Please note that the following is a digitized version of a selected article from White House History Quarterly, Issue 63, originally released in print form in 2021. Single print copies of the full issue can be purchased online at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.org No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All photographs contained in this journal unless otherwise noted are copyrighted by the White House Historical Association and may not be reproduced without permission. Requests for reprint permissions should be directed to rights@whha.org. Contact books@whha.org for more information. © 2021 White House Historical Association. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.
REMEMBERING the Life and Work of Malvina (“Tommy”) Thompson A Conversation with Her Niece, Eleanor Lund Zartman BOTH IMAGES: COLLECTION OF ELEANOR LUND ZARTMAN
eleano r lund zart m an and m ar ci a ander s o n
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MARCIA ANDERSON: When we first met to talk about your contributing your story to White House History Quarterly, you talked about a set of little wooden pigs that were given to you, as a child, by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. That seemed such a nice way to begin to introduce your memories of the time when your aunt Malvina (“Tommy”) Thompson was Mrs. Roosevelt’s secretary and you were a frequent visitor to the White House. Would you tell us more about this gift? ELEANOR ZARTMAN: Eleanor Roosevelt was my godmother, and I was named after her. My aunt Malvina (“Tommy”) Thompson was Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal secretary and companion for thirty years. She and I were very close, and because she spent long hours at the White House, being with her meant that I also spent time there. On June 17, 1945, two months after the president’s death, Mrs. Roosevelt sent me a set of wooden pigs—a mother pig and four piglets—that had sat on the president’s mantelpiece. He had many different collections but was especially fond of pigs. In a letter on black-bordered mourning stationery Mrs. Roosevelt wrote, “I know that you considered President Roosevelt your friend, and he was always glad to see you, so I thought you would like this remembrance to keep.” I have always
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Malvina (“Tommy”) Thompson smiles for the press shortly after christening the USS ArcherFish in May 1943 and takes notes as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt dictates a reply to a letter.
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the niece of malvina (“tommy”) thompson and the goddaughter First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Eleanor Lund Zartman had an exceptionally rare experience as a child, watching history unfold during the Gread Depression and World War II at the White House, and in the late 1940s at Val-Kill. With the official title of secretary and the role of a chief of staff, Tommy Thompson (1893–1953) capably and loyally served the first lady before, during, and after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, until her own death at the age of 60. Mrs. Zartman’s childhood adventures with her beloved aunt included witnessing the bustling activity in Mrs. Roosevelt’s White House, traveling with her aunt and the first lady, and regularly staying at Val-Kill. In 2018 she offered to share her story with White House History Quarterly. In an interview with Quarterly editor Marcia Anderson in the summer of 2021, Ms. Zartman discussed her memories and allowed us to photograph pictures, letters, and objects she has preserved from that time, more than seventy years ago when she came to know the White House, the president, and the first lady from a unique perspective.
B R U C E W H I T E F O R T H E W H I T E H O U S E H I S T O R I C A L A S S O C I AT I O N / C O L L E C T I O N O F E L E A N O R L U N D Z A R T M A N
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Once kept by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on his bedroom mantelpiece, this group of wooden pigs was sent by Eleanor Roosevelt to her goddaughter and namesake, Eleanor Lund, after the president’s death in 1945. With the enclosed letter (above), Mrs. Roosevelt expressed her wishes, writing, “I hope you always remember my husband and the things he believed in, and that you will be a good citizen of our country.”
treasured the gift, and I have always kept the pigs on my mantel as President Roosevelt did. Although your aunt is mentioned in many Roosevelt-era histories and biographies, and al-
though she played a key role in facilitating Mrs. Roosevelt’s work as first lady and afterward, there is no authoritative biography of her. I know you hope a biographer will someday do her story justice. The scope of such a comprehensive biography is beyond what we can publish in the Quarterly, but it would be wonderful if you might share with our readers your own perspective on her life and work. Yes, I do feel strongly that my aunt’s life story should be documented accurately and completely with an authoritative biography. I witnessed a large part of her remarkable life, including many of her White House years, and I shared extraordinary experiences with her. Nevertheless, to me Malvina Thompson was first and foremost a loving aunt, and that story is of course so intertwined with the personal stories of my whole family. My aunt was born in 1893 in the Bronx, when
the Bronx was still rural. She was a high school graduate, worked as a typist for the American Red Cross during and after World War I, and married Frank Schneider, a schoolteacher, in 1921. They did not have children, and so I was the apple of her eye and she spoiled me. She met Eleanor Roosevelt in 1922 while working for the New York State Democratic Committee. For a time she worked as a volunteer typist for Mrs. Roosevelt but became her paid secretary in 1928. That was during Franklin Roosevelt’s campaign for governor of New York. Her nickname “Tommy” was given to her by Anna Roosevelt, but to me she was “Mamie.” Over the years Tommy became very close to Anna and her children. When Mrs. Roosevelt became first lady in 1933, she asked my aunt to come to Washington, D.C., with her. That meant a lot of changes, for not just my aunt but for our whole family. When she began her job at the White House, Tommy was immediately confronted with a flood of mail, gifts, and requests. Because all the correspondence had to be responded to, she quickly had to create a staff to deal with it. My parents also moved from the Bronx to Washington, D.C. My aunt helped my father get a job at the Department of Commerce, and my mother worked for her in the White House secretarial pool. Tommy left her husband when she moved to Washington and eventually divorced him. She did have a boyfriend during and after her White House years. His name was Henry Osthagen. She was his main source of income, and after the president died he spent much of his time at Val-Kill Cottage, Mrs. Roosevelt’s home at Hyde Park. I was born in 1935. My mother had always been fragile, and my aunt, who was twelve years older, directed her with most things—including me! She was in charge of how I should be dressed and how my hair should be done. She made me take piano lessons. She was quite controlling, but she adored me. I was well aware how deeply she loved me but was too young to appreciate all the sacrifices she made for me. She was an important part of my life. I was always jealous of her devotion to Mrs. R. (Tommy always called her either “Mrs. R.” or “the boss”). I was especially upset when she couldn’t visit us because “Mrs. R. needed her.” When I was very young I always wondered who this Mrs. R. was that my aunt kept referring to when talking with my mother. I knew she must be important for my aunt to talk more about her than about Mrs. Roosevelt!
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Shirley Temple stands between Tommy Thompson and Eleanor Roosevelt on a White House visit, 1938.
Tommy Thompson and Eleanor Roosevelt enjoy a ride through the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.
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Tommy Thompson makes notes while working with Eleanor Roosevelt, c. 1940.
At one point Mrs. R. was quoted as saying my aunt was “the woman who makes life possible for me.”1 During her White House years my aunt lived in an apartment on 16th Street Northwest, and a White House car would pick her up for work in the morning and take her home at night. After the president’s death, she lived in New York City and Val-Kill Cottage with Mrs. R. in order to be at her beck and call. She had her own apartment at Val-Kill Cottage, and she continued to live and travel with and work for Mrs. Roosevelt until her own death in April 1953, on the anniversary of the president’s death. Your aunt prepared a six-page typed “autobiography,” and it is striking because it focuses less on her own life story and more on the details of her White House routine. She does make it clear that she considers it a privilege to work at the White House and that she was devoted to her job. Describing a normal workday as running from 9:00 a.m. to after 7:00 p.m.—and at times until 11:00 p.m. or midnight—she wrote, “The happy atmosphere at the White House makes one loathe to go home!” She refers to her job as “the peak of secretaryships and the goal of every girl’s ambition. . . . I was afraid I might wake up and find myself a modern Cinderella.”2 As a child, did you witness how busy your aunt was or what her workday was like? I remember on my visits to her office how busy she was—papers everywhere, people coming and going, the telephone ringing. It was chaotic! But it was fun for a kid to watch the passing parade. She was the gatekeeper for Mrs. R. and had to manage the stream of people wanting access to the first lady. No amount of flattery gained someone access. My aunt did detail her workday routine in her own words in a letter she provided to Bess Furman, a White House correspondent for the New York Times: No day is typical. . . . The first thing is to go through the mail—picking out the personal and most important letters. The telephone rings constantly—you know the type of requests, people who must see Mrs. R., constituents who are in town and whose congressman or senator wants to make
appointments—people who want to bring house guests to tea, people who want Mrs. R.’s name as sponsor, patroness, etc., people who want jobs. The real work on mail, speeches, articles, etc. is done after five o’clock and on Saturday afternoons when the telephone quiets down and on Sundays. The deadline for the column is 7 p.m. so that has to be sandwiched in somewhere between lunch time and 7 p.m. six days a week.3 That is a good description of what I remember about her work. My aunt was referred to as a secretary, but she was really Mrs. Roosevelt’s chief of staff, and she managed a large secretarial pool of twenty women at the White House. Mrs. Roosevelt dictated her My Day columns to Tommy, and she typed them up at all hours of the night to get them to press. Her typewriter is now on display at Val-Kill Cottage. Despite her long hours, my aunt maintained her involvement with my family and kept track of everything I did, micromanaging me and my mother. She had a fabulous, memorable, sense of humor, loved to tell stories, relaxed by knitting and reading, was rather bossy, and enjoyed her Scotch and Parliament cigarettes. I have a transcript of a radio commentary about my aunt that was broadcast in 1940 by Frank Kingdon for Newark’s WOR radio station. He described her as “a sharer in everything that touches the public life of our unique First Lady.” I think that is a fitting description. He also wrote: Miss Thompson’s present accomplishment is literally amazing. The sheer magnitude of the job is enough to stagger anybody. She steers her way through the mountains of letters giving to each one its adequate attention and organizes her staff of stenographers so that all answers go out with courteous expedition. Beside this, she keeps all Mrs. Roosevelt’s appointments straight, and helps her in the preparation of her speeches, articles and columns. Perhaps most remarkable of all is the fact that, in the midst of it she has maintained an unspoiled humanness that refuses to be harassed out of its quiet serenity.4
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When visiting my aunt at the White House I would take the trolley after school from Northwest D.C. south down Wisconsin Avenue and east up Pennsylvania Avenue. I probably started making those trips by myself when I was about eight or nine and continued to visit until the president’s death. The guards at the White House knew me. I would simply say “hi,” and they would wave me in. I would make my way up to the small office on the Second Floor of the Residence near the elevator. Sometimes we would go down to the secretarial pool where my aunt would show me off and saw to it that I got lavish attention from being her niece.
usually hosted a formal tea in the afternoons for various visitors, and on many occasions my aunt would pour. When I joined her I was duly reminded to behave properly. However, sitting still is not in my nature. One day I played with the child star Margaret O’Brien, who was visiting for President Roosevelt’s birthday party. Every movie star in the world was there. I adored Margaret O’Brien. We were almost the same age, I think about nine or ten years old. I asked if she could ever make me a movie star. She said, “Absolutely, no question,” and she promised to make calls for me and said I would hear from her—I am still waiting! On occasion my aunt took me to White House dinners because she thought it was important for me to attend formal events. It was hard for me as a child to sit through those dinners.
Did you explore other areas of the White House during those visits?
Is that how your photograph came to be in Life magazine?
Occasionally my aunt would let me run the long halls and up and down staircases, but I was always reminded to “mind my manners.” Mrs. Roosevelt
There was a group photo taken at a birthday party for the president, and I was in the front row surrounded by every movie star of the day. I knew it was to be
Tell us what it was like for you when you visited your aunt at the White House.
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Eleanor Zartman often took the trolley to the White House to visit her aunt at work. For the first half of the twentieth century, the trolley ran down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue as seen here in 1931 and stopped near the White House.
Eleanor Lund Zartman ( fourth from left in front row) has fond memories of playing with child star Margaret O’Brien (second from left in front row) at the White House during a reception to celebrate President Roosevelt’s birthday.
published in Life magazine and I was very excited for it to come out so I could impress my friends. But it was a two-page spread,5 and I ended up hidden under a staple in the center gutter—so I did not have my ten minutes of fame! Did your aunt ever speak about the visitors she met at the White House? From reading articles about my aunt and comparing my own memories, I realize she never spoke much about meeting many important people around the world. She did write to me about staying at Buckingham Palace and having dinner with the king and queen and serving hot dogs to Winston Churchill. What do you remember about your aunt’s relationship with Mrs. Roosevelt?
The time you spent with your aunt was largely spent at the White House, but did she take breaks on the weekends or on holidays? When she lived in Washington she would often visit us for Sunday dinner. She was a marvelous cook and loved to make dinner. Her chicken and dumplings were delicious. I still have her handwritten recipe. She brought Mrs. Roosevelt at least once, maybe twice, for lunch. We lived in a modest house, and it was quite exciting when Mrs. Roosevelt arrived in a limo. It certainly made my mother nervous! In the summertime Tommy took my mother and me to the Admiral Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey, or to the Long Island shore. She had decided that I needed the salt air to clear my sinuses. We had a wonderful time, although she did work the whole week. She nearly always spent Christmas with us, but one year, right after the war, a blizzard prevented her from making her way to our house and I wept because I needed her to be there for
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Tommy’s devotion, admiration, and respect for Mrs. R. have been duly documented. Mrs. R. was a loving godmother, but I had to learn to accept the fact that I was not the center of my aunt’s world and that I had to share her with Mrs. R., however difficult it was. As can be seen from all the letters Tommy wrote to my
mother, she continually directed my family and her brother’s while at the same time attending to all of her myriad duties for the Roosevelt family, including the dog Fala.
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First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt takes the wheel in an open-top car on the White House North Drive, 1933. Tommy Thompson is seen standing at center in the midst of a crowd of onlookers. Eleanor Lund Zartman remembers that Mrs. Roosevelt loved to drive but was frequently distracted by similar crowds of well-wishers.
TOP: WIKIMEDIA / BOTTOM: ALAMY
Eleanor Lund Zartman often stayed with her Aunt Tommy and her mother at the Admiral Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey (right), and at Val-Kill Cottage in Hyde Park, New York (below).
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Christmas. We were so close, and I wanted to spend Christmas with her. Tommy took me to many events outside of the White House. I helped her christen a submarine, the USS Archer-Fish in New Hampshire in May 1943 when I was about seven years old. I was so proud to help her christen a submarine. In 1944 the Archer-Fish became famous for sinking the Shinano off the coast of Japan before it was ever used in combat. It was the largest aircraft carrier built by the Japanese during the war.6 I still have the bottle my aunt used to christen the submarine as well as her beautiful silver bowl with the name of the submarine on it.
During the White House years and after I went up for a week or so at a time with my mother, who helped my aunt with all of the letters that needed to be typed. Every day there was a teatime, usually on my aunt’s porch, and Mrs. R. often attended. My aunt was too busy to swim, but I swam in the pool, and I liked to try to play with the snapping turtles in the creek. It was one of the simple things that the Roosevelt grandchildren and I did for fun. But I understood that I was the niece of an employee, and my aunt made sure I behaved. On evenings when several grandchildren were there, Mrs. Roosevelt would take us into her living room and she would sit on a chair with us children gathered around her on the floor. She would read to us, and I remember what I loved the most was the lilt of her singular voice. I have a vivid memory of those evenings. I remember how my bedroom was arranged because I could see all the adult goings-on in the living room when I lay on my bed at night. Mrs. Roosevelt’s friends came and drank and smoked and laughed, and watching it was like watching television. My aunt died in 1953 at age 60 after a stroke. I remember the day when Mrs. Roosevelt called my mother and told her of my aunt’s death. It was like losing the center of my world. Mrs. R. was quoted as saying, “When she [Tommy] died I learned for the first time what being alone was like.”7 Mrs. Roosevelt arranged the large funeral in New York attended by many notable people. My aunt’s death was tragic for my mother, who had been so dependent on her older sister. She died just six months later, at age 47.
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Eleanor Lund Zartman (center) and her mother (right) accompany Tommy Thompson to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the christening of the USS Archer-Fish, May 28, 1943.
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Did you spend time with your aunt at Hyde Park?
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B O X A N D S I LV E R B O W L : B R U C E W H I T E F O R T H E W H I T E H O U S E H I S T O R I C A L A S S O C I A T I O N, COLLECTION OF ELEANOR LUND ZARTMAN / SUBMARINE: GET TY IMAGES
Tommy Thompson is splashed with champagne as she christens the Archer-Fish. The submarine is seen above at sea.
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In appreciation for her sponsorship of the submarine, Tommy Thompson was presented with an engraved silver bowl (above) in a commemorative wooden box inlaid with the silhouette of the submarine.
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Gifts and letters from Eleanor Roosevelt to Eleanor Lund Zartman remain carefully preserved by Zartman. The first lady arranged for Tiffany and Company to add two pearls to her goddaughter’s necklace (above) on every birthday from 1940 to 1962 and also gave her a watch previously presented to her by the British American Ambulance Corps (left). opposite
Eleanor Lund Zartman’s favorite photograph of her godmother was taken on the west side of the White House.
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P H O T O S B Y B R U C E W H I T E F O R T H E W H I T E H O U S E H I S T O R I C A L A S S O C I AT I O N / COLLECTION OF ELEANOR LUND ZARTMAN
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After my aunt died, Mrs. Roosevelt invited me to visit and bring a friend every summer. What else do you remember about Mrs. R. as a godmother? Mrs. R was an affectionate godmother. For my fifth birthday she gave me an “add a pearl” necklace from Tiffany’s. Every birthday the necklace was sent to Tiffany’s for the staff to add two pearls, and they sent me a letter acknowledging its receipt and that they would add two pearls as a gift from Mrs. Roosevelt. I have the letters as well as the leather box stamped “To E.C.L. FROM E.R. OCTOBER 4, 1940.” In my own life I have had many careers. After getting my biology degree I worked in a toxicology lab for several years. Later I got a master’s degree in special education and followed that with teaching learning-disabled children for twenty-two years. Since retiring from teaching, I have had various volunteer jobs: working in the county jail in a job-readiness program for inmates prior to their release, assisting the homeless and those living in poverty to find jobs, and tutoring children in underserved neighborhoods. Perhaps the inspiration for my efforts to help those less fortunate came from observing my aunt’s devotion to Mrs. R., thus enabling her to carry out her humanitarian work. NOTES 1.
Similar state ment is quoted in “Malvina Thompson,” Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, elro.nps.gov website.
2. Malvina (“Tommy”) Thompson, unpublished typewritten autobiography, n.d., in files of Eleanor Lunt Zartman. 3. Malvina (“Tommy”) Thompson to Bess Furman, n.d., in files of Eleanor Lunt Zartman. 4. Frank Kingdon, transcript of radio commentary, 1940, Collection of Eleanor Lund Zartman.
COLLECTION OF ELEANOR LUND ZARTMAN
5. “Fund Raisers Pose for White House Birthday Picture,” Life, February 12, 1945, 34. 6. See “Archer-Fish (SS-311),” Naval History and Heritage Command website, www.history.navy.mil. 7. Quoted in “Malvina ‘Tommy” Thompson (Schneider) (1893– 1953),” Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project website, www.erpapers. columbian.gwu.edu.
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