THE FIGHTING FIRST LADY!

By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



Well-worn suitcase in hand, her Red Cross uniform snug and no-nonsense, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt, forever known as Eleanor, and as she requests to be known to me, clip-clops in her stubby-heeled pumps to the airplane that will fly us from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco, California. I would offer to unburden her of her suitcase, but I have learned that she would ignore my request. She is a self-sufficient soul—thoughtful to the extreme. She would deem surrendering her suitcase to me as an affront to my dignity as a human being, even though I serve as her assistant and helper on this trip. That her life has been one of wealth and privilege since its inception is not easily reconciled with the person I have come to know. Coddled she is not, nor does she wish it to be the case.

            Once again, she is going where her husband cannot go—he cannot go for the reason of his physical limitations, and because of the demands of his office as President of the United States of America. At this exact moment, he is at the war-planning conference in Quebec, Canada with Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston S. Churchill. The trip will give the First Lady the opportunity to meet troops stationed on remote islands cut off from their loved-ones. In this way, she will act as a surrogate for the mothers across the land, both to bring comfort to the troops and to their mothers to whom she will report in her newspaper column, My Day.

San Francisco is our first stop on this steamy afternoon of August 17, 1943, and is the inauguration of our secret, six-week-long, twenty-five thousand miles journey into the dangerous war-zone of the South Pacific. Eleanor is not cavalier about the possible peril facing us. She wears no jewelry, having stored it away safely back home with instructions as to its distribution lest she never returns. I am breathless from her courage. Admiration of her fills me from stem to stern.

From America’s west coast, we ride the wind across the Pacific in an all-night flight, landing mid-morning in Honolulu, Hawaii, at Hickam Field. This place so near to Pearl Harbor is the portal of the anguish of America’s plunge into World War II, wrought by Japan’s attack on the American Fleet there. The base as well as aircraft at Hickam, parked wingtip to wingtip to guard against sabotage on that fateful December 7^th morning not two years ago, were also heavily damaged or destroyed. Nevertheless, the airfield has been in non-stop use since then. Viewing bullet holes and other artifacts of the attack on surviving structures is not an item on our agenda, and we press on three and one-half hours later to our initial South Pacific destination. I am not an easy flier and I busy myself with writing in my trip’s log to avoid the view outside the aircraft’s windows. “Bear in mind that the log you keep of the trip will be of great interest to me and will influence the war’s policy, no doubt,” the president said to me before he left for Quebec. I struggle to regain my equilibrium when we touch down on Christmas Island.  

The war in the Pacific stretches from the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska to Australia, 6,600 miles of contested ocean in between. Our trip will concentrate on visiting Allied forces in New Zealand and Australia as well as copious time spent island hopping to call on troops. There are seventeen Pacific islands on our schedule, their melodic names spanning half of the alphabet. The initial seven are Christmas, Penhryn, Bora Bora, Aitutaki, Tutuliua Samoa, Fiji, and New Caledonia, all to be visited during six whirlwind days. Our welcome at Christmas Island is chilly and officious. U.S. Admiral William “Bull” Halsey is visibly impatient and put-off by our presence. He has a war to fight and visits by “do-gooders” are nothing but a nuisance, as well as expensive in terms of resources required to meet their agendas. This is not to mention the extra security required to keep them out of harm’s way—an impossible task in actuality. The fighting does not stop because the First Lady of the United States of America has come to town. In fact, were it known, the fighting would intensify. Eleanor and I do not escape the admiral’s displeasure.

 “Whirlwind” is an understatement in describing Eleanor. Within our twelve hours on Christmas Island, she inspects two Navy hospitals, an officer’s rest house a boat-ride away, returns and inspects an Army hospital, reviews her son James’ former Marine battalion, delivers a speech at a service club, attends a reception, and is the guest of honor at a dinner given by General Harmon. Even Admiral Halsey said, “…I marveled at her hardihood, both physical and mental. She walked for miles, and saw new patients who were grievously and gruesomely wounded. But I marveled most at their expressions as she leaned over them. It was a sight I will never forget.” She talks to the wounded, touches them, and shows them her sincere interest and concern. The admiral apologizes to her for his crustiness upon our arrival, and expresses his gratitude to her for what she has done for his men. This is a sampling of the schedule she keeps throughout the entire trip, and its impact.

In her My Day newspaper column, she describes her visit to Bora Bora: “I went through the hospital, saw the Red Cross man, the headquarters building, tents, and mess hall and day room and outdoor theater in a colored troop area. There seems to be no trouble anywhere out here between the white and colored. They lie in beds in the same wards, go to the same movies and sit side by side and work side by side, but I don’t think I’ve seen them mess together, but their food is as good and everything just as clean in their quarters. Southern and Northern Negroes are in the same outfits.” Civil rights, both for women and colored citizens, is one of Eleanor’s passions. She fights tirelessly for their equality in education, housing, employment, and voting as basic human rights. Her stance is that the status of civil rights in a country is the litmus test of its strength as a democracy. Her efforts to have our military fully integrated have been thwarted, but she will not give up, if I know her.

Eleanor can never be accused of being a chameleon. Expediency holds no store with her. What you see with Eleanor is what you get. By the end of the trip she is thirty pounds thinner and the new best friend of thousands of Allied troops and their families, a triumph of loving, kinetic energy over discord and despair.©

Note: the above is a work of historical fiction based on actual events.



Images: Mrs. Roosevelt visits World War II troops in the Pacific Theater.



Recommended Reading: Eleanor Roosevelt’s My Day newspaper columns are available for view at online web sites.



Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com and by request at other booksellers.

“VICTORY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JUSTICE.”

 By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.



“Victory has nothing to do with justice,” noted author George Orwell in reference to the power of the imagination to rise above physical hardship and to find hope in living. This writer sees in it a fitting association with Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), President of the United States before and during World War II. Historians and biographers of FDR have noted the president’s almost supernatural optimism against the worst of odds, and his uncanny serenity when all around him unceasing tempests raged. Whether or not he was born with those facilities we do not know. But certainly, latent or not, he earned them in coming to terms with polio that struck him in his prime, the affliction that could not be cured, and that derailed what was regarded as his route in the upward trajectory of his career, as well as his life.  

Jaunty and eager behind the steering wheel of his Jeep, Mrs. Roosevelt and his closet personal advisor, Harry Hopkins accompanying him, FDR was parked at the entrance of the long drive that gained access to Hyde Park, his family retreat in Upstate New York. He awaited the arrival of Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston S. Churchill and his daughter, Mary. In just a few balmy August, 1943 days, the president and the prime minister would convene a war-plans conference in Quebec, Canada. This sojourn at Hyde Park was a short getaway prior to the intense work that faced them. Exhausted from the journey to Canada from England several days before, Mrs. Churchill remained in Quebec, ensconced at the Citadelle, Great Britain’s King George VI’s residence that ranged a high cliff above the St. Lawrence River.

Convinced of the power of his personality to influence the outcome of World War II and subsequent world affairs, FDR was flushed with anticipation at hobnobbing with his British friend once more. Mr. Churchill was similarly as strong in ego and opinion as was Mr. Roosevelt. How fascinating it would have been to have had an ear in on their discussions. Mary’s noncommittal assessment of them was summed up in seven words: “Papa and he (FDR) are an interesting contrast.”

It did Mrs. Roosevelt’s heart good to see her husband so thoroughly energized by the company of his two friends, as well as the prospect of the conference. Mr. Roosevelt was often quite worn down by his immense responsibilities—much more so than in earlier days of his long presidency. Encouraging his good mood, Mrs. Roosevelt set her agenda to coincide with the Churchill’s visit and joined her husband as solicitous and sunny hosts to their guests. Their lengthy marriage had narrowed in its conjugal aspects. Incompatibility in their personalities and infidelity and maybe simply attrition had altered its character, but still there was genuine friendship, devotion, coupled with a sincere eagerness for each other’s happiness and purpose. And of course, both of them were consummate patriots and would do whatever their country called upon them to do.

Mr. Roosevelt had given up fighting his leg braces and wheelchair and Mrs. Roosevelt had ceased battling to stay in the role appointed to her by tradition. She had moved beyond her position as a wife and mother, and in her case, her mother-in-law’s compliant daughter-in-law. She had stepped forward when her husband was struck down. She had learned to be his legs, his voice, and his heart in the public realm, and in the process, had found her own true self, and once found, she was not about to relinquish it! If she could no longer occupy his bedroom, she took to showing up in his office, or at table when he took his meals, or wherever she could gain access to his ear, because now, she had ideas and opinions of her own. And there in one of the new roles she carved out for herself in their marriage, she laid her concerns about the country at her husband’s feet. It was well known that he received her graciously and with interest and was inclined to accept her views, on occasion. He was more tight-lipped with her, though. As put forth by Mary in her book CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL, the Biography of a Marriage, because Mrs. Roosevelt traveled so much and made copious speeches, as well as wrote a daily newspaper column, Mr. Roosevelt was afraid she would forget and let something “secret,” slip out.      

While Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill bore much in common: all of them hailed from the aristocracy of their nations; they were all classically educated and erudite; they were the leaders of their countries; and the thirty-eight-year Roosevelt marriage was prolific in the number of children it had brought into the world, as was the long marriage of the Churchill’s. The prime minister and his wife were soon to celebrate their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.

With all their similarities, they couldn’t have been more different, however, and possibly most notably, in the nature of their marriages. The chasm between the Roosevelts was not a factor in the Churchill relationship. Mrs. Churchill never had a cause nor a desire to find fulfillment outside her marriage. Projects held no interest for her. Her husband was her project for the entirety of their nearly six decades together. Shared with readers by their daughter in the above noted book, Mr. Churchill said to his wife on the occasion of their thirty-fifth anniversary, “I love you more and more each year.”

Conditions within the borders of both the United States and Great Britain were dicey. Domestic politics was a tangled web for Mr. Roosevelt, and the Nazi threat was only a narrow body of water separate from Mr. Churchill’s island nation of Great Britain. Its cities were being bombed and its people maimed or dying. But word from the battlefields of the war was encouraging. The Germans and Italians were routed from North Africa. Sicily was well on its way to being conquered. The Allied assault on the mainland of Italy was on the near horizon. In North Africa, American troops were training for that impending campaign. Mussolini and his Fascist Italian government were toppled and a new and friendly government was in its place. Russia, the Allied partner, was on the offensive against Germany in the east. The Nazi submarine menace in the Atlantic was reduced severely. The Allies had destroyed nearly one-third of German U-boats at sea. In the Pacific Theater, the United States had turned back the Japanese at Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Solomon Islands. The tide was changed in both the European and Pacific Theaters of the war in the Allies’ favor.

Both Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Churchill knew that the realities could, and more than likely would, wreck the best-laid plans, on the battlefield, and elsewhere. There was no better teacher in life of that fact than marriage to a politician. Both of their husbands were high with accomplishment and heady with their power. In their unique ways, both women sought to shield their husbands from their inevitable emotional crash when bad news filtered in. For the moment though, the four of them were content in the status quo—once again, and in particular, events were bearing out Mr. Roosevelt’s supernatural optimism. He had a vision of himself in his soul, and despite his broken body and improbable route to his stake as the 20^th century’s greatest US President and one of the greatest persons of his time, he brought his vision into being.©

Note: the above is a work of historical fiction based on actual events.



Image: Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the campaign trail.



Recommended Reading:

CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL, the Biography of a Marriage by Mary [Churchill] Soames.

A DAUGHTER’S TALE by Mary [Churchill] Soames.

THE ROOSEVELT PRESENCE, The Life and Legacy of FDR by Patrick J. Maney.



Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com and by request at other booksellers.