Notes |
- According to Byron Lee, "She was hired by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1914 to be a social secretary. In July 1917 she joined the Navy as a female yeoman third class, attached the Navy Department, where there were daily opportunities to see Franklin Roosevelt, the Asst. Secretary of the Navy; however, she continued as social secretary. Lucy Mercer and Franklin Roosevelt had an affair that threatened his marriage between the years of 1914 and 1919. Eleanor found out about it in Sept. 1918 and the affair ended sometime after that. Lucy married a widower with five children, Winthrop Rutherford, on Feb. 10, 1920. Winthrop Rutherford was a descendant of the first Governors of New York and Massachusetts. . . . They had one child named Barbara. . . . Lucy and Franklin [Roosevelt] remained friends and she was with him when he died on April, 12, 1945." [4]
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