Grandmère

First Lady, diplomat, social activist, political visionary - Eleanor Roosevelt towers as the most beloved woman of the twentieth century. Now, accompanied by over two hundred full-color and black-and-white, rarely seen archival and family photographs, here is the most revealing and intimate biography of this extraordinary person ever written. Its author is Eleanor's own grandson, who has cherished this complex and gifted woman all his life and, like all Roosevelt grandchildren, called her Grandmere.To this celebrated public profile David B. Roosevelt lends both his own research into family archives and his unrivaled individual insight, as someone uniquely touched by Eleanor's living presence. This is his "Grandmere" who hosted famed friends at the idyllic family home in Val-Kill, New York, as he ran through its rooms dressed as her "little cowboy"; the unprepossessing "great lady" who greeted a troupe of white-gloved English debutantes in her wet bathing suit, exclaiming, "I invited you to a picnic!; and the friend of the classical and popular arts escorting the young author backstage to meet Broadway actress Mary Martin, who was as visibly excited about meeting Eleanor Roosevelt as Eleanor's stagestruck grandson was excited about meeting the star of Peter Pan.