Word: eleanor
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Shortly afterward, her parents separated; when Eleanor was eight, her mother died of diphtheria. The child frankly hoped that at last she would see more of her adored father. What usually happened was more like the afternoon he took her and three of their fox terriers for a walk as far as the Knickerbocker Club and parked his charges with the doorman. When father had not emerged six hours later, the doorman took child and dogs home...
...When Eleanor was ten, Elliott died -literally from falling down drunk. The little girl went to live with her maternal grandmother Hall, who still had five unruly offspring at home in Oak Terrace, her Dutchess County mansion, and was none too quick of wit. There, too, liquor flowed as surely as the water in the Hudson near by. Eleanor's Uncle Vallie, only 25, was a mean, unpredictable drunk who, among other things, took potshots at people walking on the grounds. Unsteady of aim, he always missed, but such pastimes made daily life harrowing. Eleanor befriended the laundress...
...knows what would have become of her if her grandmother, surveying the Gothic shambles at Oak Terrace, had not shipped her off to an English boarding school in 1899. Miraculously, it was an enlightened place in which Eleanor blossomed. She excelled at studies, developed poise, and made the joyous discovery that the very traits that bored her family-candor, compassion, energy, an aversion to sham -could be highly valued...
Sara Delano Roosevelt was a rich, idle, unintelligent widow who worshipped her son. Aged 50 when Eleanor and Franklin married, she had 35 years of relentless meddling left in her. It was she who bought the couple's houses (near or adjoining hers), furnished them with her own dreadful taste, staffed them with cadres of servants. When the six children began arriving, she contested Eleanor over every matter of upbringing. Franklin Jr. once recalled: "Granny referred to us as 'my children,' adding, 'Your mother only bore...
This triangular menage was apparently just fine with the cool, emotionally evasive Franklin. But why didn't Eleanor, who hated it, have the matter out with both of them? For one thing, she had no confidence in her femininity. Franklin loved gaiety, wit and late-night revels. Eleanor was serious, humorless and terrified of alcohol. As his political career progressed, her duties multiplied. She entertained thousands. What with homes in Hyde Park, Campobello, New York City and wherever Franklin was working, a menage the size of a small army had to be moved several times a year...