But, it's the Roosevelt family and good friends know that I'm a sucker for their roles in our American history. For about five Christmases, this subject was the go-to gift for anybody buying me a book for a holiday gift. And I have read about a dozen of them. Admittedly, I didn't know that much about Teddy, but this series got me ramped up on him and I now believe he was the greatest Roosevelt of them all.
Meanwhile, my focus has always been Franklin and Eleanor and that's where this documentary series got a little muddled. The script was written by veteran historian Geoffrey C. Ward and he has a virtual bromance with FDR. His contributions to the documentary are veritable love letters and that's not accurate since, in my humble opinion, Franklin was both a flawed President and human being. I mean, the guy literally starts to weep on camera when he talks about FDR being stricken with polio. Come on, dude.
Of course, as last week unfolded, I was once again inundated with all things Roosevelt and this, in turn, opened up my Sunday Memory Drawer one more time. Indeed, the mere existence of this weekly blog feature might have direct lines to the Roosevelt family itself.
It was on cold Sunday afternoons where my grandmother, in her living room rocking chair, would hold court. I'd be sprawled out across her slipcovered sofa. She'd talk and I'd listen. And learn. She would talk about things in the past. Stuff that happened last year. Or events that were decades away in the past. I'd hear about relatives I didn't know. Eras that I didn't live through.
And, in the case of one President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a national leader that I only knew through history books. As I would learn repeatedly, this sometime-revered President was hated by my grandmother.
Today, I am fascinated by the World War II days and how America responded to this conflict. Strange as it may sound, I wanted to experience the days of nighttime blackouts, rationing, and war bonds. My grandmother took me through this world many times. And always came back to Roosevelt. With the same comments repeated over and over.
"He was a swindler."
"That wife Eleanor was never home. She lived in a suitcase,."
"When he stuck that damn cigarette up in those pictures, I just wanted to slap him."
"When he died, he wasn't in that coffin. Instead they buried all the papers that proved he sold the country out to Japan."
I suppose Grandma was ripe for some fact checking. But, regardless of the validity, the venom never stopped.
"He used to say 'again and again and again, no boys would set foot on foreign soil.' Two weeks later, we were all at war."
"He was this damn cripple. What about all the boys who came home with no legs?"
"They say he got us out of depression. But led us right into war."
It was relentless. I sort of understood my grandmother's focus on boys going off to battle. She herself had four sons in the service during World War II. One, whom I was named after, didn't come back. He was killed one month after FDR died in April 1945 and two weeks before Germany surrendered. I thought about the bitterness. And wondered how my family had come through this tragedy.
But, of course, it was rarely discussed.
I asked my father about his mother's deep, dark hatred of the Roosevelts.
"She has her reasons."
I turned to my mother with the same question.
"She has her reasons."
But, at a young age, I didn't ask the source a direct question. I figured I would get the same, tried-and-true, family response.
"You ask too many questions."
I always did and never got any answers. Until one Saturday afternoon.
It was wintery and I was cooped up in the house. Bored in my room upstairs, I meandered down to my grandmother's place on the first floor. We retreated to the usual time waster, the black and white TV. In the days before remote controls, Grandma sat on her little chair in front of the TV and channel surfed. Back then, you only had about seven or eight to choose from.
My grandmother stopped on a channel. They were showing an old newsreel of FDR's funeral. Grandma stared at it.
"Look, they even had Fala the dog there at the cemetery."
Indeed, I watched as the cameras showed the President's pooch sniffing around the gravesite.
"I hope he pees on him."
Wow. I thought that was especially mean. So, I asked why she hated Roosevelt so much.
There was a pause of thirty seconds which felt like thirty days. Had I overstepped my bounds as a grandchild? Her answer was short and succinct.
"He didn't care about any of us."
And that was it. Years of hatred explained. Sort of.
I suppose the loss of a child in battle was the main reason for the vitriole. In her mind, she lost a son because our President had put us in a position of being at war. It was probably that simple.
But it never, ever stopped. And, as I have read all those Christmas gifts about the Roosevelt family, I think I have my own, balanced opinion. Ultimately, I don't believe he was as great a President as loopy historians like Geoffrey C. Ward make him out to be. There was the deceit and cover-up about his illnesses. The Depression programs that worked and those that did not. The failure to act decisively when he became aware of what the Nazis were doing to Jews all over Europe.
So, as I watched the Ken Burns work this week, I absorbed even more new information to throw into the hard drive of my mind. But, as I sift through the good and the bad, I keep going back to one woman's hatred of the man.
And another reminder that, in any family, you need to ask the important questions while you still can.
Dinner last night: BLT at Blue Plate.
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