Lucy Page Mercer Rutherfurd
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Lucy Page Mercer Rutherfurd (April 26, 1891-July 31, 1948) born in Washington, D.C. Lucy Mercer has been historically linked to United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as his mistress and was with him the day he died in 1945.
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[edit] Secretary to Eleanor Roosevelt
Lucy Page Mercer, daughter of a well-connected but impoverished Washington family, was hired by Franklin's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, as a personal secretary in the winter of 1913. Lucy was a tall beautiful young woman with thick blonde hair.
[edit] Affair
It was during this time that Mercer began a romantic relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is unclear when it began, but in September 1918, Eleanor discovered the relationship when she found love letters from Lucy to Franklin when he returned from Europe suffering from the infamous flu of 1918. When Eleanor unpacked his luggage, she found the stack of letters bound in red ribbon. Eleanor had actually already been suspicious. In fact, upon her engagement to Franklin, she had wept on the shoulder of her cousin, Alice Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's daughter, saying, "I shall never be able to hold him. He is attractive." While FDR was assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy, he was out of town quite often, and Eleanor had spent many years in Washington virtually alone. But despite her suspicions, Eleanor refused to listen to cousin Alice's spitefully malicious gossip. She realized that there was a tremendous amount of gossip about her bon-vivant husband. When she was forced to accept the reality of the situation, she became miserable. She offered FDR a divorce. FDR's mother, Sara Delano threatened to disinherit him if he divorced his wife. Eleanor gave an ultimatum to Franklin: stop seeing Lucy, or obtain a divorce. Roosevelt did not want to sacrifice his political career, so he promised never to see Lucy Mercer again. Unbeknownst to Eleanor, Franklin continued to see Mercer whenever he was in the Washington D.C. area. Eleanor became anorexic, losing a lot of weight; in addition, her dental problems worsened. The affair died down for a while, but FDR probably resumed it in some form, despite having been stricken with a serious paralytic illness in 1921.
[edit] Marriage
In February 1920, Mercer was married to Winthrop Rutherfurd, a wealthy Aiken South Carolinian.
It is unclear whether the romantic affair continued after Lucy's marriage, but it is certain that feelings remained between the two. Mercer was with Franklin D. Roosevelt the day that he suffered the cerebral hemorrhage that killed him in Warm Springs, Georgia. Eleanor was devastated when she learned that Lucy and Franklin had continued a relationship behind her back.
[edit] Death
She died in New York City in 1948, and was interred in Tranquility Cemetery in the Tranquility section of Green Township, New Jersey.
