Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884 -1962
Eleanor Roosevelt's mother, Anna, an extraordinarily beautiful woman, believed social success was a woman's main goal in life. Because Eleanor was a plain child, as well as a serious one, her mother early on judged her to be forever a social failure. Anna made derogatory comments about Eleanor's looks and her seriousness, often calling her "Granny."
Money was never a problem for the Roosevelt family. Or perhaps it was. If Eleanor's father had had to work for a living he might have become a different sort of person. Elliot was an alcoholic--charming when sober, but angry, demanding, even cruel when drunk. Anna protected herself from him by increasing her social activities, and while Eleanor was usually safe from Elliot's abuse, she still blamed herself on those occasions when he unjustly berated her. She felt extremely close to--and protective of--her father.
From the beginning of the Roosevelt's marriage, Elliot was absent from home a great deal, first to travel and drink, later to attempt self- or family-imposed sanitarium "cures."
Eleanor was two when her parents sought to improve their marriage by a family trip to Europe. On the first day the ship encountered dense fog and was rammed by another vessel. Many were killed or injured. In the ensuing panic, Elliot helped his wife, sister-in-law, and Eleanor's nurse into a lifeboat. He then got into the boat himself and called to a crewman who held a panic stricken Eleanor, "Drop her down. I will catch her." Eleanor screamed in terror and refused to let go of the crewman, who finally pried her fingers loose and dropped her to her father's open arms. Eleanor's fear of heights and water persisted for many years, causing her parents to take subsequent trips without her, which made her feel abandoned.
When Eleanor was five, Anna sent her to her aunts' home to stay until she later dispatched to the aunts and Eleanor news of a baby brother. The added responsibilities of another family member pitched Elliot into deeper depression, suspiciousness, and jealousy. Finally, be began to drink again and deserted his family for long periods of time.
The following year the family took another trip to Europe, again with unrealistic hopes of finding unity and happiness. Eleanor demurely went along, blaming herself for some of her father's outbursts. Anna was pregnant with her third child, but when the doctor insisted that Anna needed to stop their travels frequently to rest, Elliot became angry and mean. In the middle of the trip, Elliot entered a sanatarium for a cure. The family remained in Europe, and Eleanor was enrolled in a convent school to learn French as well as to be kept out of the way when a second son was born.
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