Sara Delano Roosevelt (SDR) was the daughter of Warren Delano,
a wealthy merchant who made a fortune in the tea and opium
trade in China, and after losing it, returned to make a
second fortune. Sara grew up in Hong Kong from 1862-65 and
in Algonac, the family estate on the Hudson River near Newburgh,
New York. She was educated at home, except for a short period
in 1867 when she attended a school for girls in Dresden,
Germany. Sara Delano was tall and radiantly beautiful and
had many suitors. At twenty-six, to the surprise of her
friends, she married James Roosevelt, a widower who was
twice her age. By all accounts, she found great happiness
in her marriage and in life on her husband's Hyde Park,
New York, estate. After the birth of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt on January 30, 1882, she was advised
to have no more children. She became absorbed in raising
her only son, reading to him, giving him baths, and directing
his activities herself rather than leaving these tasks to
servants. After the death of her husband in 1900, she became
still more single-mindedly focused on her son and his welfare.
She moved temporarily to Boston when he attended Harvard
in order to be near him. No mother could have been more
devoted. She was also strong willed, controlling, opinionated,
and inflexible. She does not seem to have been enthusiastic
about any of the young women her son courted and, when he
fell in love and proposed marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt,
she tried to change his mind and insisted that the engagement
be kept secret for a year.
After Franklin and Eleanor's marriage on March 17, 1905,
SDR planned every facet of their lives. She built a double
townhouse at 49 East 65th Street in Manhattan,
one half for them, one half for herself. Later, she bought
a cottage for them right next to her own on the island
of Campobello where she spent her summers. When children
began to arrive, she was there with advice on how to
rear
them and she often undermined parental discipline by spoiling
them. The Delanos were a close and supportive family,
unlike
ER's mother's family, the Halls, and ER at first appreciated
her mother-in-law's attention. She felt insecure about
her
role as a mother and relied on Sara's direction. She tried
to please Sara and win her affection. But Sara was aloof
and emotionally focused on her son, Franklin. ER soon found
her mother-in-law's domination oppressive and struggled
to achieve her independence. As she developed her own interests,
friends, and activities, and in the 1920s
emerged as a political leader in her own right, she was
able to escape Sara's authority. At times FDR and ER became
allies in opposing Sara's will. After polio paralyzed FDR's
legs, Sara wanted FDR to retire to Hyde Park and live
the
rest of his life as a country gentleman, but ER strongly
supported FDR's desire to return to politics. Sara hated
politics, hated publicity, hated newspapermen, and was
prejudiced against any individual or group not belonging
to her elite
social class. Ironically, the public lives of both her
son and her daughter-in-law exposed her to much that she
found
distasteful. She retained her dignity, her pride in her
family and lineage, and her strong opinions, however,
and
remained in charge of Springwood, the estate in Hyde Park
that she had shared with her husband and then with FDR,
until
her death. FDR never created a home with ER that was separate
from his mother's home and even after Sara's death FDR
refused
to make any changes in the way the house was furnished
or decorated.
After Sara died on September 7, 1941, ER wrote in her column
that Sara's "strongest trait was loyalty to her family. . .
. She was not just sweetness and light, for there was a streak
of jealously and possessiveness in her when her own were concerned."(1)
ER recognized Sara's fierce strength, but she could not
love her. "It is dreadful," she wrote a friend, "to have lived
so close to someone for 36 years & feel no deep affection
or sense of loss. It is hard on Franklin however."(2)
Notes:
- Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and
Franklin (New York: Norton, 1971), 643
- Ibid, 643.
Sources:
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt,
Volume One, 1884-1933. New York: Viking, 1992.
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt,
Volume Two, 1933-38. New York: Viking, 1999.
Graham, Otis L. and Meghan Robinson Wander. Franklin
Roosevelt, His Life and Times. Boston: G.K. Hall &
Co., 1985.
Lash, Joseph P. Eleanor and Franklin. New York: Norton,
1971.