Eleanor Roosevelt, the greatest of first ladies, was passionate about many things. Yet the love of her life, as these intimate letters reveal, was not her husband, Franklin, but a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking journalist named Lorena Hickok.
LOVE LETTERS TO ELEANOR
by Rodger Streitmatter, author of forthcoming book "Empty Without You"
"Believe me," Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to Lorena Hickock at the end of 1933, "you've taught me more and meant more to me than you know." The influence of the formidable Lorena Hickok, the Associated Press reporter who was not only the first lady's first friend but her secret lover, permeated every aspect of Eleanor's life.
Wounded by Franklin's liaison with her social secretary in 1918, Eleanor had sought out the company of women throughout the '20s. But she didn't meet Lorena until 1928, and only after Roosevelt's election campaign in 1932 did the two become close friends. While covering the campaign for AP,
Lorena was regularly chosen by Eleanor to ask the candidate questions. Lorena -- or Hick, as Eleanor affectionately called her -- persuaded Eleanor to step out from the shadows of the first lady's role and hold weekly press conferences. She enlightened Eleanor about the true misery of the Great Depression (the two women traveled to the destitute coal mines of West Virginia in 1933). And it was in Lorena's company that Eleanor found happiness.
The letters between Eleanor and Lorena have been available to scholars at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, but the public has never been able to read them in their entirety. This selection is taken from 1933-34, when the relationship between the two women was at its most intense. It took place in a period of transition for both of them. Eleanor, 49, had just become first lady; Lorena, 40, had given up reporting for a federal government job investigating poverty-relief programs across the nation.
In the wake of the inauguration, Eleanor writes to Lorena about developments in Washington. They plan to see each other in New York City a week later, and a heightened sense of anticipation fills the first lady's prose. Inspired by Lorena's advice, Eleanor alwo writes about her desire to play more of a public role as first lady.
Eleanor to Lorena
Marcy 9, 1933 The White House
Hick dearest, It was good to talk to you & you sounded a bit happier. . . . The one thing which reconciles me to this job is the fact that I think I can give a great many people pleasure & I begin to think there may be ways in which I can be useful. I am getting some ideas which I want to talk over with you.
Life is pretty strenuous -- one or two A.M. last night & 12:15 now & people still with FDR but this should settle things more or less. My pictures are nearly all up & I have you in my sitting room where I can look at you most of my waking hours! I can't kiss you [in person] so I kiss your picture good night & good morning! This is the first day I've had no letter & I missed it sadly but it is good discipline. Now for the diary! Out with Meggie [Eleanor's dog] as usual.
Breakfast 8:30, 9:30 housekeeper, 10:30 got splint for my finger & went to kitchen. Put books ornaments, etc. around, left at 11:40 for Capitol, back at 1:40 for lunch, & James [the Roosevelts' oldest son] brought a California congressman making us ten instead of eight at last minute which was good training in our ways for the staff!
One more day marked off my dear. My dear if you meet me [in public] may I forget there are other reporters present or must I behave? I shall want to hug you to death. I can hardly wait! A world of love to you & good night & God bless you "light of my life," E.R.
Eight months after the inauguration, Eleanor writes to Lorena from Val-
Kill Cottage, a house close to the Roosevelts' New York estate that FDR had given to his wife in the early 1920s. It was here that the two women met on many occasions. Lorena had now given up her job as a reporter and become chief investigator for the nation's relief program. While in Minnesota, she stayed with her mentor Thomas Dillon, editor of the Minneapolis Tribune.
November 18, 1933 Val-Kill Cottage
Dearest One, It was so good to see your letter this morning & to find you comfortable & happy with the Dillons.
TIME has a dreadful cover picture of me & pages on me, not too scathing I'm told. Does it ever occur to you that it would be pleasant if no one ever wrote about me? Mrs. Doaks would like a little privacy now & then! [Eleanor often referred to herself as Mrs. Doaks.]
I'm back writing to you & wishing you were here. We've had such good times here [at the Val-Kill Cottage] together & I would have enjoyed every minute on the train too with you. We do have such good times together but I'm not unhappy for I like to think of our times here & hope we'll be here again! Dear, I shouldn't have told you so often I was tired for while I've kept rather late hours I am very well & not really tired only a little sleepy & temporarily tired now & then! The eighteenth, less than a month till you return. Bless you & keep well & remember I love you. E.R.
By the end of 1933, the two women are concerned about privacy. There has been gossip about the closeness of their relationship.
November 27, 1933 The White House
Hick dear, I found two letters & a road map to-day & did I devour them! I forgot [to] write you that after 10:30 A.M. on December 15, I will be free to meet you & I will have nothing to do so come as early as you can. Why don't we, if the weather is nice, take our lunch & go off each day to neighboring places? If we think we'll be tempted to stay the night we could take a bag & telephone [back to the White House] what we decided to do. There may be people staying here so I think one night anyway we'll stay away, as otherwise we might have to be polite a while in the evening unless the guests all dine out which is quite unlikely! There's a bit about you & a picture in the Literary Digest. It's nice! Tommy is mailing it to you.
Press conference at 11 this morning, then two women to see, had five of the girls [the women reporters who attended Eleanor's weekly press conferences] to lunch & worked all the rest of the time on accumulated mail, but I'm fairly caught up tho' I won't be able to ride tomorrow. John [Boettiger -- a reporter romantically involved with Anna, the Roosevelts' daughter] came in tonight & dined with us. I do like him. They sat on my sofa all evening & seemed to have a swell time while I worked!
Dear One, & so you think they gossip about us. Well they must at least think we stand separation rather well! I am always so much more optimistic than you are. I suppose because I care so little what "they" say! I rather think some of the girls are getting [to be] pretty good champions! There have been one or two inaccurate stories & I spoke about them this morning [at the press conference] & I trusted the majority of them were with me! A world of love & my thoughts are always with you, E.R.
Still in Minnesota, Lorena writes her most graphic love letter to the first lady. She has not seen Eleanor for more than two months. Lorena's journalistic ability is much in evidence.
December 5, 1933 Lyran Hotels New Yotel Markham and Annex Bemidji, Minnesota
Dear: Tonight it's Bemidji, away up in the timber country, not a bad hotel, and one day nearer you. Only eight more days. Twenty-four hours from now it will be only seven more -- just a week! I've been trying today to bring back your face -- to remember just how you look. Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time. Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips. I wonder what we'll do when we meet -- what we'll say. Well -- I'm rather proud of us, aren't you? I think we've done rather well. A beautiful drive today -- although slippery. I think the president would have got a kick out of it. We drove for miles and miles, it seemed to me, through second-growth pines, a part of the state's reforestation program. Itasca State Park, part of it, at the headwaters of the Mississippi. Lord, they were lovely! But the mere still among them when it got dark, and the road -- where the sun hadn't had a chnace to melt the ice -- was terrible. Almost as bad as the time you and I drove down to New York from Hyde Park the Sunday before March 4. Remember? This is beautiful country, though. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is. We were in one big county today that has within its borders a thousand lakes!
I just got a big kick out of something I overheard. I'm writing this down in the lobby -- since I want to hear the President's speech and don't want to climb the two flights to my room twice in one evening -- and half a dozen men sitting nearby have been talking politics. One of them said he'd be willing to bet on the president's reelection in 1936. "Well, I don't know," another said, "a lot of things can happen in three years." "Oh, hell," another put in, "he's got more friends now than he had when he went in." And they all agreed on that. This has been a funny day. They're so damned slow up here. The cold seems to get into their very muscles and brains and makes it impossible for them to do anything rapidly. (The gang next to me are talking now about recovery. "I think things will hold just about as they are for a while," one of them said. "They're just getting organized."
"Yeah -- we can't expect things to get going in a big way for a few months," another said. And they all nodded in agreement and seemed perfectly satisfied!) I was in one village today where not a single man had been put to work under CWA. They just can't seem to get started. I gravely suspect my old friend [Governor] Floyd Olson of playing politics with relief in Minnesota. I gather that Floyd runs the show himself and is too busy to do a decent job of it. The two states out here where they are doing the best jobs on relief and CWA -- South Dakota and Iowa -- have the least interference from their governors. North Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota -- all bad. I tell you -- Floyd is for Floyd. And that's that. And if I were Harry Hopkins or Henry Morgenthau or any of the rest of the boys down in Wahsington, I'd never forget it -- not for a moment. Floyd is for Floyd and, I suspect, a not too scrupulous fighter. He's got brains, too, and that makes him all the more dangerous. There's no point in all this, except that I have a feeling that both Mr. Hopkins and Henry Morgenthau [who were close allies of FDR's: Hopkins was then head of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration; Morgenthau was secretary of the treasury] are quite impressed by him. I believe that Floyd would see all the Swedes in Minnesota -- except himself -- drawn and quartered if it would be to his advantage. He's an ambitious young man, Floyd is. Darling, I've been thinking about you so much today. What a swell person you are to back me up the way you do on this job! We do things together, don't we? And it's fun, even though the fact that we both have work to do keeps us apart. Good night, dear one. I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth. And in a little more than a week now -- I shall! H
December 8, 1933 The Androy Hibbing, Minnesota
My dear, I'm feeling confused and indignant. An elevator boy just said to me: "Are you a Girl Scout leader?" "Good God, no!" I replied, consternation depriving me of all discretion. "Whatever put any such idea in your head?" "Your uniform," he replied. I'm wearing that old dark gray skirt -- the one you never liked -- with a gray sweater. And to soften the neckline a little, I wear that dark red liberty scarf of mine knotted about the throat. That costume, topped off by a brimmed black felt slouch hat and supported by low-heeled golf shoes. Oh, lord, I wonder how many people in the farm belt these last few weeks have thought I was a Girl Scout leader! My very soul writhes in anguish. Well, here we are at the end of another day, and only six more to go. Darling, I am getting so excited! You're going to be shocked when you see me. I should be returning to you wan and thin from having lived on a diabetic diet, but I'm afraid I've gained instead of losing weight. Just you or Doctor [Ross] McIntire [the White House physician] try to live on green vegetables and fruit, without starch or sugar, in country hotels, where they have nothing but meat, bread, potatoes, pie, and cake and see how far you'd go without breaking over. Besides -- I feel so perfectly well, and I'm living such an active life, and yet so hungry. Up here in this clear, cold, northern Minnesota air, I have an appetite that would do justice to Paul Bunyan himself. Ever hear of Paul Bunyan? He's the legendary hero of the lumberjacks. He used to bite off the tops of Jack pines with his teeth! Up and out early every morning. Good cold mornings. It was five below in Brainerd this morning, and ten below here. In and out of the car. Tramping around over CWA projects. Long, busy days. Lady, I get hungry! And I can't think there's anything so very much wrong with me when I feel so perfectly healthy. Well, I've been pretty good about sweets. No candy, of course. And very few desserts. (Did you ever eat cracked-wheat bread, by the way? Delicious!) And I'm very much afraid I've gained weight. I've just resolved -- again -- to be good until I get back to Washington. But -- I probably shan't. Oh, by the way, I had a funny experience the other night, in Bemidji. At the table next to me in the dining room were two men, and I overheard one of them say to the other:
"Do you remember that Lorena Hickok who used to be a writer on the Minneapolis Tribune? You know, she used to write all those feature stories. Well, she's in town. Her name's out on the register. She went to New York, and sometimes the Tribune still published her articles. She's registered from Washington, D.C. Wonder what she's doing now." It made me feel sort of self-conscious and embarrassed, although I did get something of a kick out of it. There is, to be sure, an unemployment problem here that will never be cured probably. In the last three years, the open pit mines -- the largest open pit mine in the world is at Hibbing -- have gone in for modern machinery. They've bought electric shovels, for instance, and one man with an electric shovel can do the work of eight men on a steam shovel. Well, among other things, we really have an industrial revolution on our hands, haven't we? Oh, my dear -- I can hardly wait to see you! Day after tomorrow, Minneapolis and letters from you. A week from now -- right this minute -- I'll be with you! Good night, my dear. God keep you! H
I'm sleepy. There was a mouse in my room last night, and I lay awak half the night worrying about it. I would. H
January 9, 1934 The White House
Hick darling, It was a crime to wake you last night but I was glad to hear your voice. Oh! Dear one, it means so much to me to talk to you for a few minutes even at 2 A.M.! We had a very long & satisfactory meeting on Arthurdale last night & this morning at 11 A.M. Mrs. Morgenthau & I went & visited schools. I had my exercises & swim, too! We were late for the ladies of the cabinet lunch but there was nothing to talk about & it was brief. Then mail & preparation for Tommy's tea [Tommy was Eleanor Roosevelt's secretary], 4 P.M. a Hawaiian table presented, five Tommy's party & I think she enjoyed it. She had to have a car take her & the loot home! Since then, I've greeted five house guests & now I must dress for one of our intimate little dinners & receptions! I'd like to be traveling with you! The schools were interesting today because the colored one was so much better than the white -- remind me to tell you about it! School lunches especially done with imagination in the colored school & without in the white. I love you beyond words & long for you, but I'm so tired now that I'm glad this is written for it might not have been done to-night! Dear one, I wish you were here. A world of love, E.R.