Hyde Park on Hudson (Series No. 6): an affectionate and caring, but not sexual relationship

The relationship between FDR and Daisy was an affectionate and caring one; I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I am afraid it may portray or suggest a sexual one, given the fact that it carries an R rating. If so, it doesn’t do justice to FDR and Daisy.

FDR did have an affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd in 1916-1918 (That will be another post).  They began to see each other again after 1941, not often though, at times through the arrangement of Anna, FDR’s only daughter.  I may be of the opinion of Arthur Schlesinger (the same guy who interviewed Jacqueline Kennedy shortly after JFK’s assassination) who once said, “If Lucy Mercer in any way helped Franklin Roosevelt sustain the frightful burden of leadership in the Second World War, the nation has good reason to be grateful to her.” But I refuse to go along with those who say it was a ‘beautiful’ affair, as there is no such a thing.  A cheating heart is a cheating heart.

My opinion is formed from reading the books of Closest Companion (which is based on Daisy’s diaries and the 38 FDR’s letters written to her), FDR and Lucy: Lovers and Friends, and The Roosevelt Cousins and the FDR biographies written after 1991.

 

FDR went to the Little White House in Warm Springs (in George; FDR initially went there for the good therapeutic effect of the spring to his polio) during the 1944 Thanksgiving holiday.  The ever busy Eleanor didn’t go with him; she felt it is quite OK as Daisy Suckley and Laura “Polly” Delano, the two unmarried distant cousins were going with FDR.  And Eleanor knew they will provide all the care and company FDR needed.  Eleanor called these two cousins “the handmaidens”.

These two cousins and Lucy Mercer were with FDR on his last visit to the Warm Springs when he died on April 12, 1945.  FDR died as a happy man as the women he enjoyed company and affection were with him.

But, if you’re like Oscar Wilde, “Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship,” then I may have to try harder to convince you .