MARGUERITE "MISSY" LeHAND - OFFICE WIFE - and WARM SPRINGS MISTRESS OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

MARGUERITE ALICE "MISSY" LeHAND

September 1896- July 1944

One of the primary references for this month's posts (along with last month's book Franklyn and Lucy), author Kathryn Smith, who wrote The Gatekeeper, is said to have had access to Missy's family.  While this was probably a good thing, I have to wonder if she was influenced by their desire to, perhaps, preserve the reputation of one of their own. In The Gatekeeper, any discussion of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Missy being more than professional associates and very good friends is nonexistent. In fact the book states that her unshakable loyalty to the President should not be "marginalized" (page 10) into characterizing her as a mistress or love starved secretary.  By my way of thinking for some men their Mistress is the one person who makes their lives worth living. Well, was Missy perhaps love starved because she never married (or had children) and her relationship with FDR seems to have kept other men (with one known exception) out of the picture? 

At one point there was a four way relationship going on in the White House - both Eleanor and Franklin had another person they were close to living there - for support - be it business or personal.

When Missy was pursued by a man who was available, William "Bill" Bullitt, well, she chose not to go where the relationship could have lead. Maybe women this career oriented, ambitious, and driven were so rare at the time that Missy was not understood. 

Or maybe the truth is that she was in love with her boss and wanted to become indispensable to him. She rarely left him alone, even if it meant not having a personal life outside work. She indulged in his stamp collecting hobby with him.  She was in the passenger seat in FDR's specially designed car as he took them on long, sometimes dare-devil rides. And she dressed to impress.  In 1934 the fashion industry elected Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady, one of the ten best dressed women of the year. Missy made a big attempt to upgrade her wardrobe.

However, in this situation, it seems the contest for FDR's affections wasn't between Missy LeHand and Eleanor Roosevelt but between Missy with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd.  Missy would have been well aware of Lucy's visits to the White House.  

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My personal definition of Mistress comes in to play here. For instance in the news Amazon's owner Jeff Bezos was said to be having an affair with a woman named Lauren Sanchez who was called his Mistress simply because adultery was involved. (Since there have been divorce proceedings and Lauren is known as his partner.) Though a man of his great wealth could be a Sugar Daddy to a career woman who earns her own substantial money, there isn't much reason for Sanchez to be thought of as a Mistress, even if she was "the other woman."

Though it's rare, I believe true love can also not include sex, even when people are healthy and in youth. Various sexualities including asexuality can take place in a relationship. There are many ways to love and erotic love is just one of those ways.  I bring this up because there is a question about FDR's ability to be sexual because of his disability.  As last month's book by Joseph E. Persico argued, there was also an assumption that FDR no longer had sex after he was paralyzed. There is also a question of Missy Lehand's physical health preventing her from being sexual. A speculation of the author's is that because Missy's heart was damaged due to rheumatic fever in the pre-antibiotic days, when she was 15, and she was left with a heart condition, she would know better than to have sex or get pregnant and that being a semi invalid is something she had in common with FDR that bonded them.  (Hadn't anyone heard of contraception?)   What is  being suggested is that if a person can't be full on sexual then they can't have affairs so there is no way physically one or both of them could have.  What about deep emotional bonds? 

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Missy LeHand was FDR's private secretary and right hand woman, on call 24/7, giving a broader definition to the term "office wife."  Being FDR's Mistress might just explain why Missy was living in the White House and seen going in and out of his room at all hours in nightgown and robe or why she chose to own so many blue evening gowns; Blue was his favorite color. Why would she consider being on call day and night reasonable if it was strictly business? Why would being FDR's Mistress have to deny that her secretarial and organizational skills were excellent, that she was ambitious, or that she was like the White House Chief of Staff in his administration? 

Missy LeHand was of Irish-American heritage, from a blue collar family, a high school graduate. At 20, she took what was a man's job - stenography (!) which some might consider a feminist move. During World War I, in 1917, a civil service test landed her work for the Ordinance Board of the Department of the Navy while FDR was in the Navy but they did not yet meet. She lasted three week at the Ordinance Board and went from D.C. to Philadelphia where she went to work for Democratic party campaign. FDR ran as VP and lost. Next she went to New York City. She was willing to go where the better jobs were. Workaholic?  Defying her own disability - a rheumatic heart as a fever survivor, it was said she had to be careful of exerting herself.

She called him F.D. She started working for FDR eight months before he was stricken with polio and she made it through all three of his Presidential terms and into the fourth, before she had two strokes, which began her decline. But then again, if you worked around the clock for 20 years, chain smoking all the while, might yours give out? She was there for the President in the White House and at Warm Springs,  referred to as The Little White House, the old resort that became a non profit for polio victims experiencing paralysis. 

In January 1921 she came to work for the Democratic National Convention and went on the campaign trail.  FDR's disability may have given him a new world view as he came in contact with other "Polios" from all walks of life. He was the only four term U.S. President and got the country through the Great Depression. During his years of Presidency, FDR instituted programs such as Social Security. 

Missy had a terrible time when she lost her ability to work, as she was devoted to her "duty" but the Roosevelt's didn't entirely forget her.  It's said that they not only paid her medical bills but maintain her grave to this day.


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