Emily Herring Wilson - The Three Graces of Val-Kill: Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Dickerman, and Nancy Cook in the Place They Made Their Own

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, MARION DICKERMAN, AND NANCY COOK IN THE PLACE THEY MADE THEIR OWN

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
Chapel Hill

2017 Emily Herring Wilson
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Richard Hendel
Set in Quadraat by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

Front cover: Stone Cottage at Val-Kill and Nan Cook, Marion Dickerman, and Eleanor Roosevelt; back cover: monogrammed linen from Stone Cottage.
Courtesy of the Cook-Dickerman Collection, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, National Park Service

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wilson, Emily Herring, author.
Title: The three Graces of Val-Kill : Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Dickerman, and Nancy Cook in the place they made their own / Emily Herring Wilson.
Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017015854| ISBN 9781469635835 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469635842 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Roosevelt, Eleanor, 18841962. | Dickerman, Marion, 18901983. | Cook, Nancy, 18841962. | Female friendshipNew York (State)Hyde Park (Dutchess County) | FeminismNew York (State) | Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site (N.Y.) | Val-Kill Industries.
Classification: LCC E807.1.R48 W473 2017 | DDC 305.4209747dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015854

Let us imagine the Hudson Valley in late summer of 1924, in the Roosevelt house called Springwood at Hyde Park, on a day that began like any other day: fires were lit, kitchen pots were heated, heavy drapes were pulled back, and sunlight fell upon old carpets. Overhead the sounds of running feet broke open the silence. Sara Delano Roosevelt, sole mistress of the house since Mr. James had died almost twenty-five years ago, had been awake and listening, and she opened her arms to receive the grandchildren in her bed. Then she dressed, calling to her son Franklin to remind him that breakfast would be served downstairs. When she passed her daughter-in-law Eleanors door she knocked lightly, listened, and moved on. From the stairs to the lower floor she could smell the acrid smoke left by Franklins friends, who had stayed late. She sniffednot her husbands fine cherootand moved into her snuggery to greet the servants and ready herself for the days inspections of the barns and fields, a task she had once shared with James. After all these years without him she could still feel his presence in the house. The great front door swung open, revealing a flash of fall color in the trees. Along the Albany Post Road wagons moved, and the village was already stirring. To the west, below the bluff, the Hudson River was its own master. A lone boatman floated downstream.

When Eleanor slipped into an empty place at the breakfast table between Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, life partners, Eleanors closest friends, and her invited guests for the weekend, Sara nodded. Breakfast was served from the sideboard, with Franklins favorite, kedgeree. From his end of the table Franklin smiled and began joking with his sons. Daughter Anna looked at her mother and said nothing.

Something seemed different; family tensions had eased. Marion and Nan understood that Eleanor was happier after Franklins suggestion yesterday that the three women build a weekend cottage for themselves on land he would lease them on the banks of Fall-Kill Creek in the part of the Hyde Park estate called Val-Kill. What lay ahead was unclear. Franklin was still recovering from the effects of polio, and his political future was still out of sight, but he and his selfless friend and closest adviser, Louis Howe, held out hope, however uncertain it seemed at this time, that he might one day achieve his dreamto be president of the United States. Eleanors future was less clear in her mind, but she knew that her unhappy marriage, life under the dominance of her mother-in-law, and the prospect of the last of her five children leaving home for boarding school made it necessary for her to make changes, too. What enabled her to take the next steps were these two friends, the independence she would gain from living at Val-Kill, and a wider progressive network of other women. Eleanor did not like to be alone, and many of the happiest times of her life were those when she worked with groups sharing the same public interests. The women she met in Democratic politics in New York in the early 1920s showed her the way.

Historians have recognized Eleanor Roosevelt as the most influential First Lady in American public life, advocating for justice for all, but she sought to define her legacy for herself in a different way when she said, I think perhaps I would prefer when I am dead to have it said that I had a gift for friendship. This is the story of one friendshipwith Marion and Nanand Eleanors first bold experiment, creating a female-centered household that was liberating in its new possibilities for an independent life.

The Three Graces of Val-Kill is a work of evocation and reflection, based on historic research, interviews, and travel. My purpose is to find new ways to better understand one of the most written about women in American history before she became known as the great Eleanor Roosevelt. One of the neglected chapters in her biography is the decade in which she established her independence before becoming First Lady. This critical period was marked by her friendship with Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook. The women FDR called the Three Graces created a community in Hyde Park that supported their personal growth, their career interests, and FDRs own political needs.

Although over several years I have extensively read Roosevelt studies and primary documents at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, my inspirational sources for this book have been my visits to Val-Kill, to the Roosevelt summer home on Campobello Island, and to the historic New Deal housing project at Arthurdale, West Virginia, called Eleanors Little Village. Wherever I have gone, woodland walks have given me time to think about my research in the archives, and guides and fellow visitors have encouraged my questions. In writing this book, I have been carefully true to the facts: when I describe scenes, they are accurate representations of times and places, and all quotations from individuals come directly from either primary or secondary sources. This story illuminates what we can see and understand; at the same time I recognize that we cannot see everything that happened out of our sight so long ago. I am reminded of the poet A. R. Ammonss question in Unsaid: Have you listened for the things I have left out? I respect Eleanor Roosevelts wise constraint: It seems as though one can find privacy only within the silence of ones own mind. Readers who reflect upon these matters themselves will, I hope, find their own way to a deeper understanding of Eleanor Roosevelt and of friendship and family: Eleanor Roosevelt belongs to the ages. The journey to Val-Kill begins.