MISSY AND FRANKLIN and ELEANOR and LEANORA - WERE THEY IN CAHOOTS?

Did Missy expect to go off with Franklin into private life after he finally retired the Presidency?

Page 220  EXCERPT 

"What Franklin's character needed Missy LeHand provided, which lead to occasional friction, however politely conducted, between her and Eleanor. The White House staff paid Eleanor the deference due a first lady and found her cheerful and kind. In her whirlwind crusading they also sensed a woman of budding greatness. But as Lillian Parks observed, Missy LeHand was "sunshine and laughter and all the maids loved her."

"In the beginning, she presented a mystery to the staff.  But before long they gauged Missy's significance in the President's life. As Parks put it, 'When Missy gave an order we responded as if it had come from the First lady... We really had two mistresses in the White House.' The servants concluded "that Missy was the substitute wife and we honored her for it."  

By the standard of the 1930's Missy was reasonably well rewarded for her twenty four hours a day devotion. Her salary, in the midst of the Depression, was $3,100 a year.

In actuality there was a four way domestic living arrangement in the White House as Eleanor had Lorena Hickcock, who was called 'Hicks,' there in the evenings and Missy went in and out of the Presidential suite in nightgown and robe.

***
Reference for this post book Franklin and Lucy from the book by Joseph E. Persico, also quoted from last month. 




Missy here. What's implied in reference to Hicks is that Hicks was lesbian.  Did we have a lesbian or bisexual First Lady?

MISSY LeHAND's HEALTH IS RUINED - SHE MAY HAVE TRIED SUICIDE

How serious was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt about Missy LeHand, his personal assistant who is said to have been on call 24/7 for years on end? Known to have a heart condition caused by rheumatic fever, this workaholic woman seemed to not have had a separate personal life due to her total dedication to Franklin, with the exception of Bill Bullit.

In 1941 it all caught up with her and Missy suffered a stroke. After a second serious stroke 17 days later, was no longer able to speak and was paralyzed in her right arm and leg. She had no choice but to step down from her important White House job and the travel it required. Her mental illness issues were considered secondary or caused by her physical ones. She remained in Washington a while and then was sent to Warm Springs to recover.

FDR called in the best specialists and paid all her hospital and nursing bills - eleven doctors - but he was busy with World War II as Hitler had invaded Poland. FDR kept Missy LeHand on the payroll and signed a new will that provided for her medical care, willing one half his income of his estate to his wife Eleanor and the other half to "my friend Marguerite."

He decided to give the building that he and Missy desired to be a Presidential Library at Hyde Park to hold all his papers and memorabilia someday to the National Archives. Giving up on their project together, he called Missy on her 45th birthday in September 13th, 1941. His final in person visit with Missy occurred just weeks later on October 29, 1941. 

He had been spending hours in the White House with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd.

When Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7th, Missy, who seemed to be improving, with setbacks, called FDR. He didn't call her back.  

Missy may have become suicidal. This was a woman who was used to being in an important  and perhaps powerful position and where the action was.  She was now reduced to living incapacitated and retired. She'd lost 25 pounds, at five foot seven, down to 105, wasn't eating, was depressed and crying. She choked on a chicken bone. She started drinking heavily. She set fire to herself with a cigarette. 

It was decided it was time to send her home to her family. She was taken off the Federal government payroll. The Roosevelts continued to pay for her medical care.

She and Franklin had some brief communications; calls, letters, gifts came, but the the two never saw each other again.  Then the trickle of communications came to that she called and he didn't call back, not even at Christmas. Old beau Bill Bullitt came by to see Missy but FDR had moved on. The woman who had once had a "ringside seat to history" was no longer a player.  It took several women - all working at one time - to do the job she had done at the White House!

Are you an Office Wife?

C 2019  Mistress Manifesto  All Rights Reserved

MISSY LEHAND's OTHER MAN : WILLIAM BULLITT and THE CHOICE

Known for her dedication to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,  Missy LeHand seems to have one known serious beau, a man named William "Bill" Bullit who happened to be a State Department staffer and speechwriter for FDR, and then Ambassador to France. He was in her life for about seven years. Missy had a charm bracelet for which Bullitt was one beau who brought her symbolic gold charms.

Missy is said to have lived for Bill's visits. They wrote each other letters. Their last trip together was when they went to Philadelphia with FDR, not long after her 45th birthday.  Bill was about 50 then. It's said that she both broke off the romance and was devastated to have broken it off.  And so Bill's existence in her life makes us wonder if chose FDR over him.

After weeks of 18 hour days, Missy suffered a "health crisis."  What was wrong with her? Though supposed to be related to workaholic stress and the effects on her heart, perhaps it had something to do with FDR's other Mistress, now a married woman, Lucy Mercer, then about 50, who made her first trip to visit FDR at the White House while Missy LeHand was installed there. Lucy was the Mistress who had threatened FDR's marriage and yet he had not left his wife, First Lady of the United States, Eleanor, for her.

Was Missy's chest pain and irregular pulse due to emotional stress?  Her emotions were on a roller coaster.  After her strokes, angry outbursts and hysteria now characterized the woman. Were these emotions part of mitral valve infection?  Did she take opiates or sulfa drugs?  It was 1941, pre penicillin, and Missy's health would soon end her relationship and influence on the President and his administration.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT LIBRARY COLLECTIONS

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT LIBRARY COLLECTIONS

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

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. 

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."

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.

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.