Transcript: Chapter 08

Narrator: In 1924 Franklin bought a run-down houseboat he named The Larocco, and headed south. He was running away. Drifting lazily off the coast of Florida -- swimming, fishing, cavorting with his friends -- he filled his days with aimless good times.

Geoffrey Ward: He was there partly to exercise and get the sun, which he thought was going to help him; but he was also there because life at home with five children and his mother and his wife fighting over him was unbearable.

Hugh Gallagher: These were very grim years for him, for the family. He was struggling to get better. In spite of his optimism, he really wasn't getting much better. I think that the guy was dealing with depression. There's a great deal of anger, a great deal of grieving, a great deal of frustration that comes with paralysis -- extensive, severe, serious paralysis -- and this is very hard stuff to deal with.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: And he couldn't express that despair and that sadness around Eleanor, certainly not around his mother, nor around the kids, so I think he went to The Larocco originally because it allowed him a haven to be able to be sad, to mourn the loss of the body that once been his, and I think it took longer than he thought.

Narrator: "There were days on The Larocco," one friend remembered, "when it was noon before he could pull himself out of depression and greet his guests, wearing his light-hearted facade." "Polio was a storm," one of his physiotherapists said, "You were what remained when it had passed." His son James later wrote, "These were the lonely years. We had no tangible father, no father whom we could touch and talk to, only a cheery letter-writer." With Franklin gone and the children away at school or grown up, politics was becoming an increasingly important part of Eleanor's life. Louis Howe convinced her that it was up to her to keep Franklin's name alive. If Eleanor had not stepped forward, Franklin's political career might well have been over.

Eleanor Roosevelt (archival): Louis Howe decided that I better go in the women's division of the state political set-up in New York and I must be able to speak. And so, Louis Howe used to go with me to meetings and sit in the back and make fun of me afterwards.

Blanche Wiesen Cook: Louis Howe is absolutely central to Eleanor Roosevelt's political education. He monitors her every word. He attends all of the speeches that she gives, and he tells her, "You said this right, you said that wrong. You giggled here. Why did you giggle here? Your voice went up 10 decibels here. Why did it do that?" He's really her coach.

Curtis Roosevelt: And she very quickly, in two or three years, moved to the top in the women's division in the New York State Democratic Party. She could get up and talk on pretty much any subject and with some ease. And she talked informally. She ran a very good meeting.

Narrator: Eleanor discovered that she had organizing skills, a talent for dealing with people, and soon found herself in the thick of Democratic Party politics. Publicly, she spoke in Franklin's name. Privately, she was developing her own ideas.

Blanche Wiesen Cook: People go to her for advice, people go to her to raise money. People go to her and ask her to speak. She says in her memoirs she's done it all for FDR, but the fact is she loves every minute of it.

Curtis Roosevelt: I think she was profoundly impressed and believed in her heart that helping other people, enabling other people -- particularly when you were in a position of privilege -- was the way she wished to conduct her life.

Narrator: Eleanor was making all the great reform causes of the day her own: child labor, public housing, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance. She was becoming a voice for those who had none.

Edna Gurewitsch: She had abdicated her role as wife. She had. He invited her very many times to come down, but he was with the friends whom she didn't specially care for -- the congenial friends, the friends from the Lucy Mercer days, the people who liked to live on a houseboat and swim and drink -- and he was with Missy LeHand.

Narrator: "Missy" was Marguerite LeHand, Franklin's secretary -- unmarried, Catholic, high school educated, many years younger.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Missy had started working for Franklin when she was 20 years old in 1920, and I think fell in love with him and never stopped loving him all the rest of her life. It would be Missy who would sit by his side as they went fishing. She learned every activity that he liked and became an expert at it. So she was the perfect companion for these lazy, aimless days on The Larocco. Eleanor is nowhere in sight during this period of time.

Narrator: Eleanor had now made a life of her own with her own friends. "Alas and lackaday," wrote her aunt, "I just hate to have Eleanor let herself look as she does. Since politics have become her choicest interest, all her charm has disappeared." Franklin supported Eleanor's newfound independence. During the 1920s, they had once again redefined their marriage. They were bound together by politics, respect and real affection, but they led separate lives.

For the first time, Eleanor had a home of her own, two miles from Hyde Park, a simple cottage built for her by Franklin. She called it "Valkill" after the brook running past its door.

Blanche Wiesen Cook: She can invite who she wants there. Her mother-in-law has to knock before she enters. There are no sliding doors. Sarah is shocked that Eleanor Roosevelt would prefer to live in what she calls "that hovel," rather than the proper house, the big house with the proper number of servants. Eleanor Roosevelt's very happy at Valkill.

Narrator: At Valkill, Eleanor felt free. She defied convention, befriending so-called "new women" who lived with one another. Eleanor found in these friends the kind of emotional closeness that Franklin could not provide. All through the 1920s, Eleanor flourished. She became financially independent writing articles for newspapers and magazines. She taught at a private school in New York, which she co-owned. She continued to campaign for progressive political causes. She traveled widely. She was at ease with herself and for the first time in her life, began to have fun.

Valkill was Eleanor's, but throughout his life, Franklin was a frequent and welcome guest. Eleanor's friends became his friends, supporting his hopes to one day return to political life. "I don't want him forgotten," Eleanor said. "I want him to have a voice."

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