Franklin and Lucy

by Joseph E. Persico

The Roosevelts had a townhouse at 47 East 65th Street, a wedding gift from Franklin’s mother and adjacent to her twin townhouse. The couple’s home was currently rented, and so, to Eleanor’s disappointment and his mother’s satisfaction, the sailors carried Franklin to a guest bedroom on Sara’s side. While her husband was put to bed, a distraught Eleanor tried to be helpful by unpacking his luggage. Her hand fell upon the packet of letters tied with the velvet ribbon, faintly scented, and addressed to Franklin in a familiar hand. An uneasy curiosity overcame her ingrained good breeding and she opened the first letter. What she read struck her like a body blow. Every succeeding letter hammered home what was unmistakable. Her husband was involved in a love affair. The letters were signed by the young woman she had for a time employed as her social secretary and made part of her family, Lucy Mercer. As she later described the moment, “The bottom dropped out of my particular world.”