Someone to Watch Over Me: A Portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Tortured Father Who Shaped Her Life

by Eric Burns

Overview

A fresh and sensitive examination of Eleanor Roosevelt—one of the most remarkable Americans in history—and the tortured father who would inspire and shape her future leadership and advocacy.

Eleanor Roosevelt is viewed as one of the most pioneering women in American history. But she was also one of the most enigmatic and lonely. Her loveless marriage with FDR was no secret, and she had a cold relationship with most of her family, as well, from her distant mother to her public rivalry with her cousin, Alice. Yet she was a warm person, beloved by friends, and her humanitarian work still influences the world today. But who shaped Eleanor? It was the most unlikely of figures: her father Elliott, a lost spirit with a bittersweet story.

Elliott was the brother of Theodore Roosevelt, and he was as winsome and charming as Theodore was blustery and competitive. Though the two maintained a healthy rivalry in their youth, Elliott would eventually succumb to alcoholism and would be exiled to the Virginia countryside. But he kept up a close correspondence with his daughter, Eleanor, who treasured his letters and would read them nightly for her entire life for guidance, inspiration, and love.

As he did in the critically acclaimed The Golden Lad, Eric Burns' insightful and lucid prose reveals new facets to the lives of these pillars of American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681773285
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Eric Burns, a former NBC News correspondent and Today Show pundit, appears regularly as a commentator for Entertainment Tonight and hosts A&E's Arts & Entertainment Revue. He was the former host of Fox News Watch and has won an Emmy for media criticism. He is the author of Infamous Scribblers and The Spirits of America and lives in Westport, Connecticut.

Table of Contents

First Note to Readers: The Problems of the Story xvii

Prologue: Human Rights xxi

Part 1 1

Elliott 3

Anna 21

Courtship 33

Marriage 43

Part 2 55

Nell's Homeliness 57

Nell's Shyness 67

Nell's Fears 77

Nell's Loneliness 85

Nell's Coldness 95

Part 3 101

Second Note to Readers: The Center of the Mural 103

Father, 1873-89 107

Daughter, 1917-28 125

Father, 1890-92 141

Daughter, 1932-36 153

Father, 1891 169

Daughter, 1920s-1950s 181

Father, 1892-93 191

Daughter, 1936-62 207

Father, 1892-94 219

Daughter, 1948-59 233

Father, 1894 247

Daughter, 1952-62 255

Two Legacies 261

Epilogue: The Goodnight Kiss 267

Acknowledgments 271

Bibliography 275

Notes 279

Index 299

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/30/2017
In his second biography about the Roosevelt family, Burns (A Golden Lad) focuses on the beautiful yet tragic relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt, her father and the charming younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt. Elliott and his wife, Anna Rebecca Ludlow Hall, were a well-known and attractive couple. Eleanor was a disappointment to her mother, but to Elliott she was “a miracle from heaven.” Where Anna was cold and indifferent toward Eleanor, Elliott was warm and loving, introducing Eleanor at an early age to the charity work that would serve her well into her final days. Unfortunately, Elliott was absent for most of Eleanor’s childhood. He drank heavily, suffered from severe seizures that may have been the result of his drinking, and was addicted to morphine and laudanum. Burns chronicles several failed attempts to send Elliott into rehab, a string of extramarital affairs, and an illegitimate son; eventually Theodore exiled Elliott to Virginia. Elliott and Eleanor constantly wrote to each other, and though Elliott died when Eleanor was only 10 years old, she kept their letters for the rest of her life. Burns’s work is captivating, suspenseful, and heartbreaking; this is how biographies should be written. Agent: Linda Konner, Linda Konner Literary. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"A deep examination of the esteemed First Lady."

Bookreporter

At once fresh and illuminating, a fast-paced read that focuses on President Roosevelt’s private life and his role as a husband and father, and on a young man inspired by the Rough Rider to fight and die for his country. It is the kind of biography that more authors should embrace: concise and lively.

The Washington Post [praise for 'The Golden Lad']

The Golden Lad is not a conventional White House biography. Burns offers a sharp picture of a still-iconic figure. A close and often painful family portrait.
”

The Wall Street Journal [praise for 'The Golden Lad']

At once fresh and illuminating, a fast-paced read that focuses on President Roosevelt’s private life and his role as a husband and father, and on a young man inspired by the Rough Rider to fight and die for his country. It is the kind of biography that more authors should embrace: concise and lively.

The Washington Post

Praise for The Golden Lad"The Golden Lad is not a conventional White House biography. Burns offers a sharp picture of a still-iconic figure. A close and often painful family portrait.
”

The Wall Street Journal

02/15/2017
From 1892 to 1894, Elliott Roosevelt, the younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt Sr., exchanged letters with his daughter and future first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, before dying at the age of 34. Eleanor was almost ten, having recently experienced the deaths of her younger brother and indifferent mother. Her father, who struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, was in exile from his family, a state forced on him by Theodore to mitigate the embarrassment caused by Elliott's scandalous behavior. Burns (The Golden Lad) claims that no biography of Eleanor duly emphasizes Elliott's profound influence on her life. Using personal letters and the little information that is known of his relationship with Eleanor (Burns quotes heavily from biographies and articles), the author underscores the crucial connection between her success and idolization of her father. He displayed abiding, unconditional love and forgiveness, encouraging her to be courageous, studious, and to persevere. For Eleanor, he demonstrated humility, tenderness, and generosity, serving as her only joy in childhood and lifelong inspiration. VERDICT Focusing primarily on Elliott's impact on his daughter's character and outstanding accomplishments, this biography should be read alongside a thorough study of Eleanor, such as Blanche Wiesen Cook's three-volume Eleanor Roosevelt, to fill in the gaps.—Margaret Kappanadze, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY

Library Journal

2016-12-18
An exploration of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) and her idealization of the father she hardly knew.In her autobiography, Eleanor wrote that her father "dominated my life as long as he lived" and "was the love of my life for many years after he died." TV journalist and social historian Burns (The Golden Lad: The Haunting Story of Quentin and Theodore Roosevelt, 2016, etc.) makes much of that statement, claiming that Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt (1860-1894), Theodore's younger brother, "influenced her character more than anyone else ever did" and therefore deserves "the most prominent role he has yet known in a book." Unfortunately, the author is mostly unpersuasive about Elliott's influence and in his depiction of the "bond" between father and daughter. Burns draws his information largely from Roosevelt biographies by Joseph Lash, Blanche Wiesen Cook, David McCullough, and others and by a cache of letters between Eleanor and Elliott, written over two years, ending with his death when Eleanor was 10. Elliott was a tormented man, moody, depressed, and beset by demons. By the time he married, he was a "full-fledged alcoholic," and as the years passed, he became addicted, as well, to laudanum and morphine. During Eleanor's childhood, he was institutionalized several times—dramatic events kept from his daughter—but never cured. He had at least three affairs, one resulting in the birth of a son, and was estranged from his wife and family. Biographers acknowledge that when he was sober, he was a loving parent, far more so than Eleanor's cold, dismissive mother, but he was hardly involved in her upbringing. From Burns' evidence, the man she loved was largely imaginary. The author makes the odd decision to organize the dual biography in nonchronological leaps of time to prove that "theirs was a relationship for the ages." But the alternating chapters offer a familiar portrait of Eleanor, underscoring how vastly different she was from her father. A new light on the Roosevelt clan that serves as illumination of the short life of an unhappy man.

Kirkus Reviews