Sara Delano Roosevelt

Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt (1854-1941) was the daughter of Warren Delano Jr. (1809-1898) and Catherine Robbins Lyman (1843-1896). The Delano family descended from settlers arriving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and consisted of many seafaring merchants, shipbuilders, and whalers. Likewise, Warren made his initial wealth in the tea, silk, and opium shipping trade in China as a young man. Catherine was the daughter of a prominent judge descended from a family that counts itself among the founders of the city of Hartford, Connecticut. Shortly after their marriage in 1843 they moved to Hong Kong where the first two of eleven children would be born, Susie and Louise. Susie only lived a few months, and the family later returned to New York.

On September 21, 1854, Sara—most often called “Sallie”—was born at Algonac, the family home on the Hudson River near Newburgh, New York. When Sara and her siblings were young, their father lost much of his fortune in a stock market depression, and he returned to Hong Kong to make his wealth anew. The family eventually joined him there from 1862-65.

Sara grew up primarily at Algonac and was educated at home, except for a short period in 1867 when she attended a school for girls in Dresden, Germany. Sara’s sister Louise died while Sara was abroad. Education by tutor and governess at home was typical for children of Sara’s class, but a perhaps unusual facet of the Delano children’s upbringing was the frank approach their parents adopted when discussing personal and worldly issues. Sara and her siblings were encouraged to participate in and absorb the conversations of the adults even when they did not fully understand.

As a young girl Sara was remembered as being amiable and kind. During the Civil War, seven-year-old Sara and her sisters learned to sew by making muslin shirts for Union soldiers. Although she had many siblings, she was especially close to her younger brother, Philippe, and the two spent many hours coasting down snowy hills, singing hymns, and driving small carriages pulled by their donkey, Jennie. She was also an avid reader and enjoyed studying history.

Teenaged Sara was tall and slim, and she grew to be radiantly beautiful. She was elected to an archery club and enjoyed riding the family’s horses around their estate. Along with her mother and sister, Annie, she delivered and received the family’s party invitations by carriage or on horseback. She maintained the spirit of charity instilled by her parents by cooking and sewing goods for alms houses and aid societies. When her elder brother Warren was home on break from college, they attended many dances, sleigh rides, and outings with others their age.

Together with the other “beautiful Delano sisters,” as they were known, Sara had many suitors, including future renowned architect Standford White. Sara trusted her father’s guidance implicitly and graciously turned down many a caller. It was at her friend Bamie Roosevelt’s home on Madison Avenue—sister to future president Theodore Roosevelt—that she met her would-be husband.

At 26, to the surprise of her friends, she married James Roosevelt, a widower aged 52. Though twice her age and less wealthy, he was handsome, from a distinguished family, and perhaps most importantly, respected by Sara’s father. James showed Sara undivided, frequent attention with a warm smile and hearty laugh, and they shared many interests including horses, reading, and rowing on the river. They were married in the fall of 1880 at Algonac. The bride surely stood out amidst the fall foliage in her dress of pure white brocade bedecked in tulle and old lace. She wore the five-strand pearl necklace received from James as a wedding present. That afternoon, the Delano coachmen drove the couple halfway to their new home to James’ waiting carriage, where he himself drove the couple onto the ferry, across the Hudson River, and to her new home.

By all accounts, Sara found great happiness in her marriage and in life at Hyde Park. Many of James’ first wife’s furnishings remained in the house, but Sara found ways to make it her own. She ingratiated herself into James’ adult son’s life seemingly effortlessly. The young couple's life revolved around horses. They walked around the farm and to the stables each morning and then went for a ride. Sometimes after luncheon, they would go for a second ride. They also enjoyed daily carriage drives even when they did not have calls to pay to justify the outing. Evenings were spent with James Roosevelt "Rosy" Roosevelt, James' son with his first wife. Rosy, who was the same age as Sara, lived nearby with his family. When not with Rosy, evening were spent just a few miles away visiting James’ mother, Mary Rebecca Aspinwall, known to Sara as “Mother Roosevelt.”

According to her diary, the couple spent a “happy month” in Hyde Park, then sailed for their European honeymoon where they spent almost a year visiting expatriated friends, family, and various aristocrats. They saw many galleries, operas, symphonies, and historical sites. They even attended a traditional bullfight in Spain, lamented by Sara as “cruel, savage amusement, not a sport” due to the torture of “the poor old horses and the bulls” (Sara's diary quoted in Kleeman, 1935, p. 114). When she became ill with fever, James cared for her devotedly. The newlyweds delighted in showing each other the people and places of their pasts—Sara, the school she attended in Germany, and James, the high-born friends he had acquired over the years. Sara remembered James from this time as “untiring and thoughtful of everything” (Kleeman, 1935, p. 120). While abroad, they bought many pieces of furniture, heirlooms, and carriage accessories that can still be seen in their Hyde Park home, including the old grandfather clock purchased in Amsterdam.

On their return to Hyde Park in September 1881, they found a new gift from her father, a matching set of fillies in their stable sent up from Algonac. Life was bucolic. James resumed his school board meetings and other patrician responsibilities with Sara accompanying him to the train so as not to be long separated. During this time her beloved brother Philippe passed away at the age of 24. He had long suffered from debilitating seizures after an illness contracted as a child in Hong Kong. Before his death, Sara had become pregnant, and she was too far along in her pregnancy to attend his funeral. However, she took solace in her family and especially in her brother Warren’s toddler, Warren IV, whom she and James stayed with at home. Soon, the couple welcomed their own son.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, after a long and precarious labor. He weighed “10 lbs., without clothes,” according to the diary entry left by James. Sara’s labor, lasting over 24 hours, was grave according to her doctor who administered chloroform in the hope to at least save her life. She was unconscious when Franklin was born and remained in bed for a month. Twelve days into this recovery, her nephew Warren IV died of typhoid fever. Sara intended to name her baby Warren, after her beloved father and in keeping with the Delano family tradition for first sons. However, her brother Warren III and his wife Jennie were too heartsick to bear a new Warren baby so soon after the death of their own. Instead, Sara and James’ son was named after her childless uncle, Franklin Hughes Delano.

The couple was advised to have no more children. Sara became absorbed in raising her only son, reading to him, giving him baths, and often directing his activities herself rather than delegating these tasks to servants—though Franklin was never without a nurse, governess, or tutor. “Baby,” as he was called in Sara’s diary, often went with her and James on their social calls. It was on one of these visits that Franklin, aged two, and his parents were staying at Algonac when Sara’s youngest sister Laura, then only 19, died of a freak accident. While heating her curling irons over an alcohol lamp, the lamp knocked over and sprayed her with burning alcohol. Her thin dressing gown caught fire, and she suffered severe burns. Despite the care of her entire family and a summoned nurse, she fell into a coma and died early the next morning. Sara was only 30, and five of her siblings were now dead.

Sara and James were equally devoted—and sometimes indulgent—parents to the boy known as “our especial treasure.” Sara documented every stage of Franklin’s development. One guest at Hyde Park noted, “James is devoted to the soft innocent baby.” Franklin was held back from attending boarding school by 2 years, a decision likely inspired by his father’s experience of leaving home at age 14 instead of 12. Sara often gets credited with this decision to keep Franklin home for longer, but it is more likely that the couple came to this decision together. When the day came to leave Franklin at Groton and return home without him, Sara wrote in her diary, “James and I feel this parting very much.”

Although James had been suffering from years of disabling heart failure, he was still able to occasionally join Sara on her visits to their son at Groton. Franklin’s letters home were often addressed to Sara as the two conspired to limit James’ worries and therefore his health’s deterioration. While in Germany for “the cure” with James, word came that Franklin was ill at Groton—scarlet fever resulting in inflamed kidneys. She and James were on a ship within 24 hours of receiving the telegram. Caught between the decision to visit her son and be relegated to quarantine with him or not visiting Franklin in order to stay with James, Sara compromised by placing a tall stepladder outside the infirmary window where she could see and speak to Franklin for hours.

In another example of his parent’s mutual devotion, according to FDR the only time he seriously disagreed with his father was when James explained it would be too cruel to both mother and father for an only son to pursue a naval career that would keep him away for long periods. Instead, James encouraged Franklin to attend college and law school. FDR acquiesced and enrolled at Harvard in 1900. Only a few months into his son's university life, James passed away.

Though she was much younger than him, they had been married 20 years. The death of her “beloved” hit Sara hard. She followed his wishes to be buried under Scottish granite with his first wife, Rebecca, but when the stonemasons began to set them in place, Sara asked if her coffin could be slipped in atop his, so she could be with him, too. In the first few days after his death, Sara and Franklin brought fresh flowers every day to the quiet graveyard at St. James, just up the road from their home.

After the death of her husband, the energetic, 46-year-old Sara became still more focused on her son and his welfare. In keeping with her husband’s wishes, she moved temporarily to Boston where their son attended Harvard in order to be near him. Most wealthy upstate New Yorkers spent winters in the city to avoid being snowed in at their country estates. Rather than move to their New York City townhouse for the winter, James and Sara planned to spend the winters of Franklin’s college years with him in Boston. However, shortly before James’ death, Sara rented a cottage at a South Carolina resort to allow James to recuperate his health for this first winter. Unfortunately, James would not live to see the next winter. Because James died only a few months into Franklin’s freshman semester, it is likely Sara and her son wished to be together during their mutual deep mourning period, so she moved to Boston accompanied by her widowed sister, Dora Delano Forbes, the following winter. She would not have to spend the dark winters completely alone in Hyde Park. By all accounts, Franklin enjoyed his mother’s proximity and frequently came for tea, dinners she hosted for him and his friends, and to stay the night. When she was back in Hyde Park, she sent weekly crates of fresh eggs and cream by express train to help her son keep up his strength. Though she preferred to have him close—referred by her in their letters as “my all”—she also insisted on his independence: “I am not silly and I have no intention of ‘tying you to my apron strings.’”

Sara does not seem to have been overly enthusiastic about any of the young women her son courted, though she offered guidance on party and dance dates when asked. When Franklin fell in love and proposed marriage to fifth-cousin Eleanor Roosevelt, Sara advised the pair to keep their engagement secret for a year because she believed they were too young to marry. Sara herself had been 26 when she married, and her husband had been in his early fifties. She strongly believed, and relayed this to Franklin, that a man should make something of himself financially and in his career before proposing to a woman in order that he may have something worthwhile to offer her. At only 21 and 19, respectively, Franklin and Eleanor heeded Sara’s advice and carefully managed their secret engagement for a year with her help. Later, Sara would be accused by historians of attempting to sabotage their relationship, which she denied. Her diaries reflect a “maternal pride” she felt for Eleanor as well as the many occasions she took the young bride under her wing (Kleeman, 1935, p. 317).

After Franklin and Eleanor's marriage on March 17, 1905, Sara remained close to the newlyweds. As was the fashion for wealthy families at the time, she bought a double townhouse at 49 East 65th Street in Manhattan, one half for them, one half for herself. Later, she bought a cottage for them right next to her own on the island of Campobello where she spent her summers. When Eleanor shared apprehensions on running and decorating her own homes, Sara offered guidance. Later, Eleanor would credit Sara as one of the greatest influences on her development into an individual.

Sara anxiously awaited her first grandchildren. When Eleanor’s due dates approached, Sara kept a change of clothes laid out next to her bed in case she needed to dress hurriedly in the night to be by her side. When her third grandchild, the first FDR, Jr., passed away due to a heart problem at 7 months old, Sara offered comfort and support to Eleanor and Franklin. She was greatly aggrieved herself, however, and spent hours sitting in the November cold beside the baby’s freshly dug grave at St. James so he would not have to be out there alone.

As the grandchildren grew, she was there with advice on how to rear them and availability to entertain them; once after spending time with them, she wrote in her diary, “I hate to leave my grandbabies.” Her presence and guidance were especially helpful to Eleanor, who had an extremely troubled and dysfunctional childhood, especially after both of her parents died young. The Delanos were a close and supportive family, unlike Eleanor's mother's family, the Halls, and they enveloped Eleanor as one of their own. According to some of the grandchildren, Sara seemed to have undermined parental discipline by spoiling them. However, on her 80th birthday many years later, they gave her an engraved scroll that said, “Hyde Park means you and all the fun you give us there” (Kleeman, 1935, p. 320).

Eleanor soon found her mother-in-law's involvement in her family challenging and struggled to achieve her independence. As she developed her own interests, friends, and activities, and in the 1920s emerged as a political leader in her own right, she was able to find that independence. Some have claimed it was Eleanor’s newfound self-esteem that enabled her to challenge Sara’s will for FDR. After polio paralyzed FDR's legs, Sara made sure the home at Hyde Park would be open year-round, rather than seasonally, in case he ever wished to return for some peace and quiet. Somehow, this endeavor was misinterpreted publicly as Sara attempting to encourage her son to retire to Hyde Park and live the rest of his life as a country gentleman. Meanwhile Eleanor was credited as strongly supporting FDR's desire to return to politics. Sara hated politics and publicity. However, when Sara found out about this rumor, she denied it. She and James had always expected great things out of their son, and it is unlikely Sara would have accepted or even encouraged FDR’s retirement. At this time, she was still co-owner of Springwood, and it therefore was within her responsibility to offer the home to her son and his family if needed.

Though she found needless publicity distasteful, Sara led a full and satisfying life with public appearances as part of her responsibility as the President’s mother. In her later years, she wrote to FDR, “I have been an unusually fortunate woman. First I had the love and protection of your grandfather, then of your father; and in my old age you have made possible for me the interesting life that I am now leading” (Kleeman, 1935, p. 316).

Sara retained her dignity, her pride in her family and lineage, and her strong opinions. She also continued to manage Springwood. As co-owner of the estate, she was shrewd but kind. When her employees had surgical operations or illnesses, they recalled how Sara would help with expenses (NPS Oral history with William Plog, 1947.06).

She also remained charitable. For 30 years, she organized and occasionally taught a sewing class for the Hyde Park School for Girls. She was also on the board of the Gallaudet Home, “a haven for aged and infirm deaf mutes in Poughkeepsie” (Kleeman, 1935, p. 135); after her husband’s death, she devoted more time towards her work in the Gallaudet Home, which included spending time talking with residents via “hastily penciled notes” (Ward, 1985, p. 244). After James’ death she also spent more time at the Laura Franklin Delano Free Hospital for Children, a children’s hospital in NYC named after her youngest sister (Ward, 1985, p. 219). Sara was well-known for arranging flowers daily for her home, but for her entire life she also sent flowers to various hospitals, including Laura’s namesake. One of her dear friends, Louise Schuyler, started a “Mental Hygiene Committee” for the State Hospital for the Insane at Poughkeepsie, and Sara joined. This committee provided follow-up care for discharged patients as they returned to their homes.

Not only did Sara serve strangers in her community—many of whom were not of her class—but she also cared for former staff who had fallen on hard times. She frequently visited Kittie Crummie, the dressmaker from her childhood on into her marriage, when Kittie became ill and unable to work in her old age (Kleeman, 1935, p. 220). When she discovered that Alice Clay, a former governess of Franklin’s, was sick and in a New York hospital, she invited her to Hyde Park for the country air. According to her diaries from this time, she spent hours each day for several months sitting with Miss Clay on the veranda, organized for doctors and nurses to come every day, and took her for drives in the landau carriage accompanied by a nurse, “hot bricks, etc. and furs” to keep warm. She forwent church and other outings in order to stay with her patient, and she invited guests—such as Alice Roosevelt—to call. When Miss Clay’s health deteriorated further, Sara arranged for her to take a ship home to her family in England (Kleeman, 1935, p. 220).

Sara died on September 7, 1941, from acute circulatory collapse at the age of 86. Afterwards, Eleanor wrote in her column that Sara's "strongest trait was loyalty to her family. . . . She was not just sweetness and light, for there was a streak of jealously and possessiveness in her when her own were concerned."

Her memory is commemorated here at the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site and at Sara Delano Roosevelt Park in New York City's Lower East Side, which was dedicated during her lifetime in 1934.

Historians have been unfair to Sara, some characterizing her as an overbearing mother and mother-in-law. Even in her own lifetime, in 1934, she obtained a copy of a book about FDR’s presidential administration in which she noted several “falsehoods” written about her. Though she never sent this clarifying note to FDR, it is only fair to allow Sara to defend herself in her own words. She denied attempting to sabotage Franklin and Eleanor’s courtship and described the belief that she wanted Franklin to retire after polio as a “fib,” and that she never wanted to

’take you to Hyde Park’ to ‘baby’ you and make an invalid of you. All I did was to say that if the doctors thought best for you to have for some months a quiet life, I would keep Hyde Park open & live there for a time (quoted in Ward, 1985, p. 325).

These mischaracterizations of her as controlling deeply affected Sara.

— Shelby Landmark, PhD

Works Referenced

Kleeman, R. H. (1935). Gracious lady: The life of Sara Delano Roosevelt. D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc.

Ward, G. C. (1985). Before the trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt. Harper & Row.