Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt

First I have to brag that I have an aweome 10 year old. Last Friday we went to the library and I told the kids they could each check out one movie each. Joe chose a 4 hour PBS documentary about Franklin D. Roosevelt. He went home that afternoon and watched the whole thing. On a summer afternoon. Since then he has been begging me to watch it with him. Lucky for him and me, I am a history buff too and LOVE biographies so we watched it today. I learned a lot about both him and his very impressive wife. Here are the things I found most interesting.

- The first thing I learned, because it was the only part I saw when he watched it last Friday was that FDR had an affair before he was president. His wife offered a divorce but they chose to stay married to keep appearances for his political career. They were never very close after that. That was a surprise and a disapointment to me.

-FDR was not popular in school. He never fit in at his boarding school as a youth and was rejected from a prestigious club in college as well.

-His mom was very domineering. When her husband died she moved out to be with Franklin. When FDR and his wife were married, and was returning from his honeymoon they recieved a special gift from his mother. A new home, designed, payed for, and decorated by her. It was also next door and joined with her house. She had free reign to go back and forth. At the dinner table Sarah (his mom) sat at one end, and Franklin at the other. Eleanor sat in the middle with the kids. Poor Eleanor.

-Eleanor had little confidence in her ability to be a mother, especially with her infants and since her mother-in-law was so confident and assertive she always let her be in charge of the raising decisions.

-When he contracted Polio Franklin came very close to giving up his political career. His mother wanted him to just come home to his childhood home and live out the rest of his life quietly like his father had. Eleanor knew her husband well enough to know he would not be happy that way and stood up to Franklin's mother for the first time.

-Frannklin restored "Warm Springs" in Georgia and made it a place for people with Polio to recover and recoperate. He was involved with the other patients treatment and was loved by those who came there. I think this was what impressed me most about him. More than anything he did as President.

-Polio changed Franklin a lot. He became far more patient and sympathetic of other peoples suffereing. Before that he was more distant and more of a flirtatious playboy. He was well loved by the people in Georgia because he would often drive in his customized car (so he could drive with paralyzed legss). He would stop to talk to people in the area and really get to know them.

-When he returned to politics he worked really hard to avoid looking disabled. He would lean on someones arm heavily on one side and a cane on the other and use his body to move his legs so it looked like he could walk.

-Eleanore changed a lot over the years. With a domineering mother-in-law, low confidence as a young mother and her husbands affair, these things made her who she became. She certainly allowed trial to refine her instead of brake her.

-Eleanor was horrified to become the First Lady. She had developed a life of her own and had her own political career that she feared had to end as a First lady. Instead of changing herself to fit the role of First lady however, she changed the role of First lady to fit her and changed the job description forever. I want to learn a lot more about her.