waited till he was well to confront him.  She offered him a divorce.  Adultery at the time was considered tolerable but divorce not.  Now her ally, Franklin's mother said she would cut him off financially if he divorced.  What of his political ambition?  FDR lied to Lucy, saying that Eleanor would not give him a divorce. Nor did he explain that in order to avoid divorce he had agreed to give her up as well as never again sleep in the same bed as Eleanor...

Winthrop Rutherfurd was a great catch though 29 years older than Lucy Mercer.  In 1919, the handsome and debonair man who once courted Consuelo Vanderbilt before she married the 9th Duke of Marlborough (Blenheim Palace), was in his late 50's.  He had homes in Washington, New York, Paris - and an estate in New Jersey.  He was one of their set.  Once friends with Eleanor's father and President Theodore Roosevelt, her cousin.  He supposedly had affairs until he settled down to be married near 40 years old in 1902 to the Vice President's daughter. She had died.

In 1920 Lucy was engaged to marry him and didn't want Franklin to find out in the newspapers so she asked that he hear about it in passing during a social visit of some mutual friends.  Apparently when Franklin did hear about it, he was as we say today, tweaked.

In her marriage to Winthrop, Lucy found love and position.The six children Winthrop had prior to their marriage loved her.  She and Winthrop had one child of their own, a daughter. The relationship endured until his death.  

But, she and Franklin kept in touch.  He had a massive cerebral hemorrhage and she packed up and left - perhaps not wanting to be found there at his end where his family should be. She called from the road to learn he had indeed died.

And so the saga went.  Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. He left half his estate to his wife, Eleanor, and half to, not Lucy, who was well to do in her own right due to her marriage, and half to Missy LeHand.  Lucy died of Leukemia at the age of 57, on July 31, 1948.


Missy

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ELEANOR and FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT

Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt were cousins but the connection wasn't close. Their ancestor in common was five generations earlier. Their marriage was the only marriage each of them made and it lasted until his death but it accommodated at least two women who were with Franklin, before and after his Presidency and possibly Eleanor also had a relationship outside the marriage - with a lesbian woman. He is the United States only President to be elected four terms and kept to keep his disability from Polio a secret.