Eleanor
Roosevelt and
Franklin D. Roosevelt met only occasionally before
ER left for Allenswood.
The most notable of these encounters occurred at ER's
aunt
Corrine Robinson's 1898 Christmas party when a sixteen-year-old
Franklin asked a fourteen-year-old ER to dance. While
they
enjoyed each other's company, it was only when ER returned
from school in London that they revived their friendship.
In the summer of 1902 FDR saw ER sitting alone on the train
en route to her
grandmother's
home in Tivoli
and invited her to join both him and his mother in a different
car. Their interest in one another increased as they ran
into one another at various social events in New York City
and attended a small White House New Year's Eve dinner
hosted
by ER's uncle, Theodore
Roosevelt. By the summer of 1903, the relationship
grew more serious. FDR proposed November 22, 1903, as
they walked
along the river beside Groton Academy, where they had just
visited ER's younger brother, Hall.
Sara
Delano Roosevelt, concerned that they were too young,
asked them to keep the engagement secret for a year and
then took FDR on a five-week cruise. The separation increased
FDR and ER's devotion and when he returned he decided
to
attend law school at Columbia University rather than Harvard
so that they could be closer to one another. FDR gave
ER
an engagement ring October 11, 1904, her twentieth birthday.
They announced their engagement at family gatherings
in early December 1904.
Sources:
Lash,
Joseph P. Eleanor and Franklin. New York:
Signet Press, 1971,150-176.
