JUNE 2018
In July 1933, after four hectic months as
the 32nd President of the United States,
Franklin D Roosevelt enjoyed a familycruise on the breezy waters of Maine. With the
president on board Amberjack II are his enduringly
popular wife Eleanor, three of their sons and friends,
including Marion Dickerman, behind the president,
and Nancy Cook, right of Eleanor.
Dickerman and Cook, lifelong partners bothpersonally and as champions of democratic causes,
met the future First Lady in 1922 on a visit to New York
state. Common political ideals forged a firm friendship
between them and, a few years later, the three split the
construction costs of a property in Dutchess County,
New York, close to the Roosevelt family residence.
Val-Kill, named after a nearby stream, became home
to Dickerman and Cook, and a retreat where Eleanor
could develop her ideas and projects.
At the house Eleanor shared with her husband, thefuture president’s mother had been an overbearing
influence for years, running the couple’s household,
which she could access via sliding doors from her own
property. Eleanor’s life here was far from simple –
several years before her husband became president she
came across a bundle of letters that revealed his afair
with her own secretary, Lucy Mercer. Soon after this
discovery, the paralytic illness that would eventually
force FDR into a wheelchair became apparent.
Val-Kill, by contrast, was the place she considered
her first real adult home. The three women put it
to work too, developing Val-Kill Industries, a
woodwork project to give agricultural workers an
income in the winter months.
By the mid-1930s Eleanor’s responsibilities as FirstLady had distanced her from her old friends and in
1938aseriousargument–causeunknown–caused
Dickerman and Cook to sell their interests in Val-Kill
andleave.Butherein1933,onthewaytotheirsummer
home,aninauguralshinestillonthePresident,the
Rooseveltsstillseemlikeonehappy,ifcomplicated,
extended family.
All the new
President’s crew
WORDSCaroline White
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