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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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."

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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