Eleanor Roosevelt's Marriage Was Much Lonelier Than You Thought

April 12, 1945. Franklin Roosevelt collapsed at Warm Springs, Georgia, and died a few hours later. His wife Eleanor was five hundred miles away. But in the room that afternoon was Lucy Mercer, the woman he had promised Eleanor, 27 years earlier, that he would never see again. In 1918, Eleanor found Lucy's letters in her husband's luggage and offered him a divorce. His mother threatened to cut him off, his advisor warned him it would end his career, and Franklin promised to give Lucy up. He didn't. And when Eleanor finally learned the truth, she discovered that their own daughter had helped keep the secret. 0:00 April 12, 1945 1:04 Washington, 1913 2:25 Franklin and Lucy 3:42 September 1918: the letters 4:43 The promise 6:35 The inaugurations 7:23 1944: Anna's secret 8:33 Warm Springs 9:32 What Eleanor found out 10:11 The Unfinished Portrait Sources: Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin (1971); Jonathan Daniels, Washington Quadrille (1968) and The Time Between the Wars (1966); Joseph E. Persico, Franklin and Lucy (2008); Elizabeth Shoumatoff, FDR's Unfinished Portrait (1990); Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1 (1992); Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. Footage and images: public domain (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, National Archives, Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing, U.S. Navy) via Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive; "Down the Old Potomac" (1917, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., public domain). CC BY-SA 4.0: "Madame Elizabeth Shoumatoff with President Roosevelt" (Wikimedia Commons). Music and sound design: original. #history #fdr #eleanorroosevelt