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Franklin D. Roosevelt: I Married A Lesbian
Did the Roosevelts have a marriage bereft of romantic ardor? Was Eleanor a lesbian? We’ll probably never know. But it’s interesting to note that rumors about her same-sex dalliances circulated even while they were in the White House.
Mrs. Roosevelt was close friends with several lesbian couples, including Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman, but it was Lorena Hickok who was her other half.
The two wrote thousands of letters to each other, many of which have a romantic bent.
“Hick my dearest—I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you,” Eleanor wrote. “I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving tonight. You have grown so much to be a part of my life that it is empty without you… I wish I could lie down beside you tonight & take you in my arms.”
“I’ve been trying to bring back your face — to remember just how you look,” she added. “Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time. Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips.”
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that “whether Hick and Eleanor went beyond kisses and hugs” could never be known for the certain, but “day after day, month after month, the tone in the letters on both sides remains fervent and loving.”
Roosevelt’s granddaughter Nina Gibson said, “I have no idea whether Lorena Hickock had a homosexual relationship with my grandmother or not. And my feeling about that is, kind of, ’Who cares?’… If they could make each other happy, in any way, then that’s what’s important.”
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