5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Richie's Picks: OUR ELEANOR, October 1, 2005
This review is from: Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt's Remarkable Life (Hardcover)
" 'I always had the feeling from a very young age that I was ugly,' Eleanor wrote. This feeling came from her mother, who often gazed at her daughter coolly, as if she couldn't imagine having such a plain-looking, solemn-faced daughter. Forced to wear a back brace to correct a curvature of the spine, Eleanor knew 'as a child knows these things,' that her mother was bitterly disappointed in her physical features. 'I can remember,' wrote Eleanor, 'standing in the door, very often with my finger in my mouth which was, of course, forbidden--and I can see the look in her eyes and hear the tone in her voice as she said: "Come in, Granny." If a visitor was there, she might turn and say, "She is such a funny child, so old-fashioned that we always call her Granny." I wanted to sink through the floor in shame.'
"Eleanor tried desperately to please her mother. Small as she was, she often sat and rubbed [her mother] Anna's temples for hours on end, easing her migraine headaches. 'The feeling that I was useful,' Eleanor later said, 'was perhaps the greatest joy I experienced.' "
In the manner of American Idol, AOL and the Discovery Channel have been conducting an online process to determine "The Greatest American." Happening upon the poll containing the Final Five last week, and reading aloud to Shari what was being done, she grumbled in response to the fact that the remaining contestants were all men. I haven't yet dared to tell her which of those five men has since taken the top spot, thanks to 2.4 million online voters with the wisdom to believe that Ronald Reagan was a greater America than was MLK, Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin, or the dude with the wooden teeth.
If those participating in "The Greatest American" voting had had the wisdom to make sure that at least one American woman be present among those final contestants, who would have been the most likely female to fill such a spot? OUR ELEANOR provides readers with more than enough evidence for proposing that Eleanor Roosevelt be considered as one of the greatest of citizens in the history of America, irregardless of gender. Candace Fleming does a sensational job of recounting the amazing accomplishments of Eleanor Roosevelt, both in Eleanor's own right, and as the eyes, ears and often the conscience of her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
But at least as important as unveiling the record of Eleanor's prodigious achievements on the national and world stage, the author succeeds brilliantly in revealing the real woman behind the public figure. Closely examined are the relationships with her parents, her husband, her children, her mother-in-law, her friends, and famous world leaders, as well as with the hundreds of thousands of nameless everyday people, both Americans and others, with whom she came in contact over her long, oftentimes difficult life.
"[Franklin's mother] Sara frequently made thoughtless. stinging comments that deeply hurt Eleanor. Once, in front of a dozen dinner guests, Sara turned to her daughter-in-law. 'If you'd just run a comb through your hair, dear,' she said, 'you'd look so much better.' Another time, during a luncheon party, Sara left Eleanor standing while she showed all the other guests to their seats. She was already serving the soup when she finally turned to her daughter-in-law. 'Oh, yes, Eleanor,' she said snidely, 'you sit there.
"With the births of Franklin and Eleanor's five children, Sara's interference became intolerable, causing terrible family friction. Sara spoiled them from infancy to adulthood with expensive presents--ponies, trips, cars, apartments. As one of the children put it long afterward, 'Granny's ace in the hole...was the fact that she held the pursestrings in the family.' Worse, Sara undercut Eleanor's authority and confidence by repeatedly calling the children hers. She once told little Jimmy, 'Your mother only bore you, I am more your mother than your mother is.' "
When the emotional and verbal abuse by her mother and then her mother-in-law led to serious difficulties in fulfilling her role as mother to her children, Eleanor eventually turned to mothering the American people through the Great Depression and World War II. A woman who wore through the soles of two pairs of shoes while meeting 400,000 servicemen during a five-week trip to the war-torn South Pacific of WWII, Eleanor is revealed by Ms. Fleming to be both a woman of her times and a woman who was driven to move far beyond those times to change the world to the benefit of all who have come since.
Speaking of driven:
"Independence-seeking Eleanor took up driving--an uncommon activity for women of her social class, who usually took taxis or rode in chauffeur-driven cars--in 1920. She had tried to learn years earlier, but an incident involving a car bumper and a gatepost had put her off. Now however, she longed to experience the freedom of driving. There were many mishaps. 'Your running into the ditch was all right,' Sara wrote her in 1922, 'so long as you were not hurt.' Still, Eleanor drove herself to church, to luncheons, to speaking events. Once, to her family's dismay, she even drove herself on a camping trip to Canada and reported only three minor accidents. Admitted her son James, 'Mother's driving was worse than anyone's.' She scraped, bumped, and banged her way down the road until 1946, the year she fell asleep behind the wheel. Her car veered across the highway, slammed into another vehicle head-on, then sideswiped one more. The accident cost Eleanor her two front teeth."
As with BEN FRANKLIN'S ALMANAC, the author's previous biography, OUR ELEANOR is written in a series of well-illustrated one- and two-page self-contained sections. Even more than with the Ben Franklin book, the various sections of the Eleanor "scrapbook" flow easily into one another to form an entertaining and enlightening narrative. Mixed right in with Eleanor's convincing her husband to disband the Japanese internment camps, her evolution from anti-Semite to supporter of Israel, her service at the United Nations, and her long career as a writer, are great stories about her attempt to be taught to use a gun in lieu of the Secret Service agent with whom she refused to be stuck, her support of public libraries, and the 3,271 page FBI file that J. Edgar Hoover compiled on her.
"On April 20, 1933, the world-famous aviator Amelia Earhart attended a dinner at the White House. Afterward she invited Eleanor along on an airplane flight from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore and back--the first lady's first night trip. Eager to show the public how easy and safe air travel was, Eleanor quickly agreed. Afterward reporters asked how it felt to be piloted by a woman. Eleanor replied, 'I'd give a lot to do it myself!' She did consider getting her own pilot's license, but Franklin vetoed the idea. 'I know how Eleanor drives a car,' he is reported to have said. 'Imagine her flying an airplane!' "
Time and time again I found that OUR ELEANOR: A SCRAPBOOK LOOK AT ELEANOR ROOSEVELT'S REMARKABLE LIFE revealed connections and relationships to scores of important people and events in American history. Eleanor worked for Women's Rights alongside Carrie Chapman Catt in the National League of Women Voters. Eleanor worked for Civil Rights, being a friend and supporter of Marian Anderson, raising money for the Southern Christian Leadership Council and working as an intermediary between President Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Eleanor worked for Human Rights, debating in private with Nikita Khrushchev and representing the US at the United Nations. Eleanor worked for Workers' Rights, riding two-and-a-half-miles down into a coal mine to observe conditions and then badgering her husband to improve them. Eleanor worked for the rights of prisoners, for the aged and infirm, and she never shied away from hanging out in public or private with friends or acquaintances because they were lesbians.
The life of Eleanor Roosevelt continues to provide inspiration for all women, from the First Ladies who have succeeded her to the girls in the inner cities, small towns, and suburbs who deal with boys still trying to tell them what they can and can't do.
You can keep the Gipper. I'll take OUR ELEANOR.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
