Lucy Page Mercer Rutherfurd (April 26, 1891 - July 31, 1948) is an American woman famous for her affair with future US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Lucy Mercer was born to a wealthy parent who lost most of her wealth and split up in the years after her birth. Mercer then worked briefly in a clothing store before taking up the position of social secretary Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin's wife, in 1914. Mercer and Franklin are believed to have started an affair in mid-1916, when he was 25 years old and he was 34 years old, and before the disease paralysis. The relationship was discovered by Eleanor in September 1918, when he found a package of their letters when unpacking his belongings after returning from an inspection trip to a war zone in Europe while the Assistant Secretary of the Navy approached the end of the First World War in September 1918. Despite Eleanor Franklin offers a divorce and Franklin considers receiving, political, financial, and family pressure to keep him in marriage. Franklin ended the affair and promised not to see Mercer again.
Mercer soon married a wealthy socialite Winthrop Rutherfurd (1862-1944), a widower in his fifties, but despite his marriage and Franklin's promise, both remained secretly, though rarely connected in the next three decades. Particularly during the war years, Franklin's daughter Anna Roosevelt Halsted arranged for his father to meet his former mistress, more often after Rutherfurd's death in 1944. Mercer was in Warm Springs, Georgia, in the "Little White House" of Presidents for long cottages and retreats, at the time of Roosevelt's death in April 1945. He was painting his portrait, at the request of Mercer, by artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff in the living room - with Mercer and two female cousins ​​in attendance. Sitting at the card table by the fireplace, reading the upcoming speech, Roosevelt said, "I feel a terrible pain in the back of my head." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious. Mrs Shoumatoff, who maintains a close friendship with Roosevelt and Mercer, immediately expels Mercer to avoid negative publicity and the implications of infidelity. Mercer's presence at the house was not mentioned in an immediate press release or in any of the early published biographies.
Lucy died of leukemia on July 31, 1948. Despite rumors, his infidelity with Roosevelt did not become widely public knowledge until the publication of Memoir Jonathan W. Daniels in 1966. The Time Between the Wars.
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Lucy Page Mercer was born in Washington, DC, to Carroll Mercer, (1857-1917), member of the Rough Riders' cavalry military unit Theodore Roosevelt in a campaign in Cuba, on the south coast of the island near Santiago during a short visit. Spanish-American War in 1898, and Minnie Mercer, (1863-1947), an independent woman of exotic "Bohemian", free-spirited appetite. Lucy has a sister, Violetta Carroll Mercer (1889-1947). Though they were both from wealthy and well-connected families, Mercer's parents lost their fortune through the Financial Panic of 1893 and the subsequent subsequent recession/depression that limited their luxury spending. The couple split up shortly after Lucy's birth, and Carroll became an alcoholic. Minnie then raised the girls alone.
Maps Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd
Infidelity with Franklin D. Roosevelt
As a young woman, Lucy Mercer works in a clothing store. In 1914, Mercer was employed by Eleanor Roosevelt to become his social secretary. Mercer quickly became an established part of the Roosevelt household, and was good friends with Eleanor. According to historians Joseph Persico and Hazel Rowley, the affair between Mercer and Franklin probably began in 1916, when Eleanor and children vacationed on Campobello Island to escape the summer, while Franklin remained in Washington, DC In 1917, Franklin often included Mercer. at summer yachting parties, which Eleanor usually refuses to attend.
In June 1917, Mercer quit or was fired from his job with Eleanor and enlisted in the US Navy, who then mobilized for World War I. Franklin at the time was Assistant to the Navy Secretary, and Mercer was assigned to his office. Mercer and Franklin continue to see each other in private, causing widespread gossip in Washington. Alice Roosevelt Longworth - daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, and Eleanor's cousin - encouraged the affair, invited Mercer and Franklin to dinner together several times. He then commented, "He deserves a good time.... He married Eleanor."
In 1918, Franklin traveled to Europe to examine naval facilities for war. When she returns in September, ill with pneumonia in both lungs, Eleanor finds a love letter from Mercer pack in her suitcase. Eleanor then offered to divorce her husband.
Franklin's mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, firmly opposed the idea of ​​divorce, because that would mark the end of Franklin's political career; he declares that he will cut it off the family fortune if he chooses to do so. Historians have also debated whether, as a Roman Catholic, Mercer would be willing to marry a divorced man. Biography writer Eleanor Roosevelt, Blanche Wiesen Cook expressed skepticism that this has been a serious obstacle, given the depth of Mercer's feelings. Persico also doubted that this was a factor, observing that Mercer's mother, Minnie, had divorced and remarried, and that the family had just come to Roman Catholicism. To declare that a "Roman Catholic" would be willing to commit adultery and destroy another's marriage, and then not marry that person because he is divorced, insulting Roman Catholics and misinterpreting the nature of the church's teaching about it.
In the end, Franklin seemed to have told Mercer disrespectfully that Eleanor was not willing to divorce. She and Eleanor remained married, and she promised never to see Mercer again. Roosevelts' son, James, later described the state of marriage after the incident as "a ceasefire that survived until the day he died". Eleanor then wrote, "I have the memory of an elephant, I can forgive, but never forget." This incident marked a turning point in his life; disappointed with his marriage, he became active in public life, and more focused on his social work than his role as a wife.
Marriage and follow-up contact with Roosevelt
Mercer left Washington after having an affair and became a nanny for the children of Winthrop Rutherfurd, (1862-1944), a wealthy New York socialite. Winthrop Rutherfurd was famous for winning the hearts of the socialite/heir of Consuelo Vanderbilt, (1877-1964), in 1896, only to see his pomegranate mother, and forcing her to marry Charles Spencer-Churchill, the 9th Duke of Marlborough (1871-1934 ), (a cousin to then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill). Now in his fifties, Rutherfurd is considered one of the most eligible widowers of society. About a year and a half later, on 11 February 1920, Mercer became his second wife. Franklin Roosevelt learned about marriage by hearing the news at a party. Rutherfurds has one child:
- Barbara Mercer Rutherfurd (1922-2005), who married Robert Winthrop "Bobby" Knowles, Jr. in 1946.
Despite Franklin's promise to Eleanor, he kept in touch with Lucy Rutherfurd after his marriage, corresponding to him through letters throughout the 1920s. The historian/writer Persico speculates that these letters may have been the cause of 1927 neurological disorders of Married old secretary Marguerite "Missy" LeHand, (1898-1944), as LeHand is also known to be in love with Roosevelt and there is no medical Cause the damage was found.
In 1926 Roosevelt sent Rutherfurd a copy of his first public lecture after the paralysis of 1921, dedicating it personally to him with an inscription. At his impressive first presidential inauguration on March 4, 1933, Roosevelt made arrangements for Rutherfurd to attend and witness his shedding. When her husband later suffered a stroke, she contacted Roosevelt to arrange for her to be admitted to the famous Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC Historian/author Doris Kearns Goodwin speculated that an entry in the White House diary for August 1, 1941 included the name code for Lucy Rutherfurd, indicating that she attended a private dinner with the president. After the death of her husband when the two began to meet each other more often, Rutherfurd also arranged for his friend Elizabeth Shoumatoff, (1888-1980), a famous artist, to paint a portrait of Roosevelt.
Winthrop Rutherfurd died in March 1944 after a long illness. Lucy continues to meet Roosevelt in the following months more often. In June 1944, Franklin asked his daughter, Anna, who then administered some of the White House social functions and acted as a hostess, that she helped her arrange a meeting with Lucy without Eleanor's knowledge. Recognizing Rutherfurd's role in the early marriage of his parents, Anna was initially angry that his father had put him in a difficult position. However, he finally relented and arranged a meeting in Georgetown. Surprisingly, Anna finds out that she likes Lucy immediately, and the couple becomes friends. There should have been some dinner on the private floor of the White House on the second floor during Roosevelt's final year attended by Rutherfurd in a group with Anna's presence and clear acceptance. When Eleanor discovered shortly after FDR's death from the female cousin of Anna's role in arranging these meetings, the relationship between Eleanor and Anna became tense and cold for some time.
In early April 1945, Anna arranged for Rutherfurd to come from her estate in South Carolina in Aiken to meet her father at "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia, a simple, rustic little cottage built in polio therapy by heating. Roosevelt developed mineral spring resorts began in the 1920s. Rutherfurd and Shoumatoff along with two female cousins ​​were sitting there when the artist was working on his FDR painting as he sat at the card table by the stone fireplace in the living room, setting up future speeches and reading several other papers in the afternoon. on April 12, 1945. In this quiet housekeeping atmosphere as both of them had just smiled at each other, Roosevelt suddenly put his hand on his forehead and temple, saying, "I had a terrible headache," then slumped in loss of consciousness. Then two of his doctors called in quickly to say he was suffering a fatal brain hemorrhage. Since a thorough medical examination a year earlier, he has received increasingly intensive care and attention from a recently recruited young physician. The two women, Mercer and Shoumatoff immediately packed up and left the cottage. Eleanor then immediately learns the truth from her cousins ​​and feels betrayed betrayed to know her daughter's role in long-term fraud. Finding Shoumatoff's unfinished watercolor unfinished among Franklin's possessions sometime later, he sends it to Rutherfurd, whom Rutherfurd responds with a warm thank-you note and condolences.
In 1947, Rutherfurd's sister Violetta committed suicide after her husband demanded a divorce. Mercer/Rutherfurd himself died of leukemia at a young age of 57 on July 31, 1948, only 3-1/4 years later after the FDR, after destroying almost all of his correspondence with Franklin. Rutherfurd is buried with her husband in Green Township, New Jersey.
General declarations about infidelity
Following Roosevelt's death, his government hid from the press the fact that Rutherfurd had been present during his death, fearing the scandal that was about to happen. Shoumatoff's presence became known, and he gave a press conference to answer questions, but managed to hide the role of Rutherfurd and was not even mentioned in the early post-war biography and administrative history for nearly two decades. Roosevelt's second private secretary, Grace Tully, (1900-1984), who was also in Warm Springs for his death, briefly mentions the existence of Rutherfurd in "FDR, My Boss" , his biography of 1949, but gave no further clue about the relationship. Although reported several times in Eleanor's lifetime that Roosevelt has had a serious relationship with an unnamed Catholic woman, this remains a rumor for only a few decades.
The Mercer-Roosevelt event became wider public knowledge in 1966, when it was revealed in The Time Between the Wars, a memoir of the 1920s and 1930s, written by Jonathan W. Daniels, (1902-1981). ), Roosevelt's former aide from 1943 to 1945. When news of the contents of the memoir broke out, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., (1914-1988), said that he had no knowledge of the affair between Rutherfurd and his father, while Rutherfurd's daughter Barbara, firmly denied that such romance had taken place. The famous historian/author Arthur Schlesinger Jr., (1917-2007), declared an affair that if Rutherfurd "in any way helped Franklin Roosevelt maintain a daunting leadership burden in the second world war, this nation has a compelling reason to be grateful to him".
Popular culture
Mercer's friendship with Franklin Roosevelt is described in the famous TV mini-series "Eleanor and Franklin" starring Edward Herrmann and Jane Alexander from 1976, (the second series was also broadcasted in 1977 titled "Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years "with flashbacks to previous episodes) and based on a previous best-selling biography of the same name by Eleanor's personal friend, Joseph P. Lash in 1971.
In addition, the relationship is included in the documentary film XX - "FDR" for the multi-part video retrospective "The Presidents" series for the "American Experience" series on history and biography American at Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Also, two decades later in the 2014 documentary, also aired for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), The Roosevelts, directed by renowned documentary film maker Ken Burns, with accompanying accompanying drawing books by Geoffrey Perrett
References
Bibliography
- Cook, Blanche Wiesen (1992). Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 1 . Penguin. ISBN: 0140094601.
- Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1994). No Ordinary Time . Simon & amp; Schuster. ISBN: 9780684804484. Ã,
- Persico, Joseph E. (2008). Franklin & amp; Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and Other Extraordinary Women in His Life . Random House. ISBN: 9781400064427.
- Rowley, Hazel (2010). Franklin and Eleanor: Extraordinary Wedding . Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN: 9780374158576. Ã,
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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