Eleanor Roosevelt

Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt had six children, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, James Roosevelt II, Franklin Roosevelt, Elliott Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. and John Aspinwall Roosevelt II.

In April 1960, Eleanor Roosevelt was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. In 1962, she had to be given steroids, which activated a dormant case of bone marrow tuberculosis.

On November 7, 1962 she died from cardiac failure at her Manhattan home. On November 8, the United States flag was flown at half-mast in her honor throughout the world.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 in New York City. Her parents, Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt and Anna Rebecca Hall, were well-known socialites.Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was her father’s elder brother.

Eleanor, who preferred to be known by her second name, was the eldest of her parents’ three children and had two brothers, Elliott Bulloch Jr. and Gracie Hall Roosevelt. In addition, she had a half brother named Elliott Roosevelt Mann, born through her father's liaison with a family employee Katy Mann.

In October 1892, Eleanor’s mother died from diphtheria and in May 1893, her brother Elliott passed away from the same disease. Soon her alcoholic father had to be confined into a sanatorium. He died there in August 1894.

Eleanor and Hall now began to live in the household of their maternal grandmother, Mary Livingston Ludlow, in Tivoli, New York. Although all her material needs were taken care of, mentally she was very unhappy and insecure. In spite of that, she took good care of Hall.

Eleanor was educated at home up to the age of fifteen. Thereafter, at the insistence of her aunt Anna Roosevelt Cowles, her father’s sister and a trusted confidante of President Roosevelt, she was sent to Allenswood Academy, a private finishing school in Wimbledon, England.

In 1902, Eleanor returned to USA at the bidding of her grandmother to be presented at the debutante ball in December. However, by then she had changed a lot and was more interested in social activities than parties and balls.

She now joined the National Consumers League as well as the Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements and volunteered to teach at the College Settlement. Her dedication soon attracted the attention of reform circles in New York.

Also in the summer of 1902, she met Franklin Delano Roosevelt, her father’s fifth cousin from the Hyde Park line of the family. Subsequently, they got married on March 17, 1905 with Theodore Roosevelt signing the marriage certificate as a witness.

For about a decade, Eleanor’s life was controlled by her dominant mother-in-law Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt. She lived in the neighboring property in Hyde Park and for easier access into her son’s home, had connecting doors built between the two properties. She ran both the households.

Later, when her children began to be born, Sara also took control of their upbringing. Eleanor continued to struggle, concentrating on her domestic duties.

In the fall of 1913, FDR joined Woodrow Wilson’s administration as an Assistant Secretary of Navy. Eleanor now began to have a more proactive role, overseeing FDR’s transition from a Senator to a Junior Cabinet Member.

It not only increased her managerial skills, but also boosted her self-confidence. She now became more independent. During the First World War, Eleanor began her war-related work, volunteering to serve the navy hospitals and American Red Cross.

In September 1918, as the WWI was drawing to an end, she discovered that FDR was having an affair with his secretary Lucy Mercer and was contemplating of leaving her. Although the marriage survived, Eleanor became disillusioned with it and from then on the marriage was reduced to a political partnership.