Mary
Livingston Ludlow Hall, ER's maternal grandmother, the fourth
child of Valentine G. Hall and Susan Tonnele Hall, was born
in New York City in 1843. A mild and submissive girl who
took great pleasure that one relative signed the Declaration
of Independence and another became the first governor of
New York, Mary Ludlow spent her childhood in the company
of the elitest of New York society. In 1861, she married
Valentine Gill Hall, Jr., the son of her father's business
partner, and gave birth to four daughters and two sons.
Married life was not a pleasant period in Grandmother Hall's
life. Her husband, who lived off the family fortune, devoted
his considerable energy to religious study and grew more
puritanical with age. While deeply religious, Mary Hall's
faith had different roots a God that appreciated joy and
encouraged a wide appreciation of life and nature. Valentine
Hall overruled his wife's faith and demanded that she and
the family practice "the ramrod like self-denial" that he
thought God demanded.(1)
A key part of this denial was Valentine Hall's complete
control of all aspects of Mary Hall's life. Nine years older
than she, Valentine Hall treated his wife as he treated
his children. He would not allow her to shop or choose her
own clothes or those of their children. She had no voice
in planning the education of their children and he did not
discuss finances or household budgets with her. She stopped
painting.
When her husband died suddenly, fifty-year-old Mary Hall
was not equipped to manage the family and turned to her
daughter, Anna, for help. Anna managed the finances and
helped plan the family's budget. She also helped discipline
her rowdy siblings, who had become even more rowdy after
their father's death. After Anna's death, Mary Hall struggled
to cope with her sons, Valentine and Edward, who had serious
problems with alcohol and raise Anna's two children, Eleanor
and Hall, who
were left in her care. Her home was "a very unpleasant
place"
and it took its toll on her. She seemed "beaten," as though
"life was more than she could bear" one cousin recalled.(2)
Her homes were, secluded semibarricaded places, with shades
pulled tightly against the light, doors between rooms
closed,
and visitors tightly screened.
Mary Hall died August 14, 1919. That night, ER noted her
grandmother's death in her diary and called her "a gentle,
good woman with a great and simple faith." Yet as much as
she loved Mary Hall, ER also often remarked that as good
a person as Hall was, her life was neither happy, fulfilling
or complete. "Her willingness to be subservient to her children
isolated her, . . . and it might have been far better, for
her boys at least, had she insisted on bringing more discipline
into their lives simply by having a life of her own." ER
understood Hall's sadness and used it as a catalyst for
her own happiness. "My grandmother's life had a considerable
effect on me, for even when I was young I determined," she
wrote in This I Remember,"that I would never be
dependent upon my children by allowing all my interests
to center in them."(3)
Notes:
- Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin (New
York: Signet Press, 1971), 43.
- Betty Boyd Caroli, The Roosevelt Women (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 245.
- Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1937), 300.
Sources:
Caroli, Betty Boyd. The Roosevelt Women. New York:
Basic Books, 1998, 239-248.
Lash, Joseph P. Eleanor and Franklin. New York: Signet, 1971, 42-45.
Roosevelt, Eleanor. This I Remember. New York: Harper & Brothers,
1937, 299-301.