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.
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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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