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Authors: Eleanor Roosevelt
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was better able to handle many difficulties that arose during this strange winter than was Pussie, who was some fourteen years my senior.
A number of pleasant things happened that winter, however. Pussie’s musical talent kept her in touch with a certain number of artistic people, and I enjoyed listening to her play and going to the theater, concerts and the opera with her. Bob Ferguson, who lived a pleasant bachelor existence in New York and had many friends, introduced me that year to Bay Emmett, the painter, and some of her friends, and I rejoiced that Bob and I had re-established our old friendship. He felt that he was entitled to bring me home after parties we might both attend, which was a great relief to me, as otherwise I had to have a maid wait for me—that was one of the rules my grandmother had laid down. The rule amuses me when I realize how gaily I went around European cities all by myself. However, she accepted Bob as escort, though she would not hear of anyone else having the same privilege.
He took me to several parties in Bay Emmett’s studio and gave me my first taste of informally meeting people whose names I recognized as having accomplished things in the sphere of art and letters. I liked this much better than the dinners and dances I was struggling through in formal society each night, and yet I would not have wanted at that age to be left out, for I was still haunted by my upbringing and believed that what was known as New York Society was really important.
During this time I had begun to see occasionally my cousin Franklin Roosevelt, who was at college, and also his cousin, Lyman Delano, and various other members of his family and some of his college friends. His mother, Mrs. James Roosevelt, was sorry for me, I think.
Mrs. Roosevelt and her husband, who died in 1900, had been fond of my mother and, particularly, of my father, who had crossed on the steamer with them when he was starting his trip around the world. They were so fond of him that when their son, Franklin, was born they asked my father to be his godfather.
When I was two years old my father and mother took me to stay at Hyde Park with them. My mother-in-law later told me that she remembered my standing in the door with my finger in my mouth and being addressed as “Granny” by my mother, and that Franklin rode me around the nursery on his back. My first recollection of Franklin is at one of the Orange Christmas parties, later a glimpse of him the summer I came home from school when I was going up to Tivoli in the coach of a New York Central train. He spied me and took me to speak to his mother, who was in the Pullman car. I never saw him again until he began to come to occasional dances the winter I came out and I was asked to a house party at Hyde Park where the other guests were mostly his cousins.
I did not stay so much in Tivoli the summer after I came out. I was there part of the time but paid a great many visits, for by that time I had made many friends and Mrs. Parish was kind to me as always. In the autumn when I was nineteen my grandmother decided that she could not afford to open the New York house, and the question came up of where Pussie and I were going to live. Mrs. Ludlow invited Pussie to stay with her and Mrs. Parish offered me a home.
I had grown up considerably during the past year and had come to the conclusion that I would not spend another year just doing the social rounds, particularly as I knew that my cousin’s house would mean less ease in casual entertainment than I had known in the 37th Street house. She still lived with a great deal of formality and punctuality and the latter was now not one of my strong points.
Cousin Susie (Mrs. Parish) told me that I might occasionally have guests for tea down in a little reception room on the first floor, but there was no feeling that I could ask people in casually for meals. I had my maid, however, and everything was arranged so that I could go out as much as
A number of pleasant things happened that winter, however. Pussie’s musical talent kept her in touch with a certain number of artistic people, and I enjoyed listening to her play and going to the theater, concerts and the opera with her. Bob Ferguson, who lived a pleasant bachelor existence in New York and had many friends, introduced me that year to Bay Emmett, the painter, and some of her friends, and I rejoiced that Bob and I had re-established our old friendship. He felt that he was entitled to bring me home after parties we might both attend, which was a great relief to me, as otherwise I had to have a maid wait for me—that was one of the rules my grandmother had laid down. The rule amuses me when I realize how gaily I went around European cities all by myself. However, she accepted Bob as escort, though she would not hear of anyone else having the same privilege.
He took me to several parties in Bay Emmett’s studio and gave me my first taste of informally meeting people whose names I recognized as having accomplished things in the sphere of art and letters. I liked this much better than the dinners and dances I was struggling through in formal society each night, and yet I would not have wanted at that age to be left out, for I was still haunted by my upbringing and believed that what was known as New York Society was really important.
During this time I had begun to see occasionally my cousin Franklin Roosevelt, who was at college, and also his cousin, Lyman Delano, and various other members of his family and some of his college friends. His mother, Mrs. James Roosevelt, was sorry for me, I think.
Mrs. Roosevelt and her husband, who died in 1900, had been fond of my mother and, particularly, of my father, who had crossed on the steamer with them when he was starting his trip around the world. They were so fond of him that when their son, Franklin, was born they asked my father to be his godfather.
When I was two years old my father and mother took me to stay at Hyde Park with them. My mother-in-law later told me that she remembered my standing in the door with my finger in my mouth and being addressed as “Granny” by my mother, and that Franklin rode me around the nursery on his back. My first recollection of Franklin is at one of the Orange Christmas parties, later a glimpse of him the summer I came home from school when I was going up to Tivoli in the coach of a New York Central train. He spied me and took me to speak to his mother, who was in the Pullman car. I never saw him again until he began to come to occasional dances the winter I came out and I was asked to a house party at Hyde Park where the other guests were mostly his cousins.
I did not stay so much in Tivoli the summer after I came out. I was there part of the time but paid a great many visits, for by that time I had made many friends and Mrs. Parish was kind to me as always. In the autumn when I was nineteen my grandmother decided that she could not afford to open the New York house, and the question came up of where Pussie and I were going to live. Mrs. Ludlow invited Pussie to stay with her and Mrs. Parish offered me a home.
I had grown up considerably during the past year and had come to the conclusion that I would not spend another year just doing the social rounds, particularly as I knew that my cousin’s house would mean less ease in casual entertainment than I had known in the 37th Street house. She still lived with a great deal of formality and punctuality and the latter was now not one of my strong points.
Cousin Susie (Mrs. Parish) told me that I might occasionally have guests for tea down in a little reception room on the first floor, but there was no feeling that I could ask people in casually for meals. I had my maid, however, and everything was arranged so that I could go out as much as
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