Eleanor Roosevelt takes target practice with the revolver issued to her by the Secret Service. Photo credit Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library The gun was the compromise Eleanor Roosevelt grudgingly accepted. The first lady would carry one on her upcoming tour of New England and Quebec i n July 1933.  Secret Service officials weren’t pleased with this scant security. They had insisted that agents accompany her on the trip, but Roosevelt was having none of it. In that case, they said, she needed a police escort, or at least a chauffeur. Still no. Roosevelt rejected any kind of security detail. She would drive herself; she loved driving.  Her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had been president for barely 100 days, but she was already eager to temporarily escape the scrutiny she endured as the president’s wife. “(S)ince I could still drive without having people recognize me,” she wrote in her autobiography, “I had been looking forward with a great deal of pleasure to this holiday.” The Secret Service had reason to worry about her safety. Just months earlier, in February 1933, when FDR was president-elect, he had survived an assassination attempt in Miami. But carrying a revolver, provided by the Secret Service, was the most protection the fiercely independent first lady would accept. She unloaded the gun and stored it in the glove compartment of her bright blue Buick convertible.  On her road trip, she would be entering hostile territory, politically speaking. FDR had become president by thrashing his Republican opponent, then-President Herbert Hoover, in the election of 1932. FDR had won all but six states, and his wife would be visiting three of them: Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Vermont was by far the most anti-FDR state in the country; voters here preferred Hoover by more than 16 percentage points.    First lady Eleanor Roosevelt, seen here posing at the White House, loved driving and the freedom it gave her. Photo credit Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library Eleanor Roosevelt had a strong interest in understanding and bolstering the lives of rural Americans and was deeply committed to the administration’s efforts to lift the country out of the Great Depression. She had already passed through Vermont earlier that summer. That first visit was only for a day, June 23, as she drove from Massena, New York, to the coast of Maine, where she was meeting her husband. With her were Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman, a lesbian couple who were old friends of hers. In fact, the three had started a furniture company together in 1926, with Cook, a skilled woodworker, creating the designs and overseeing the factory, Dickerman investing money, and Roosevelt promoting the business. The company provided jobs for immigrants, as well as local farmers during their off-season. Newspapers the next day told the stories of Vermonters who had been stunned to suddenly encounter the first lady, whose visit was unannounced. Roosevelt was trying to keep a low profile so that, as much as possible, this could be a relaxing trip, not a visit by a dignitary. A group of women told the Burlington Free Press they had been driving together toward St. Albans when they noticed several people, who turned out to be Roosevelt and her two friends, gathering daisies and clover blossoms by the roadside. When the driver honked a greeting, the first lady smiled and waved.  Roosevelt and her companions were next spotted in Richmond, where they ate lunch under a large elm on the terrace of a restaurant and hotel named The Richmond. A local pharmacist grabbed his camera and snapped a couple of photos of the women, which are perhaps the pictures that appeared in the next day’s Free Press. The newspaper’s four-sentence report offered few details other than the saccharine comment that Roosevelt “was enjoying to the utmost the superb scenery and weather” and that she was wearing a simple blue dress, a powder blue sweater and a white band to hold back her hair.   The June 24, 1933 edition of the Burlington Free Press brought news that the president’s wife had been in Vermont the previous day. Eleanor Roosevelt was photographed with traveling companions Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook when they stopped for lunch at The Richmond hotel in Richmond, Vermont. Before leaving Vermont, Roosevelt was spotted again at 4 p.m. in St. Johnsbury, where she purchased maple candy at the Maple Grove Inn before buying more maple products at the Cary Maple Cabin. “She made her purchases so quickly that she was out and away almost before it was realized there who the distinguished customer had been,” wrote the Caledonian-Record. “…(Then) she skillfully piloted her trappy sports roadster on its way.”  “Now that Mrs. Roosevelt has learned the way to St. Johnsbury, it is hoped that she will come often,” the local newspaper gushed, despite the fact that Vermont voters weren’t particularly enthused about FDR, “and if she can persuade the President of the United States to come with her some time all the better. The latchstring is out.”  Two for the road She did return, just two weeks later, but she didn’t bring her husband. Instead, her traveling companion for this three-week road trip was Lorena Hickok. Like her earlier whirlwind tour through the region, this trip would give Roosevelt a break from the constant attention she received as first lady, a role she hadn’t been eager to adopt. It would also let her tick a couple items off her bucket list, including driving on the Gaspé Peninsula and to the top of Vermont’s Mount Mansfield. The trip gave her time away with Hickok, or “Hick,” as she was known to friends. Hickok was a prominent newspaper reporter who had covered FDR’s 1932 presidential campaign, but she feared her closeness to Eleanor would jeopardize her objectivity if she covered his administration. Instead, she soon joined it, becoming the chief investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. During the road trip, newspapers referred to her as Eleanor Roosevelt’s secretary. Early Roosevelt historians described the two women as merely close friends, but now the consensus among scholars is that their relationship was romantic.  The pair began their road trip in early July, visiting sites in upstate New York, including Ausable Chasm and the grave of abolitionist John Brown. After driving through Burlington on July 9, they reached their hotel, The Richmond (where Roosevelt had lunched on her previous visit), at 7:30 p.m. Roosevelt planned to drive up Mount Mansfield the following day.  Although Roosevelt had declined Secret Service protection during this trip, an officer for the Vermont Motor Vehicle Highway Patrol, the precursor of the Vermont State Police, stood guard outside the hotel. The next morning, highway patrol officers escorted Roosevelt and Hickok to Waterbury, where they planned to visit the new Civilian Conservation Corps camp. “The officers then left her,” the Montpelier Evening Argus reported, “as she did not desire an escort through the state, preferring to travel simply and unostentatiously.”  As they drove to the camp, they were met by journalist Harry C. Whitehill, who invited Roosevelt to speak live on air at WDEV, the local radio station he had co-founded two years earlier. The first lady agreed to stop by the station after her visit to the CCC camp. Eleanor Roosevelt, center, and Lorena Hickok, back to camera, were overnight guests at The Richmond, a hotel in Richmond, Vermont, in 1933.Photo credit Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library The Civilian Conservation Corps, which provided public works jobs for young men, was a major part of FDR’s New Deal program. Workers at the Waterbury camp would be tasked with building a large earth-filled dam on the Little River, a waterway that had contributed to the disastrous flooding that ravaged Vermont in 1927. When the first lady visited, the camp had been under construction for only a month. During her tour, she spoke with some of the young men working there and investigated whether the meals served to them would be nutritious. Roosevelt kept her promise to stop by WDEV but never spoke on air. It was Sunday, and the station manager didn’t want to interrupt the religious service being broadcast at the time.  To the top of Vermont For a visit by a first lady, the trip’s itinerary was rather loose. Roosevelt decided against driving up Mount Mansfield on the planned day, due to poor visibility. Instead, they drove east on Route 2 (Interstate 89 was nearly three decades in the future). A passing motorist recognized the first lady and raced ahead to Montpelier to spread the news of her imminent arrival. On her June trip through Vermont, Roosevelt’s car had borne Washington, D.C., plates. For this trip, she switched to New York plates. The change provided a measure of anonymity, but traffic in Montpelier was moving slowly that morning. Some people had time to recognize and wave at the famous motorist passing by, particularly when Roosevelt had to wait at the traffic light at the corner of State and Main.  Roosevelt continued east, passing through St. Johnsbury, where in true tourist style she stopped to buy more maple candies. These were perhaps a treat for her youngest child, 17-year-old John, whom she and Hickok visited at the polo camp he was attending in Whitefield, New Hampshire. After spending the afternoon with John, the pair drove back through St. Johnsbury at 8 p.m.  By about 9:30 p.m., Roosevelt had reached Montpelier, where several passersby noticed her sitting alone in her car, parked on State Street. Hickok was on an errand. A woman named Ruth McGovern approached the car and chatted with the first lady for about seven minutes, she told a reporter. During the conversation, Roosevelt mentioned that she was rather tired. Despite her fatigue, Roosevelt was committed to experiencing the Green Mountains. Shortly before 10 o’clock, she phoned someone in Waterbury (press reports don’t say who) to report that she was headed to Mount Mansfield. A police officer had told her it was too dangerous to drive up Mansfield at night, and she was offered a driver to take her to the top, but she was determined. A Waterbury selectman and the president of the local Chamber of Commerce, driving separately from Roosevelt, escorted her up the Toll Road to the Summit House. The party arrived at around 11:15 p.m. “(W)hen told that Mrs. Roosevelt would soon reach the Summit House the management was alive to the honor of entertaining the most distinguished guest on Mount Mansfield in recent years,” the Waterbury Record reported. “There was so much stir about the hotel that over night guests who had retired early to get up early, to observe the sunrise, were awaked, dressed and were ready to receive Mrs. Roosevelt. Every light in and around the Summit House was turned on and when Mrs. Roosevelt came within seeing distance of the Summit House she was assured, even in the middle of the night, that she was very, very welcome.” The following morning, the newspaper stated, the mountain was socked in by clouds, but Roosevelt and Hickok hiked to the Chin. They returned to the mountaintop hotel to find a delegation of seven young women from Stowe, who presented the first lady with a bouquet and invited her to visit the town.  Roosevelt and Hickok climbed back into the roadster at about 11 a.m. and drove down the Toll Road. At the bottom, they were met by yet another local delegation. The first lady shook hands with everyone and was presented with another bouquet, this one of red clover, the state flower. While posing for a group photo, Roosevelt commented, “It must take a great deal of courage to be a Democrat in Vermont.”   Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok taking in a view during the Quebec leg of their 1933 trip. Photo credit Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library When Hayley Lever, a well-known New York City artist, learned that the first lady was staying overnight at the Summit House, he left a phone message that he hoped she would visit the Art Students League exhibit he had organized at the Lodge in Smugglers Notch. Roosevelt accepted the invitation. After showing her and Hickok the exhibit, he presented the first lady an etching of a schooner, which she said her husband would appreciate; he loved boats. By this point, Roosevelt must have wondered how many more gifts she was going to have to find room for in her convertible. She received one more before she left Vermont. At Smugglers Notch, she met 83-year-old “Bronco” Charlie Miller, said to be the last living Pony Express rider. Miller, dressed in “full regalia” (presumably a fringed buckskin riding outfit), presented Roosevelt with a hand-carved walking stick fashioned from Vermont wood. Roosevelt and Hickok then headed north through Smugglers Notch — Lever warned them to “mind the curves” — and after a couple of brief errands in Newport, crossed into Canada at Derby Line. The pair took full advantage of the two weeks they had left before they were expected back in Washington. They visited Quebec City and explored the Gaspé Peninsula. While touring Maine, Hickok was stunned to witness Roosevelt knowledgeably discussing potato prices and that year’s crop with a farmer “as easily and confidently as though she had spent her whole life raising potatoes in Aroostoock County!” Hickok later wrote. In reality, Roosevelt had remembered the details from an article she read in that morning’s paper. She was a quick study.   Bringing the world to FDR Once back in Washington, the Roosevelts and Hickok had dinner together, and the first lady shared what she had learned from conversations with ordinary Americans during the trip. Hickok was struck by how the first lady served as the president’s eyes and ears, how enthralled he was by the details of the outside world that she brought back to the White House. It was a role the first lady would play for the rest of FDR’s 12 years in office.   The road trip served as an inflection point. Although it had been planned as a getaway with Hickok, not a fact-finding mission, the trip helped redefine what a first lady could do. Previously, the role of the president’s wife was almost entirely ceremonial. Going forward, first ladies could take an active role in helping shape and communicate policy. Eleanor Roosevelt began writing a newspaper column and annually traveled 40,000 miles or more in representing the administration.  Throughout her time as first lady, Roosevelt refused Secret Service protection. Agency officials no doubt worried about her safety. Her friend and a former FDR bodyguard, Earl Miller, intervened. If a pistol was going to be her sole defense, she should at least know how to shoot one. Miller gave Roosevelt a firearms lesson on Oct. 11, 1933, her 49th birthday. In retelling the incident, Roosevelt wrote: “I finally learned to hit a target. I would never have used it on a human being, but I thought I ought to know how to handle a revolver if I had to have one in my possession.” Still, she later admitted, she sometimes left it behind.  Read the story on VTDigger here: Then Again: Armed with a spirit of discovery and a gun, the first lady road-trips through Vermont. ...read more read less