White Houses

White Houses by Amy Bloom

    Things I knew:  Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt had an estranged marriage, one where they lived together separately.  Eleanor was, as people said then, FDR’s legs. She could and did travel the country getting in touch with the people and reporting back. Eleanor was smart and FDR’s equal in that.  Eleanor was no beauty and Franklin kept several women who were, nearby.  The media was different in those days.  Behavior that was tolerated and kept hidden from the public then would not be now.

    Things I didn’t know:  The extent of Franklin’s dalliances openly accepted and not reported on by the media.  Eleanor openly had her own lover.

      Lorena Hickok, known as “Hick” was a self-made woman who came from nowhere and a past nothing life.  She became a renowned journalist and was assigned to FDR’s presidential campaign in 1932.  This is when she met Eleanor, who didn’t completely impress Hick at the time.  But over time Hick saw the intelligence and soul that was inside Eleanor’s less than beautiful body and a love became mutual between them.   It amazed me now to know that she lived openly in the White House, her relationship with Eleanor common knowledge even to FDR.  I read this thinking that by “allowing” that relationship his own dalliances with his entourage could be excused.

    This story is Eleanor’s and Hick’s and is told by Lorena Hickock. It is a quiet love story between two lost souls. In the telling we are given insight into Lorena’s upbringing and the treatment Eleanor received from her mother and FDR’s.  It’s no wonder two souls searched out for the beauty that lies beneath and found it.  No matter the ups and downs, the together times and separations, in the end Hick and Eleanor had a love that endured it all.

    I didn’t know that.