First Ladies: Eleanor Roosevelt (Part One)

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Hello, everyone. My adorable little puppy, Dorothy, is going crazy right now. My husband just came in and riled her up, so hopefully, we will not be hearing any of her shenanigans in the background, because I have quite a bit to get to today. I knew this was going to be a big one. That's why I put it off for so long. But I am covering Eleanor Roosevelt this week to kind of round up the entire first lady's month shenanigans that I've been going off on throughout July. But of course, I am going to have to split this episode into two parts because there is just so much to discuss. I'm planning on discussing her childhood all the way up to World War II today. We'll see if I'm able to get all of that in within about an hour. And then next week, we are going to go from World War II through the end of Eleanor's life and speak a little bit more about her personal life behind the scenes that historians only began to discover years after her death. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. It's a little bit gay, obviously. I feel like most people know that by now about Eleanor. So with that, let's get right into it. She was born Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, but chose to begin going by her middle name at a very early age. On October 11th, 1884, in Manhattan, New York, to two wealthy socialites, Anna Rebecca Hall and Elliot Roosevelt. I don't know about any other millennials out there, but every time I hear the date, October 11th, I immediately think of the parent trap, a la Lindsay Lohan. Her mother Anna was known as a celebrated, beautiful woman whose father was a wealthy banker and a merchant, and whose uncles were famed tennis champions. And Elliot Roosevelt was the younger brother of former president Theodore Roosevelt, which made Teddy Eleanor's uncle. Her world was one of immense wealth and privilege, and her family was well known in New York's high society called the Swells, which of course immediately made me start singing We Are a Couple of Swells from Easter Parade. You know I'm going to fit a Judy Garland reference in anywhere I can. Eliot's wealth mostly came from a fortune he inherited in 1878 after his father passed away. Eleanor's nickname Granny was given to her by her mother when she was young, as she always acted so seriously.
Her mother was not only a bit of a bully to Eleanor, but also pretty emotionally distant, and was obviously ashamed of her daughter's alleged plainness. Like I said, her mother was known to be incredibly beautiful. She had many sisters, and she was known to be the most beautiful of all of the sisters. It's so rude. I feel like back in the day, people would claim to have favorite children and most beautiful daughters, just so flippantly, just not thinking about anyone else's feelings. It doesn't seem like her father was much better either, as Elliot struggled with some pretty intense alcoholism, eventually landing himself in rehab. He also had a longtime mistress named Katie Mann, who was a young servant girl when the affair began, which had even produced a son, Elliot Roosevelt Mann, in 1891
It's such a burn because they even named the baby after Elliot. Like, oh, yikes. And it's even more awkward when after Eleanor, her parents, Anna and Elliot, had another son named Elliot, Elliot Jr. And then they had another son named Hall Roosevelt, which I actually really like. The family was also a part of the Episcopalian Church, for which Eleanor was very devout throughout her life. When Eleanor was two years old on May 19th, 1887, she and her father, mother and aunt Tissie were aboard the SS Britannic when it collided with the white starliner SS Celtic. The reason for the collision was thick fog, covering about 350 miles of sea. The Celtic, who held 870 passengers, was headed westbound for New York City, and the Britannic, carrying 450 passengers, was on their second day of a journey eastward to Liverpool, England. Six steerage passengers, or the ones with the lowest social status on the ship, were sadly killed immediately, and later six were found to be missing, having been washed overboard. The passengers on board, including little Eleanor, began to rush toward the lifeboats, and they were filled first with women and children, of course, though a few men forced their way on board. Jackasses. Apparently, as Eleanor was being lowered into her lifeboat, she began screaming and crying in protest. She and her parents were taken on to the Celtic, which had less damage, and eventually they returned to New York after Eleanor fought against the prospect of getting back on board a ship to continue their trip to Europe. I don't blame her. I wouldn't want to go back on another boat. Jesus. But her parents still wanted to go on vacation, so they decided to leave little Eleanor with an aunt, and they went off to Europe without her.