I remember telling my family in 1912 I wanted one and, although they didn't quite lock me up, they exercised considerable pressure to get me to reconsider.' Indeed, no one in either branch of the Roosevelt family had ever been divorced. After Cousin Alice Longworth's failed attempt to divorce the chronically faithless Nick Longworth, she noted, 'I don't think one can have any idea how horrendous even the idea of divorce was in those days. Adultery could be concealed, even tolerated, but divorce was a calamity. But imagine the wagging tongues and shaking heads at Oyster Bay. It is 'all very well for you, Eleanor, to speak of being willing to give Franklin his freedom,' she said. The idea that her son wanted to divorce Eleanor was the greatest shock she had suffered since 13 years before when he had told her he intended to marry her. In a tense encounter in Sara's living room, Eleanor, resignedly, spoke of her willingness to give Franklin his freedom.

Together, Persico writes, these women 'satisfied FDR's deep-seated need for adulation, admiration, approval, and respite from the crushing burdens of his office.'Įventually, they would have to face his mother with the truth. The women include his adoring mother, the domineering Sara Delano Roosevelt his homely wife, Eleanor, the trusted adviser and committed social activist the devoted personal aide, Missy LeHand and his great love, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, a beautiful and refined woman who served as a secretary to Eleanor. 'They form and reveal him,' Persico writes.

Persico contends in his new book, Franklin and Lucy, it is impossible to understand the 32nd president without examining one aspect of the private man: the influence of the women who figured so prominently in his life. As the president who lifted the country out of economic despair and stood up to foreign military aggression, FDR offers historians the richest of public material. The life of Franklin Roosevelt has been well analyzed through the lens of politics and policy.

Joseph lash eleanor and franklin