7 Eleanor Roosevelt 7Eleanor Roosevelt visiting with Children of the American Revolution at the
White House, 1935. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Born Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, she was the daughter of
Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt and the niece
of Theodore Roosevelt , 26th president of the United
States. Eleanor grew up in a wealthy family that attached
great value to community service. Both her parents died
before she was 10, and she and her surviving brother
(another brother died when she was 9) were raised by rela-
tives. The death of Eleanor’s father, to whom she had been
especially close, was very diffi cult for her.
At age 15 Eleanor enrolled at Allenswood, a girls’ board-
ing school outside London. She returned to New York in
the summer of 1902 to prepare for her “coming out” into