A sneak peek into the lives of Eleanor and Harry

I really enjoy biographies, especially of presidential families including the Kennedys and Roosevelts. I feel something of a connection to the Roosevelts, since FDR and Eleanor spent much of their lives here in New York’s Hudson Valley, where I now live. I’ve had the opportunity to visit both FDR’s childhood home in Hyde Park, as well as Eleanor’s quaint Val-Kill cottage, where she lived after FDR’s death.

So I was inspired to pick up Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, a compendium of the letters exchanged between Mrs. Roosevelt and President Truman in the years after FDR’s death.

First things first, I think it’s a shame that the art of letter writing is dying out—a sentiment I share with Gloria Steinem, who wrote the book’s forward. I am not sure that I share her optimism that email has the potential to bring that art back to us, since it seems things like Twitter and Facebook make us less likely to craft careful and thoughtful prose… it’s far too easy to write mindless drivel.

It’s an incredibly interesting insight into the lives of these two influential Americans, that their correspondence has been shared publicly. What I read showed me the admiration and pride that they both had in the American political system, despite their personal differences. I was also surprised at the language used, especially by Mrs. Roosevelt: her writing is extremely self-deprecating, yet I don’t believe she viewed herself as inconsequential or believed her opinions shouldn’t be valued by Mr. Truman (both during and after his presidency). I wonder whether that style reflected her true personality, or was simply a consequence of the time in which she lived? For his part, Truman understood the role of Eleanor Roosevelt as “First Lady of the World,” and felt that appropriate respect and deference must be shown to her.

Could you imagine this relationship happening today? Laura Bush exchanging emails with Barack Obama? I certainly can’t! Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book immensely.