Eleanor Roosevelt on horseback trip with Lorena Hickok
GATLINBURG, Tennessee, Monday—We reached Natural Bridge on Saturday at about 7 p.m. after a most glorious drive through the Shenandoah Park. The Skyline Drive is really very beautiful. Having started late—at a quarter of 1, to be exact—we didn’t stop until nearly 3 o’clock, when we pulled out at one of the parking places with a glorious view down into a ravine and drank hot coffee. We had brought orange juice also, but our hands were so cold that we couldn’t unscrew the top. We’ve learned, however, to accept such vicissitudes with calm, and we were grateful that it happened to be the coffee which we were able to unscrew! With my usual optimism, I thought that Spring began in April, but it really was mid-Winter—beautiful, clear blue sky and cold as Greenland.
After dinner we wandered down to see the illumination and pageant. The lighting is beautiful, and gives it all a mysterious, almost prehistoric aspect. This morning after breakfast we walked down along the stream again, under the Bridge, and thought it just as impressive as it was last night. It is extraordinary to think what years it has taken of slowly dripping water to break through that stone wall, and the old arbor vitae trees, said to be over a thousand years old, were a tremendous surprise to me, for I didn’t know they ever lived that long.
Sunday’s drive began at 10:30, and, until we came in view of the Great Smokies, the scenery was not as impressive as it was yesterday. We were stopped once by a constable, who had a telegram that had evidently been following us since early morning. Miss Hickok was driving, and I cheered her by saying that, while I had no idea what she had done, I was sure we were going to be arrested, so she had the laugh on me when it turned out to be nothing more than a telegram urging me to stop at Greenville, Andrew Johnson’s birthplace. Unfortunately we had not allowed enough time for any stops along the road, and so I had to decline.
We reached Gatlinburg at about 7:30, and we are both enchanted with the hotel, in which the furniture is all made by local craftsmen. The rooms are panelled. The curtains are woven in the local craft shop. And, though it is too dark for me to be sure tonight, I have a feeling that we are going to look out tomorrow morning on a panorama of mountain tops.
The last thing we saw tonight, as we drove in, was the deep blue of the mountain sides in contrast with the white snow and the white clouds floating above, which looked almost like mountain peaks themselves. Mountains have a beauty and a calm which should have a soothing effect on the most worried of little human souls.
We’re off in the morning to Cades Cove, and I have to file this before I go, because the nearest telegraph office is in Knoxville, and I feel that, if I wait until I return in the afternoon, it might not get in in time.
E.R.(Source: gwu.edu)
Eleanor Roosevelt trip to South West Pacific
Only eight more days … 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 north-east of the corner of your mouth against my lips… .
(Source: sappho.com)
Eleanor and John Roosevelt
![Elinor Morgenthau, Eleanor Roosevelt and Jane Addams in Westport, Connecticut
The term lesbian was coined in 1890, one year after [Jane] Addams founded Hull House. Although she would not have used the term to define herself, by today’s standards, Jane Addams would be a lesbian. Mary Rozet Smith arrived at Hull House one day in 1890, the daughter of a wealthy paper manufacturer. Over the years she became Jane’s devoted companion, virtually playing the role of a traditional wife: tending to her when she was ill, handling her social correspondence, making travel arrangements.Unfortunately, we will never know the full extent of Jane’s relationship with Mary Smith. Toward the end of her life, Jane destroyed most of Mary’s letters to her. Perhaps she was trying to cover up a sexual component of their relationship. “I miss you dreadfully and am yours ‘til death,” Addams wrote to Smith. Smith wrote back, “You can never know what it is to me to have had you and to have you…I feel quite a rush of emotion when I think of you.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lml118mvgJ1qloguco1_500.gif)
Elinor Morgenthau, Eleanor Roosevelt and Jane Addams in Westport, Connecticut
The term lesbian was coined in 1890, one year after [Jane] Addams founded Hull House. Although she would not have used the term to define herself, by today’s standards, Jane Addams would be a lesbian. Mary Rozet Smith arrived at Hull House one day in 1890, the daughter of a wealthy paper manufacturer. Over the years she became Jane’s devoted companion, virtually playing the role of a traditional wife: tending to her when she was ill, handling her social correspondence, making travel arrangements.Unfortunately, we will never know the full extent of Jane’s relationship with Mary Smith. Toward the end of her life, Jane destroyed most of Mary’s letters to her. Perhaps she was trying to cover up a sexual component of their relationship. “I miss you dreadfully and am yours ‘til death,” Addams wrote to Smith. Smith wrote back, “You can never know what it is to me to have had you and to have you…I feel quite a rush of emotion when I think of you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt in Seattle, Washington
Eleanor Roosevelt and Mayris (Tiny) Chaney at Chazy Lake, New York
Mayris Chaney (Mrs. Hershey Martin), a renowned dancer who worked with ER in the Office of Civilian Defense, was one of ER’s closet friends for almost twenty years. Their friendship began in the early thirties after ER’s bodyguard Earl Miller introduced his charge to Chaney and her dance partner Eddie Fox. ER felt so at ease with Martin that she quickly nicknamed her “Tiny,” included her in the close circle of friends with whom she could relax in private (at Val-Kill and the White House, in their homes, and on vacation). Although both women had extremely heavy travel schedules, they tried to make time to visit when ever possible. In 1941, ER, as assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense, recruited Chaney to coordinate a nationwide physical fitness program. ER’s critics quickly used Chaney’s appointment as the means to attack ER’s role in home front defense programs and the two women resigned in early 1942. The attack strengthened their friendship and after Chaney’s 1943 marriage to bandleader Hershey Martin, ER visited them whenever she came to Los Angeles and was especially pleased to be godmother to their daughter, Anna Eleanor.
with Lillian Smith and Mary McLeod Bethune
“
Hick my dearest—
I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you. I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving tonight. you have grown so much to be a part of my life that it is empty without you, even though I’m busy every minute.
[details of day deleted]
Oh! darling. I hope on the whole you will be happier for my friendship. I felt I had brought you so much discomfort and hardship today & almost more heartache than you could bear & I don’t want to make you unhappy—All my love I shall be saying to you over thought waves in a few minutes.
Good night my dear one
Angels guard thee
God protect thee
My love enfold thee
All the night throughAlways yours
ER
— March 5, 1933
Written on the first evening after FDR’s inauguration.
Written on the first evening after FDR’s inauguration.
(Source: sappho.com)
