BOOK REVIEW: A VOLUME OF FRIENDSHIP - The Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway

collected letters between Eleanor Roosevel and a lifelong best friend

A VOLUME OF FRIENDSHIP - The Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway 1904-1953, edited by Kristie Miller and Robert H. McGinnis, Preface by Blanche Wiesen Cook. U. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM; unmpress.com, katm@unm.edu, 800-249-7737 (for orders). 2009. 325+xvi pages $34.95 hardcover, ISBN 978-0-910037-50-1. appendix, genealogical chart, bibliography, index.

Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway were lifelong best friends. They met when both were young in New York City early in the 1900s. Roosevelt remained on the East coast, eventually residing in the White House, while Greenway went to live in Arizona. They stayed in touch by letter, and visited each other periodically. With two other friends, they formed a small group known as the "four of hearts".

One sees in the letters a more personal side of Eleanor Roosevelt than the well-known one of work in social causes and her marriage to FDR. She freely writes about her feelings, concerns, disappointments, political activities (as opposed to positions or goals), hopes, and relationships with the wide circle around her including relatives and staff. For her side, Greenway writes about the same matters, though she was not so active in politics. The collected letters as a whole are not only a vein of biographical record, but also a limited, yet illuminating record of the social history of a period. The coeditors' generalized notes setting letters in context and to each letter (in addition to footnotes) bring the woman into focus and give a life to them which is ordinarily not found in a collection of letters.

The letters go from 1909 to 1953. There are 139 of Roosevelt's and 85 of Greenway's. "The letters...are copious but incomplete." The recent discovery of three more of Roosevelt's letters raises questions about how many more there are to be discovered. The more than 200 letters included however with the knowledgeable and sensitive annotations give a well-rounded picture of the women and their friendship which given who they were, has as well historical interest.