The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (17 page)

We finally heard that my husband had sailed from Brest to return to this country. A day or so before the ship was due, my mother-in-law and I received word through the Navy Department that Franklin had pneumonia and that we were to meet him on arrival with a doctor and an ambulance. We left the children at Hyde Park and went to my mother-in-law’s house in New York, for our own house was rented. The flu had been raging in Brest and Franklin and his party had attended a funeral in the rain. The ship on which they returned was a floating hospital. Men and officers died on the way home and were buried at sea.

When the boat docked and we went on board I remember visiting several of the men who were still in bed. My husband did not seem to me so seriously ill as the doctors implied, but we soon had him settled in his mother’s house.

All but one member of my husband’s party were seriously ill. Fortunately, they all recovered. With them on the boat, coming to this country for a visit, were Prince Axel of Denmark and his aides. When they felt the flu coming on they consulted no doctor but took to their berths with a quart of whisky each. In the course of a day or two, whether because of the efficacy of the whisky or because of their own resistance, they were practically recovered.

The question of the children’s schooling was beginning to weigh heavily upon my mind, so soon after Franklin was better I moved the children who had to be in school back to Washington and commenced commuting back and forth until the whole family was together again.

Franklin improved steadily but he required good nursing and care for some time, for the pneumonia left him very weak. He went to Hyde Park for two weeks, and about the middle of October was well enough to return to Washington and turn in his official reports, firsthand observations of naval activities in the North Sea, the Irish and English channels, and some of the Belgian, British and French ports. He was preparing to resign and join the naval battery in France when word came late in October that Germany had suggested to President Wilson that peace would be discussed.

As soon as we returned to Washington the flu epidemic, which had been raging in various parts of the country, struck us with full force. The city was fearfully overcrowded, the departments had had to expand and take on great numbers of clerical workers. New bureaus had been set up, girls were living two and three in a room all over the city, and when the flu hit there were naturally not enough hospitals to accommodate those who were stricken. The Red Cross organized temporary hospitals in every available building, and those of us who could were asked to bring food to these various units, which often had no kitchen space at all.

Before I knew it, all my five children and my husband were down with the flu, and three of the servants. We succeeded in getting one trained nurse from New York, as Miss Spring was not available. This nurse was put in charge of Elliott, who had double pneumonia. My husband was moved into a little room next to mine, and John, the baby, had his crib in my bedroom, for he had bronchial pneumonia. There was little difference between day and night for me, and Dr. Hardin, who worked as hard as he possibly could every minute of the time, came in once or twice a day and looked over all my patients. He remarked that we were lucky that some of us were still on our feet, for he had families with nobody able to stand up.

In the intervals of cooking for this galaxy of invalids, my cook prepared food to go out, as we had pledged ourselves to send it every afternoon. If all the children were asleep, I went in the car and visited the Red Cross unit I had been assigned to supply and tried to say a word of cheer to the poor girls lying in the long rows of beds. Like all other things, the flu epidemic finally came to an end.

These emergencies of domestic and family life were extremely good training. Gradually I was learning that what one has to do usually can be done, and my long association with Miss Spring had made me a fairly practical nurse. Fear of being left alone to care for my children had vanished. In fact, I had had sense enough in the past few years to send my nurse away in the summer for short vacations and take charge of my last two babies myself. At least I was no longer the inexperienced, timid mother, and the older children say that in consequence the younger ones were never so well disciplined as they were! Of course, the truth of the matter was that I had gained a sense of values and no longer fussed about nonessentials nor allowed myself to be stampeded by the likes and dislikes of a nurse or governess.

The feeling was growing everywhere that the end of the war was in sight. President Wilson’s messages to the people of other nations made a deep impression. Ever since the Allied armies had been under the supreme command of Marshal Foch a turn had come for the better in the military affairs of the Allies. Suddenly, on November 7, we got word that an armistice had been signed and pandemonium broke loose, but a few hours later it was declared a mistake and everybody’s spirits sank.

Four days later, on November 11, 1918, the real Armistice was signed and the city of Washington, like every other city in the United States, went completely mad. The feeling of relief and thankfulness was beyond description.

Ten
    

Readjustment

SOON AFTER
the Armistice my husband heard that he would have to go abroad after the New Year to wind up naval affairs in Europe, dispose of what could be sold and ship home what could be used here again.

It was so soon after his recovery from pneumonia that it was dangerous for him to be subjected to the winter climate of either France or England, so it seemed wise for me to sail with him, which I could do, now that the war was over.

As we were not to sail until early January, we were at home for Christmas with the family. My mother-in-law usually came to spend Christmas with us if we did not go to her. Our only other guests as a rule were Louis Howe and his family.

Uncle Ted was ill in the hospital when we sailed, but none of us dreamed that it was anything very serious. On the way over we were saddened to receive by radio on January 6 the news of his death. I knew what his loss would mean to his close family, but I realized even more keenly that a great personality had gone from active participation in the life of his people. The loss of his influence and example was what I seemed to feel most keenly.

Admiral Wilson, in command at Brest, came aboard with Admiral Moreau when we arrived. Admiral Wilson boasted that he had the best apartment to be obtained in Brest, with the only bathtub in the town, but the water ran only during certain hours of the day. Most of the people of the town carried all their water from taps placed at intervals along the streets.

Admiral Wilson took me to see something of the country while Franklin worked. General Smedley Butler had finally succeeded in lifting the camp a little out of the mud by building duckboard paths everywhere, but constant rain still made it no paradise.

My husband’s business completed, we went to Paris where he spent some busy days. My first duty was to call on all our superiors. Luckily, they all lived in the same hotel except, of course, President and Mrs. Wilson. Franklin and I went together to call on the President of France and sign his book. Later we went again to be received formally and pay our respects.

We were staying at the Ritz Hotel and I was thrilled one day to see at luncheon Lady Diana Manners, for she had always been to me a character in a storybook. She was very beautiful, but some of the glamour of my storybook princess was gone after I had actually seen her.

A great effort was being made to revive the beautiful gay city Paris had once been. The city itself was unchanged but practically every Frenchwoman was dressed in black, and, though the tradition of long black mourning veils was forbidden, the older women could not be prevented from wearing them.

I went with my husband’s aunt, Mrs. Forbes, to the oldest military hospital in Paris, the Val de Grâce, where remarkable plastic surgery was being done. I dreaded this but it was not quite so bad as I feared, though I saw all I cared to see of people whose faces were being made over by one operation after another.

We also visited what is known as the Phare, the hospital for the blind where the patients were being taught to manage for themselves and acquire a skill that would enable them to earn a living or at least keep their hands busy.

We dined one night with Belle and Kermit Roosevelt, and Teddy Roosevelt, who was a colonel in the Army, left their apartment that night to go to the American hospital to have an operation on his leg. This hospital I visited later with Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. She left a few flowers at each boy’s bed, and I was lost in admiration because she found something to say to each one.

Few people came to France at this period without picking up some kind of germ and the day before we left for London I realized that I was running a temperature, with considerable pain in my side. We were to be on our way the next day, driving over the front where our soldiers had fought with the British and nothing, if I could help it, was going to prevent me from taking that trip.

I got up the next morning at six-thirty, dressed and left, sitting on the back seat of a car, feeling, whenever the road was rough, that a knife was stabbing my side, but the rest of the time, on the whole, I was fairly comfortable.

We made a number of stops, one at the Saint-Quentin Canal. They wished to show us what our troops had done and so we walked to the bottom where the canal runs between steep banks. The cut is about sixty feet deep and the sides were lined with dugouts. I wondered if the state of my feelings would give me an approximate idea of the way the soldiers felt on the cold, gray, foggy morning when they, with full packs on their backs and rifles in their hands, plunged down one side of the canal and climbed up the other. The enemy was afraid to fire until they were well under their guns for fear the approaching army might be their own men. In that way, while armored tanks plowed the plain, the canal itself with its high banks, was taken.

We drove along the straight military roads with churned mud on either side of us, and deep shell holes here and there. Along the road there were occasional piles of stones with a stick stuck into them bearing the name of a vanished village. On the hillsides stumps showed that once there had been a forest.

When we reached Amiens that night I had to confide in my husband that I had a pain and thought I might have caught cold. After dinner I obtained a hot-water bottle and managed to sleep fairly well and was up and able to be interested in the cathedral when we started out at eight o’clock the next morning. The bags of sand which had been placed around the cathedral to protect it made it difficult for us to appreciate its beauty.

Commander Royes met us at Folkestone and when we reached London we were met by Admiral Sims and naval constructor Smith, who took us to the Ritz Hotel. The next day an English doctor came and looked me over. I had pleurisy and was told to stay in bed. I attempted to obey his orders for one day, but as the men all had to be about their business and the telephone and doorbell rang incessantly, I was in and out of bed so often that I decided, even if I could not go out, it was better to be up and dressed.

In the course of a few days I began to feel better. The doctor shook his head gloomily and was convinced I was going into a rapid decline. In fact, he told me to be examined for tuberculosis as soon as I reached home. I was quite sure, however, that I was recovering, and Major Kilgore and Commander Hancock did everything possible to make me comfortable.

Finally, his work was done and Franklin with his aide left for Belgium and then to go down to see the Marines stationed at Coblenz on the Rhine. I moved from the hotel to Muriel Martineau’s house and spent four days there.

We were to sail for home with President and Mrs. Wilson, and on February 4 we left by train for Brest. I remember our great excitement when Mr. Grasty, the
New York Times
correspondent, brought us a copy of the charter of League of Nations. What hopes we had that this League would really prove the instrument for the prevention of future wars, and how eagerly we read it through!

President Wilson had been acclaimed by the French people as a savior; his position in his own country seemed impregnable. No organized opposition had as yet developed. His trip had been a triumphant one, and now the people of France stood everywhere to watch for his train in the hope of getting a glimpse of him.

Our first glimpse of the President and Mrs. Wilson and their party was when they came on board the
George Washington.
We were already on the ship and stood behind the captain to welcome them. One funny incident occurred which threw the naval officers into quite a bustle of excitement. Instead of following the prescribed procedure, the President refused to go ahead of his wife and Miss Benham, her secretary, and they boarded the battleship first, a situation unheard of in naval regulations. Nothing happened, however, and when the President came over the side, ruffles rolled out from the drums and “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played and nothing really essential was left out of his welcome.

We lunched one day with the President and Mrs. Wilson. At the table was Ambassador Francis, returning from his post in Russia, a kindly humorous man, giving one a feeling of latent strength. The other guests were Captain McCauley, Dr. Grayson and Miss Benham. In my diary I noted that the talk was, as usual on such occasions, an exchange of stories, but the President spoke of the League of Nations, saying: “The United States must go in or it will break the heart of the world, for she is the only nation that all feel is disinterested and all trust.” Later he said he had read no papers since the beginning of the war, that Mr. Tumulty clipped them all for him, giving him only important news and editorials. My diary comment was: “This is too much to leave to any man.”

It was, I learned later when my husband became president, a problem of allotting time. Franklin reserved certain periods for his study of the press, particularly the opposition press, and, at least while Louis Howe was with him, he was always closely informed on all shades of opinion in the country. This firsthand awareness of what people are doing and thinking and saying is essential to a president. When this information is filtered through other people, or selected with a view to what a few individuals think the President should know, the inevitable result is that this source of information is dangerously curtailed or misleadingly slanted. This is fatal in the formulation of far-reaching decisions.