First Mothers
The Women Who Shaped the Presidents
Chapter One
To the Manner BornA man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror, that confidence of success that often induces real success.--Sigmund Freud
A Restless young Franklin Roosevelt, under strict quarantine for scarlet fever in the Groton school infirmary, was startled by the scraping sound against the red brick wall, followed by a gloved tap on the window'and then the apparition of his mother, the regal Sara Delano Roosevelt, peering into the room. She was perched on a workman's ladder, risking her safety and shattering her dignity to circumvent the no-visitors edict.
From that precarious roost, she talked with him each day and even read to him. When she learned of his illness she had rushed home from Europe to comfort him; from the day he was born her son had been her total concern.
When he was a student at Harvard, she rented an apartment in Boston to oversee his social life. When he and his young wife needed a larger h ... read full excerpt from: First Mothers ebook
