FDR - Jean Edward Smith [124]
Howe was downtown at Fidelity & Deposit most of the day attending to Franklin’s business. But he took breakfast with the family and spent most of his time at the table reading the dozen or so newspapers he consumed daily. “He read more newspapers than any human being I’ve ever known,” Eleanor said.34
From the beginning, ER and Howe agreed that insofar as possible Franklin should not be treated as an invalid. Louis maintained that FDR’s political future was bright and downplayed the seriousness of his illness. He planted optimistic stories with the press and wrote cheery letters to Roosevelt’s wide circle of correspondents.
“Do you really believe that Franklin has a political future?” asked Eleanor.
“I believe someday Franklin will be President,” Howe replied.35
Eleanor supported Howe in every way. She ushered a continuous stream of visitors in to see Franklin and soon undertook speaking engagements on his behalf. She joined Howe in urging FDR to persevere in his exercises—perhaps a little more sternly than Roosevelt might have desired. Howe was better at cajoling Franklin because he had a lighter touch, interspersing gossipy anecdotes among his exhortations to get on with the job.
Sara took a different view. Instead of resuming public life, she felt Franklin should retire to the pastoral comfort of Hyde Park and settle into the graceful life of an invalid country squire, much as Mr. James had done. There was no need to earn a living—Sara’s share of the Delano fortune ensured that—and Franklin could pursue the hobbies and bucolic interests of which he was so fond.
A struggle of wills ensued. “This was the most trying winter of my entire life,” Eleanor remembered.36 She and Howe worked to keep Franklin focused on recovery; Sara just as resolutely decried their efforts and sought to convince her son to follow the path his father had chosen. “My mother-in-law thought we were tiring my husband and that he should be kept completely quiet. This made the discussions about his care somewhat acrimonious on occasion.”37
Dr. Draper sided with Eleanor and Howe and thought it best for FDR to make every effort to resume a normal life.* Most important, so too did Franklin. As Sara noted laconically, “Franklin had no intention of conforming to my quiet ideas for his future existence.”38 Out of courtesy he offered to resign as vice president of Fidelity & Deposit, but Van Lear Black refused to consider it. Howe kept on top of the work for FDR, and Black was far more interested in retaining the Roosevelt name and the connections associated with it than in Franklin’s physical presence at the office. FDR retained his position on the boards of various charitable organizations, including the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and the Boy Scouts, and with the help of Howe and Missy LeHand kept up a constant correspondence with Democratic leaders about the party’s future.
In March FDR was fitted with steel braces that weighed fourteen pounds and ran from his heels to above his hips. After seven months in bed, Franklin’s ability to balance had vanished, and it required the assistance of all hands just to get him to his feet. Since his hips were paralyzed, he was incapable of moving his legs individually and was taught to pivot forward on his crutches, using his head and upper body for leverage. Despite the constant danger of falling, FDR rejoiced at being on his feet and able to move under his own power. “I am indeed delighted to hear you are getting well so fast and so confidently,” Woodrow Wilson wrote on April 30. “I shall try and be generous enough not to envy you,” said the former president, now confined to a wheelchair at his S Street home in Washington.39
Dr. Draper’s progress report to Dr. Lovett was guarded. Franklin “was walking quite successfully and seems to be gaining power in the hip muscles. The quadriceps are coming back a little, but they