REVISED: "How Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) Became First Lady of the World (REVISED)," by Betty and Franklin Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net  Dialogue Given April 5, 2012, Cumberland Mountain State Park, Crossville, TN, to the Eleanor Roosevelt Society Fund Raiser (REVISED, May 15, 2012).

Background;  We Parkers were asked to give this dialogue on May 5, 2012, soon after the following article about us appeared in the Crossville (TN) Chronicle by Chronicle contributor Jean Clark, April 2, 2012 (http://crossville-chronicle.com/features/x1437246604/Mrs-Roosevelt-pays-a-visit-to-Pleasant-Hill)

“Mrs. Roosevelt pays a visit to Pleasant Hill,” By Jean Clark, Chronicle contributor, CROSSVILLE, TN — Franklin and Betty Parker of Pleasant Hill have been and are still extensive researchers and prolific writers. As teachers, librarians, researchers, professors, writers, editors, their combined careers led them to venues around the world and back again.

Musing on this journey, they state, “After 18 years here at Uplands Retirement Village, we realize that settling in Pleasant Hill, TN, brought us back to the area where we met and received our higher education, a wonderful homecoming.  We are four-driving hours from Berea College, Berea, KY, where we met in 1946 (married in 1950) and a two-hour drive from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, Nashville, where we attended graduate school.  Those and other colleges made possible all the opportunities we have enjoyed throughout our 62 married years together.”

Their latest joint venture was their 17th yearly dialogue for the Pleasant Hill Book Review Group, which explored the life and influence of Eleanor Roosevelt following last year’s presentation on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They wanted to show Eleanor’s accomplishments and influence on FDR. Betty took on the persona of Eleanor as Frank fed her probing questions. Their popularity and acknowledged astuteness were reflected in the largest audience the Review group has ever had.

Some of the books/topics they have reviewed in this way were Thomas (Tip) O'Neill, Man of the House; Myles Horton; Abraham Flexner, Karen Armstrong; Arthur Miller, Timebends; Stephen Hawking, A History of Time; The Kennedys; Albert Einstein (Walter Isaacson’s biography; and longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer.

Frank wrote his doctoral dissertation on educational philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869) in 1956, which was defended, accepted, and later published by Vanderbilt University Press as George Peabody, a Biography, 1971, updated in 1995 on the 200th anniversary of George Peabody’s birth with 12 illustrations. Their fascination with the largely forgotten founder of modern educational philanthropy, George Peabody, took them to London, changed their lives, and led them to 27 trips abroad.

Betty earned the Berea College B.A. degree in 1950 and a M.A. degree from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College 1956. She taught high school and college English, reading and social studies; was secretary to two college presidents; served on regional and local executive boards of the American Friends Service Committee, League of Women Voters, and United Methodist Women.

A competitive Kappa Delta Pi (education honor society) Fellowship in International Education took them to Africa for eight months during 1957-58. The British south central African colonies of Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), and Nyasaland (later Malawi) had formed a multiracial federation. Frank's small book about their 1957-58 experience, African Development and Education in Southern Rhodesia, Ohio State University Press, 1960, led to Frank's being asked to contribute articles about Africa to encyclopedia yearbooks: Americana, World Book, Collier's, others, for over a decade.

Frank emphasized more and more international education during his 40 years of teaching at the Universities of Texas (Austin, 1957-64), Oklahoma (Norman, 1964-68), West Virginia (Morganton, 1968-86), Northern Arizona (Flagstaff, 1986-89 and Western Carolina (Cullowhee, 1989-94). He felt that teachers with intercultural-international understanding could help new student generations build a more peaceful world.   As longtime editor of the Comparative and International Education Society Newsletter, Frank learned of and publicized low-cost travel and international study opportunities for students and teachers.

To access over 30 of the Parkers' recent articles in blog form, click on

 http://bfparker.hubpages.com/hubs/hot

 Do a google.com or bing.com search for Franklin and Betty J. Parker, TN and you will find numerous links to articles about them or written by them. Their list of publications would take many more columns.

At ages 83 and 91, the Parkers, participate and lead exercise classes, swim at least 6 times a week, walk all over Pleasant Hill, are the neighborhood confidantes and “go to” people for information and caring concern.

Frank recently has become a percussionist with the Pleasant Hill Ensemble, although he cannot read a note of music. They laugh about an incident which happened in early Nov. 2007: “A local old timer, often seeing us walking arm in arm, picnic lunch bags in hand, shouted from his parked pickup: ‘Grandpa, are you holding her up, or is she holding you up?’ ‘We lean on each other,’ Frank replied with a grin. Betty added: ‘If one falls, we both fall.’ Sixty-one years of a good idea.”   

End of Jean Clark's article which led to the following article:

"How Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) Became First Lady of the World," by Betty and Franklin Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net  Dialogue Given April 5, 2012, Cumberland Mountain State Park, Crossville, TN, to the Eleanor Roosevelt Society Fund Raiser (REVISED May 15, 2012).

Frank:  Greetings to Eleanor Roosevelt Society members and guests.  I am Franklin Parker, Introducer and Questioner for this dialogue on "How Eleanor Roosevelt Became First Lady of the World."

Betty as Eleanor: And I am Betty Parker wearing my Eleanor Roosevelt dress and hat, telling you from best sources intimate facts on how I, a nervous, shy, troubled rich girl, orphaned at age 10, became a liberal democratic activist despised by most conservatists and  praised by some historians as the greatest American woman of the twentieth century.

Frank:  Like his 24-year older distant cousin and mentor Theodore Roosevelt (1848-1919), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882-1945) wanted and Eleanor gave him 5 happy and boisterous children, 1 girl, 4 sons.  She had 6 pregnancies in 10 years (one baby boy died), while encouraging FDR's presidential ambitions that went back to early boyhood.  

¶She helped him rise from New York State Senator (1910-13), to Assistant Secretary U.S. Navy (1913-20, including WW I), saw him through a failed run as U.S. Senator from New York State and a failed run as Democratic Vice President (1920).  She saw him stricken with polio (August 1921), nursed him, successfully defied his possessive mother Sara Roosevelt's determination that crippled FDR retire from "unseemly" politics  and become invalid manager of her Hyde Park estate.

B as Eleanor:  During his 7 years unsuccessful struggle to walk again (1921-28, FDR's hidden Gethsemane years of doubt and despair), FDR's political advisor Louie Howe (1871-1936), Albany, NY, newsman, remade me, Eleanor Roosevelt, from a frightened housewife and uncertain mother into FDR's surrogate. 

¶Louis Howe, whom some called FDR's shadow, the political genius who got FDR into the White House—somehow taught me to speak, to write, to keep FDR's name alive, to be his surrogate, to become a leader among Democratic women just as they won the right   to vote (1920).   Louie Howe, with crippled FDR’s enthusiastic approval, encouraged me to help make women with their new right to vote politically aware and influential.

 

Frank:  Still largely unknown by most Americans is how you, Eleanor, and Louie Howe got crippled, wheel-chair bound FDR, back into the political arena.  In 1924, NYC's Catholic politician Al Smith (1873-1944), anxious to be nominated the Democratic presidential candidate, wanted respected Protestant FDR to nominate him.  It would help reduce voters’ anti-Catholic  bias against Al  Smith.

B as Eleanor:  FDR advisor Louie Howe seized the moment, had FDR carried unseen into mammoth Madison Square Garden.   With limp legs steel-braced and leather-strapped, using a cane, gripping son James’s arm, FDR shuffled forward to grasp the sturdy lectern.

Frank:  Flashing his broad smile, FDR gave a rip-roaring nomination speech, radio broadcasted nationally, ending with a ringing: “And so I give you the next President of the United States, Alfred E. Smith, the Happy Political Warrior.”  

¶Result: while Al Smith lost the 1924 presidential nomination, FDR won national attention.   FDR, not Al Smith, was the Happy Warrior, back into the political arena.  Said Kansas City, Mo. political boss T.J. Pendergast:  Roosevelt had that Democratic convention in the palm of his hands.  They would have nominated and elected him then and there, if they could.

B as Eleanor:  Four years later, 1928, Al Smith, as the Democratic presidential nominee, faced Republican Herbert Hoover.  Al Smith insisted that if FDR ran and won as NY State Governor, NY State electoral votes would help put him, Al Smith, in the White House.  FDR,  still recuperating, hesitated.  Smith's ultimatum:  help  me now or the Democratic Party may not help you later, left FDR silent.  Al Smith took FDR’s silence as a yes.

Frank: You're a darn fool, Louie Howe told FDR.  We all know that 1928 is a Republican year.  But you're my fool and I'll pull every political trick I know to get you elected. 

¶Result:  Al Smith lost to Herbert Hoover.  But thanks to Louie Howe’s maneuvering FDR won as 2-term NY State Governor  (1929-32).  

¶As the first 3 years of the Great Depression joblessness rate reached 25%, FDR's NY state-funded, job-creating, building-bonanza of roads, canals, bridges, dams for cheap public electricity, reforestation, relief programs, etc., made him the leading national anti-Great Depression politician of that time.

B as Eleanor: Thus did Louie Howe, with my help and encouragement, position FDR for the White House.  FDR's later presidential New Deal programs and fireside chats came from his NY State experience.  He matured quickly, learned fast, grew by leaps and bounds, made his humbling polio handicap and his 7 year failed recovery work for him, gave bewildered, jobless, hungry American millions help and hope.  

      

Frank:  Time now Eleanor for you to tell your story, one that still remains too little known  to many Americans today.  Tell why you were a troubled ugly ducking orphan rich girl.   Tell how you overcame your particular handicaps.  Tell how you made yourself into the greatest First Lady in U.S. history.

B as Eleanor:  My MaMa, publicly acknowledged beauty of her time,  married dashing Elliott Roosevelt (1860-94), Uncle Teddy Roosevelt's younger brother.  MaMa, ashamed of my plain looks, protruding front teeth, receding chin, publicly called me "Granny." I felt ugly, afraid, unloved.  Something was wrong with PaPa, often absent, who, when home, hugged and loved me.  I adored him.

Frank:  What did you think when you pieced together family whispers?

B as Eleanor:  MaMa’a coldness to me, her early death at age 29 when I was 8, I saw as aggravated by PaPa’s drinking, drug use, extra-marital affairs.  

PaPa’s “nervous condition,” I later realized, was probably undiagnosed-untreated epilepsy, which he relieved with excessive drink and drugs.

Frank: How did your troubled parents affect your later life?

B as Eleanor:  MaMa was pleased when I rubbed her migraine-pained forehead. I learned that if I wanted to be loved, I had to be useful.  

¶From PaPa’s unfulfilled promises I learned to expect disappointments.  I saw their lives as cries for help.  Their suffering made me want to be useful, to help others in need.

Frank:  Orphaned at 10, you lived with stern maternal GrandMaMa Hall’s (1863-92) troubled family. 

B as Eleanor:  My Aunty Bye Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt’s older sister) saved me.  She had me sent to England to Mlle. Marie Souvestre's (1830-1905) Allenswood school.  Those happy 3 years abroad changed my life. 

Frank:  What did you learn at Allenswood?  What was so special about headmistress Mlle. Souvestre?

B as Eleanor:  Only French was spoken.  My French nurse had taught me to speak and think in French.  I fitted in.  Mlle. Souvestre awakened in me the need for social service.  She took me on trips to see poorer sections in France, Switzerland, Italy; let me travel un-chaperoned to historic places, gave me confidence.  I kept her picture on my dressing table all my life.

Frank:  Back in NYC.  Tell of your social work, courtship, marriage.

B as Eleanor:  I felt useful teaching disadvantaged girls at NYC's East Side Rivington Street slum settlement house.  Riding the train up the Hudson Valley FDR and I accidentally met, renewed our childhood acquaintance.  FDR invited me to Hyde Park, to Campobello (MaMa Sara’s Canadian island home near Eastport, Maine), where I visited with my maid as chaperone.  FDR and I confided in each other.  I encouraged his early aspiration toward the U.S. presidency.

Frank:  FDR found in you his ideal mate, serious, concerned, unlike his other frivolous girl friends.  Being President Teddy Roosevelt's niece helped (better than a dowry) .  FDR proposed, you accepted.  How did you get along with possessive mother-in-law MaMa Sara Roosevelt?

B as Eleanor:  She dominated our early married life.  She  bought, staffed, and ran our several NYC homes.  Nothing was mine.  Our children, when I corrected them, ran to Grand MaMa Sara, who gave in to their every whim.  I was stifled,  lost my self confidence.

Frank:  How did you regain your confidence?

B as Eleanor: Ever-perceptive advisor Louie Howe showed me how to help FDR’s career, how to increase women’s political awareness.  From 1920 onward I followed his suggestions, learned from him how to speak, write, and serve.

Frank:  In which women's organizations did you become an activist leader?

B as Eleanor:  League of Women Voters, Women's Division of the NY State Democratic Committee, Consumers League, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.  So many others.

Frank: In chairing the National Democratic Women’s Platform Committee (1924), you greatly advanced Democratic women’s political influence.   After FDR's November 1932 election what role did you see for yourself as First Lady?

B as Eleanor: I was 49, determined to continue active public service, to advance goals Franklin and I shared.  

¶ Being wheel-chair bound he needed me to be his legs, eyes, ears, voice.  I was always on the go, telling him things he needed to know as 2-term NY State Governor and as 4-time elected U. S. President.

Frank:  Biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin listed your many firsts as U.S. First Lady: first to hold regular press conferences, first to write a syndicated "My Day" newspaper column, first to give sponsored radio broadcasts, first on a lecture circuit, first to testify before congressional committees on needed reforms, first to urge FDR to create the G.I. Bill and to establish the United Nations.  Comment, please comment.

B as Eleanor:  I started press conferences for women reporters because I wanted more women reporters hired, equally paid, and equally respected with men.  Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok (1893-1968) gave me the idea and became my intimate friend.  Louie Howe helped me plan the news conferences.

Frank: You helped put many qualified women into top positions, including Frances Perkins (1882-1965), Secretary of Labor, the first woman cabinet officer in U.S. history, Frances Perkins  who created the 1935 Social Security Act.

B as Eleanor:  Frances Perkins was FDR's chief cabinet ally throughout his 12 year presidency.

Frank:  Why did you initiate the 1935 National Youth Administration (NYA)?

B as Eleanor: I wanted work-study funds for 18 to 25 year olds from poorer families to keep them from dropping out of school, to help them get through high school, to help them enter and complete college.  The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) took care of many of the age 25 and over jobless.  But I wanted to strengthen the younger youths, our future leaders, with work-study funds.  Louie Howe backed the CCC’s.  I initiated the NYA’s.

Frank:  You urged African American rights, hosted White House African American leaders, urged anti-lynching legislation which congressional committees chaired by Southerners always blocked.

B as Eleanor:  African American singer Marian Anderson (1902-93) was denied because of her race to sing at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Washington, D.C. Constitution Hall.  I publicly resigned my DAR membership.  I helped get Marian Anderson to sing instead to a record crowd stretching along the Mall  from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.   All America, all the world, was thrilled.

Frank:  You started the Homesteads movement, first in Arthurdale, W.VA.; the second here in Crossville, TN, and you visited and encouraged both. 

¶What disappointed you most as First Lady?

B as Eleanor:  I was disappointed that Social Security  omitted self employed farm workers and others not on a payroll; disappointed that Congress failed to pass universal health care; disappointed that the State Department blocked admission of Jewish refugees, especially children, dooming them to extinction; disappointed over hysteria-induced internment of innocent Japanese Americans.

 

Frank: Why did you have a strange, sometimes difficult, relationship with FDR?   E xplain    

B as Eleanor:  I was the irritating liberal spur under his political saddle.  I pushed him to advance human rights.   I was the liberal conscience he needed to fuel his political power to do good.   

¶Speak out, he told me.  Be my secret  political balloon.  Some things that would lose me too many votes, I cannot do.  But I can always laugh and say publicly:  My Missus goes where she wants, says what she wants, does what she wants.

Frank:  He needed you.

B as Eleanor:   We needed each other.

Frank:  After FDR's April 12, 1945, death, you thought your political life was over.  Why did Pres. Harry S Truman ask you to be a U.S. delegate to the United Nations?

B as Eleanor:  Pres. Truman wanted me at the U.N. to help fulfill FDR's dream for a peaceful post-WW II  world.  I felt inadequate but urged by my family, I reluctantly accepted.

Frank:  Powerful, influential men in the U.N., fearing your activism might upstage them.  They conspired to put you on a U.N. Refugee Committee, thinking you would cause the least trouble there. 

B as Eleanor:  How wrong they were.  Homeless, stateless WW II refugees, fearing persecution if returned to their former homelands, became a major U.N. and world problem.  Our U.N. Refugee Committee became the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.  Pushed into the chairmanship, I saw the enormity of the refugee problem, saw ahead that new independent nations would arise from former European colonies in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and need specific human rights recorded for our time.  We needed a new Magna Carta.

Frank:  Was the Refugee Problem your greatest challenge at the U.N.?

B as Eleanor:  Our  18 member U.N. committee came from countries with different languages, histories, traditions, values; different socio-economic political structures. 

¶We argued, disputed endlessly.  Consensus required patience, tact, sometimes blunt talk. ¶Remember, it was the height of the US-USSR Cold War.  Powerful Russian leader Andrey Vyshinsky (1883-1954) shouted at me relentlessly: The State must set human rights.  I calmly answered: Human rights unencumbered by political ideology must be universal, worldwide, built into every national constitution.

Frank:  When did the Commission finish its draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

B as Eleanor:  In Fall 1947 I pressed for day and evening meetings to finish the draft Declaration before Christmas 1947.  The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 unanimously, without dissent, although with some abstentions. Andrey Vyshinsky came to me, shook my hand, embraced me.

Frank:  Eleanor, what do you most want to be remembered for?

 B as Eleanor:  I want to be remembered most for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Frank:  Eleanor,  give us some parting words.

B as Eleanor:  FDR expected me to goad him.  He kept a basket beside his bed for my notes.  He wanted me to be the conscience that fueled his political power to do good.

 

¶Family connections tied us together, 40 years of marriage, 5 children plus one dead baby boy, 31 grandchildren.  We began in love.  I knew he was flirtatious.

 

¶You asked about our frictionable relationship.  You know, he cheated on me, had an affair with my social secretary, Lucy Mercer, from 1916 through WW I.  In November 1918, after shutting down US Naval bases in France and England,  he returned sick, in bed with the 1918 flu.   I unpacked for him, found  her love letters to him, was terribly hurt, offered divorce.

¶When MaMa Sara told him she'd cut him off without a penny if he shamed the family with divorce; when Louie Howe told him voters would not elect a divorced man, he listened, listened to Louie Howe, our go-between, took Louie Howe’s advice, apologized for hurting me, promised never to see Lucy Mercer again.

¶I too listened to Louie Howe.  He urged me to forgive, to continue as non conjugal political partner; that by so doing I would find a satisfying career in helping FDR improve people's lives.

 ¶And so it was that from the 1920s onward we continued as political partners, each with increasingly separate friends; I with politically active women and a few sympathetic men; he with a few adoring women who never pestered him as I did.

  ¶Of the two of us, he was the most lonely, the most burdened, tied to his wheel chair, having to be lifted for every function. 

¶On the long lonesome funeral train from Warm Springs, GA, to Washington, DC, ceremonies, then on to Hyde Park, NY, final burial, I forgave his broken sworn promise never to see Mrs. Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd again.  She was with him when he died at Warm Springs, GA.

¶But, but, there were affectionate moments.   When our 3rd-born boy died in infancy, when my only surviving brother died, FDR hugged me.   Deep down we needed each other; we loved our children, grand children, and—yes—deep down we needed and loved each other.

Frank:  Thank you, Eleanor.  You did so very well.   Rest well next to FDR.  Together you made history and  changed history for the better.

 ¶Thank you for being here today, for listening and reading our tale of the Eleanor story.

¶All honor to the Eleanor Roosevelt Society for keeping her memory alive.  END.

Addendum:  To access our two previous Roosevelt articles below type each title one at a time on google.com, or bing.com, or any other search engine.

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), Man of Destiny,” By Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net

 “Eleanor Roosevelt’s (1884-1962) Influence on Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945): An Estranged Marriage Turned Political Partnership That Changed History,” by Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net

End of Manuscript.  Corrections, comment to bfparke@frontiernet.net