The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (11 page)

If they were going on a cruise from Campobello, I had to stock the boat up with food for the first few days, and after their return they always told me what delicious things they had had to eat on the boat. Apparently their idea of perfection was a combination of sausages, syrup and pancakes for every meal, varied occasionally by lobsters or scrambled eggs. My husband was the cook as well as the captain and was proud of his prowess.

One evening the next winter, we were having some people in to dinner, the nurse was out, and about six-thirty, after having her bottle and being put to bed, instead of placidly going to sleep, Anna began to howl, and she howled without stopping while I dressed for dinner. Our guests began to arrive. I called the doctor. He asked me if I thought she might have a little wind, and was I sure I had gotten up all the bubbles after her last bottle? I did not dare tell him I had completely forgotten to put her over my shoulder and had no idea whether the bubbles had come up or not. He suggested that I turn her on her tummy and rub her back, so, with my guests arriving downstairs, I told Franklin he would have to start dinner without me. I picked up my howling baby, put her over my knee on her tummy, and in a few minutes she smiled and gurgled. After I had rubbed her back for some time she got rid of her troubles and, when put back to bed, went to sleep like a lamb. I went down to dinner, but was so wrought up by this time that I felt I had to go and look at her several times during the evening, and finally succeeded in waking her up before the nurse came home. I was obliged to leave my guests again before they departed. After this experience I registered a vow that never again would I have a dinner on the nurse’s day out.

I know now that what we should have done was to have no servants those first few years; so I could have acquired knowledge and self-confidence and other people could not fool me about either the housework or the children. However, my bringing up had been such that this never occurred to me, nor did it occur to any of the older people who were closest to me. Had I done this, my subsequent troubles would have been avoided and my children would have had far happier childhoods. As it was, for years I was afraid of my nurses, who from this time on were usually trained English nurses who ordered me around quite as much as they ordered the children.

As a rule, they kept the children in pretty good health and I think were really fond of them, but I had a silly theory that you should trust the people with your children and back up their discipline. As a result, my children were frequently unjustly punished, because I was unprepared to be a practical housekeeper, wife or mother.

In the winter of 1907 I had a rather severe operation and was successful in getting Miss Spring to come back to me. Dr. Albert H. Ely, who was our family doctor, performed this operation in our own house, and I was found to be considerably weaker than anyone had dreamed. As a result, they thought I was not coming out of the ether, and I returned to consciousness to hear a doctor say, “Is she gone? Can you feel her pulse?”

The pain was considerable, but as my own impulse was never to say how I felt I do not think I mentioned this until some time later on. I simply refused to speak to those who approached me, and they probably thought that I was far more ill than I really was.

During the time my husband was at law school he had long summer holidays which made it possible for us to be at Campobello. In the summer of 1907 Mr. and Mrs. Henry Parish came to stay with us. I went with my husband to meet them on their arrival on the evening train. A thick fog made crossing the bay blind sailing, but my husband prided himself that with the engine he could do it and strike the exact spot he was headed for. We reached Eastport, Maine, without any mishap, and got our cousins aboard.

On the return trip the compass light went out. Someone brought my husband a lantern and hung it on the main boom so he could see his course. He rang his bell for slow speed at the proper moment, but no buoy appeared for us to pick up, no land was in sight. After proceeding cautiously for some little time, the man on the bowsprit called out, “Hard aport,” and there, above us, loomed the Lubec docks, with just enough room to sheer off. Much annoyed and completely mystified, my husband reset his course for Campobello, realizing we had come through a narrow passageway and just by luck had not found ourselves in the tide running through the Narrows. About three minutes later “Hard over” came from the bowsprit, and we just missed a tiny island with one tree on it, which was entirely off our course.

It dawned on my husband that the lantern swinging from the boom was of iron and had been attracting the compass! From there on we used matches, and found our way through the narrow pass and back to our buoy without any further difficulties. Mr. and Mrs. Parish had an uncomfortable time and I think were relieved that five days of solid fog made further sailing impossible for the rest of their stay.

I was having difficulty that summer with my brother. I nagged and expected too much of him. In my most exasperating Griseldaish mood I refused to take any further responsibility. One of my most maddening habits, which must infuriate all those who know me, is this habit, when my feelings are hurt or when I am annoyed, of simply shutting up like a clam, not telling anyone what is the matter, and being much too obviously humble and meek, feeling like a martyr and acting like one. Years later a much older friend of mine pointed this out to me and said that my Griselda moods were the most maddening things in the world. I think they have improved since I have been able to live more lightly and have a certain amount of humor about myself. They were just a case of being sorry for myself and letting myself enjoy my misery.

But those first years I was serious and a certain kind of orthodox goodness was my ideal and ambition. I fully expected that my young husband would have these same ideas, ideals and ambitions. What a tragedy it was if in any way he offended against these ideals of mine—and, amusingly enough, I do not think I ever told him what I expected!

On December 23, 1907, our first boy, James, was born, and with what relief and joy I welcomed him, for again I had been worried for fear I would never have a son, knowing that both my mother-in-law and my husband wanted a boy to name after my husband’s father.

This winter of 1907-08 I still think of as one of the times in my life which I would rather not live over again. We could not find any food that would agree with the new baby. Miss Spring was pressed into service, and we turned one of our living rooms into a bedroom, for we had meant to put the two babies together, but when the younger one cried every night all night that was not practicable.

I had a curious arrangement out of one of my back windows for airing the children, a kind of box with wire on the sides and top. Anna was put out there for her morning nap. On several occasions she wept loudly, and finally one of my neighbors called up and said I was treating my children inhumanly and that she would report me to the S.P.C.C. if I did not take her in at once! This was a shock to me, for I thought I was being a most modern mother. I knew fresh air was necessary, but I learned later that the sun is more important than the air, and I had her on the shady side of the house!

I also learned that healthy babies do not cry long, and that it is wise to look for the reason when a baby does any amount of prolonged crying.

My mother-in-law thought that our house was too small, and that year she bought a plot and built in East 65th Street two houses, Nos. 47 and 49. Charles A. Platt, an architect of great taste, did a remarkable piece of work. The houses were narrow, but he made the most of every inch of space and built them so that the dining rooms and drawing rooms could be thrown together and made practically one big room.

My early dislike of any kind of scolding had developed now into a dislike for any kind of discussion and so, instead of taking an interest in these houses, one of which I was to live in, I left everything to my mother-in-law and my husband. I was growing dependent on my mother-in-law, requiring her help on almost every subject, and never thought of asking for anything that I thought would not meet with her approval.

She was a very strong character, but because of her marriage to an older man she had disciplined herself into living his life and enjoying his belongings, and as a result she felt that young people should cater to older people. She gave great devotion to her own family and longed for their love and affection in return. She was somewhat jealous of anything that might mean a really deep attachment outside the family circle. She had warm friends of her own, but she did not believe that friendship could be on the same par with family relations.

Her husband had told her never to live with her children, that it was one thing to have children dependent upon you but intolerable to be dependent on them. This she repeated to me often, but I doubt if she realized that with certain natures it is advisable to force independence and responsibility upon them young.

In the autumn of 1908 I did not know what was the matter with me, but I remember that a few weeks after we moved into the new house on East 65th Street I sat in front of my dressing table and wept, and when my bewildered young husband asked me what on earth was the matter with me, I said I did not like to live in a house which was not in any way mine, one that I had done nothing about and which did not represent the way I wanted to live. Being an eminently reasonable person, he thought I was quite mad and told me so gently, and said I would feel different in a little while and left me alone until I should become calmer.

I pulled myself together and realized that I was acting like a little fool, but there was a good deal of truth in what I had said, for I was not developing any individual taste or initiative. I was simply absorbing the personalities of those about me and letting their tastes and interests dominate me.

Because my husband played golf I made a valiant effort at Campobello one year to practice every day, trying to learn how to play. After days of practice I went out with my husband, and after watching me for a few minutes he remarked that he thought I might as well give it up! My old sensitiveness about my inability to play games made me give it up then and there. I never attempted anything but walking with my husband for many years to come.

For ten years I was always just getting over having a baby or about to have one, and so my occupations were considerably restricted during this period. I did, however, take lessons rather intermittently, in an effort to keep up my French, German and Italian. I did a great deal of embroidery during these years, a great deal of knitting, and an amount of reading which seems incredible to me today when other things take up so much of my time. I doubt that there was a novel or a biography or any book that was widely discussed in the circles in which we moved which I did not read. This does not mean, of course, that I read in a wide field, for we moved still with a restricted group of friends.

On March 18, 1909, another baby was born to us, the biggest and most beautiful of all the babies—the first baby Franklin. Because of all the trouble I had had with James, I was worried about his food and kept Miss Spring with us for several months. The baby seemed to be getting on well, but I loved having her with us and insisted on keeping her until after we had been in Campobello for some time. She did not leave until sometime around the early part of August.

I had an English nurse then for the other two children. I also had a young German girl, and together they took charge of the three children.

In the autumn we moved back to Hyde Park, and I was beginning to go up and down between New York and Hyde Park. All of a sudden they notified me that all the children had the flu and that baby Franklin was very ill. No one knew how serious it might be. I dashed back, taking Miss Spring and a New York doctor with me. We spent a few harrowing days there, moved the baby to New York, but his heart seemed affected and, in spite of all we could do, he died on November 8, not quite eight months old. We took him to Hyde Park to bury him and, to this day, so many years later, I can stand by his tiny stone in the churchyard and see the little group of people gathered around his tiny coffin, and remember how cruel it seemed to leave him out there alone in the cold.

I was young and morbid and reproached myself bitterly for having done so little about the care of this baby. I felt he had been left too much to the nurse, and I knew too little about him, and that in some way I must be to blame. I even felt that I had not cared enough about him, and I made myself and all those around me most unhappy during that winter. I was even a little bitter against my poor young husband who occasionally tried to make me see how idiotically I was behaving.

My next child, Elliott Roosevelt, was born at 49 East 65th Street on September 23, 1910. I left Campobello early that summer to await his arrival in New York City. The other children returned to Hyde Park with my mother-in-law. She was in and out of New York and so was my husband, who was making his first campaign for state senator.

After my husband graduated from law school and was admitted to the bar, he worked in the firm of Carter, Ledyard and Milburn, a much-respected and old-established firm in New York City. He was doing well and Mr. Ledyard liked him, but Franklin had a desire for public service, partly encouraged by Uncle Ted’s advice to all young men and partly by the glamour of Uncle Ted’s example. Mr. Ledyard was genuinely disturbed but my husband decided to accept the nomination in his district, which for thirty-two years had never elected a Democrat.

My husband’s branch and many of the Roosevelt family had been Democrats until the Civil War, when they became Abraham Lincoln Republicans. Later most of them returned to their Democratic allegiance, but some remained Republicans.

I listened to all his plans with great interest. It never occurred to me that I had any part to play. I felt I must acquiesce in whatever he might decide and be willing to go to Albany. My part was to make the necessary household plans and to do this as easily as possible if he should be elected. I was having a baby, and for a time at least that was my only mission in life.