Happy 114th Anniversary, Eleanor and Franklin!

[Dennis Donovan]

Roosevelt in her wedding dress, 1905

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt#Marriage_and_family_life

Marriage and family life

In the summer of 1902, Roosevelt encountered her father's fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on a train to Tivoli, New York. The two began a secret correspondence and romance, and became engaged on November 22, 1903. Franklin's mother, Sara Ann Delano, opposed the union and made him promise that the engagement would not be officially announced for a year. "I know what pain I must have caused you," he wrote to his mother of his decision. But, he added, "I know my own mind, and known it for a long time, and know that I could never think otherwise." Sara took her son on a Caribbean cruise in 1904, hoping that a separation would squelch the romance, but Franklin remained determined. The wedding date was set to accommodate President Theodore Roosevelt, who was scheduled to be in New York City for the St. Patrick's Day parade, and who agreed to give the bride away.

The couple were married on March 17, 1905, in a wedding officiated by Endicott Peabody, the groom's headmaster at Groton School. Her cousin Corinne Douglas Robinson was a bridesmaid. Theodore Roosevelt's attendance at the ceremony was front-page news in The New York Times and other newspapers. When asked for his thoughts on the Roosevelt–Roosevelt union, the president said, "It is a good thing to keep the name in the family." The couple spent a preliminary honeymoon of one week at Hyde Park, then set up housekeeping in an apartment in New York. That summer they went on their formal honeymoon, a three-month tour of Europe.

Returning to the U.S., the newlyweds settled in a New York City house that was provided by Franklin's mother, as well as in a second residence at the family's estate overlooking the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York. From the beginning, Roosevelt had a contentious relationship with her controlling mother-in-law. The townhouse that Sara gave to Roosevelt and Franklin was connected to her own residence by sliding doors, and Sara ran both households in the decade after the marriage. Early on, Roosevelt had a breakdown in which she explained to Franklin that "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", but little changed. Sara also sought to control the raising of her grandchildren, and Roosevelt reflected later that "Franklin's children were more my mother-in-law's children than they were mine". Roosevelt's eldest son James remembered Sara telling her grandchildren, "Your mother only bore you, I am more your mother than your mother is."


Eleanor and Franklin with their first two children, 1908

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[scarletlib]

1. I have always felt that she was so beautiful in these early photos.

Can you imagine how stressful it was for her with such controlling Mother-in-Law. Eleanor was also a very smart lady who awakened her husband's social consciousness.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. Agreed - she looks so lovely in her wedding photo!

...and SDR was HYPER-domineering. She would fork over large amounts of money to her grandchildren, to by their love and allegiance.

If you're ever in Hyde Park, I highly recommend visiting her home Val Kill which is 2 miles away from Springwood (the main house). It is perfectly preserved as it was upon her death in November, 1962.