Travels with Eleanor #3 - Onward - by Nan Brooks

Born with the teeth to play her

Photo by Cynthia Rumbaugh

There is that advice that goes, “Follow your bliss and synchronicities will happen.” And “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”  I’m not convinced about the money thing, but synchronicity is real, and it happened with “my” Eleanor.

Previously:  Dear Mrs. Roosevelt opened by the skin of her teeth, audiences were happy, and the drama in the company surrounding the production could be put to rest.

Speaking of teeth, I’d always hated mine. It was family advice down generations not to smile in photographs because our crooked teeth would show. Now they were an asset and over the years I must have said, “…born with the teeth to do this role” a gazillion times in interviews.

After those first two performances at the summer arts festival in Bloomington, Indiana I thought I’d let the production rest for a year or more. My sons deserved my undivided attention and I had a new and demanding job now that I’d finished my undergraduate degree. I needed to seek legal advice about using Eleanor’s life story and her words, and I needed an agent. Permission from the Roosevelt family would be good, but that was out of reach. There were too many details to attend to and it all seemed daunting. And overambitious.

Charlotte Zietlow, a local progressive mover and shaker, was one of my favorite politicians, a real leader. She called one day and asked if I would like to meet Ann Roosevelt Johnson, Eleanor’s granddaughter. It turned out IU professor Judith Johnson was Ann Roosevelt Johnson’s sister in law and Ann was coming for a visit. Charlotte would see if she could arrange a meeting. I hoped to learn more from Ann about her grandmother and even perhaps find a way to seek permission from the Roosevelt family to keep the play going. Perhaps I could tour, but that was unlikely.

We met over lunch at a local restaurant and talked mostly about our children, Professor Johnson and Ann and me. When I lamented the struggle to get a compassionate education for my younger son, who was yet to be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Judith Johnson said, “But remember, there is always a pocket of sanity in any system.”  I've quoted her many times and those words have kept me going often through the years. I remember getting a recipe for inexpensive chicken salad from Ann. I was embarrassed, appalled might be a better word, when someone stopped at our table, pointed to me and then to Ann, and said, “Oh my, I couldn’t figure out which one of you looks more like Eleanor!” After an awkward pause, we returned to our conversation.

Ann described the work of the Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation and how they were teaching conflict resolution to New York inner-city teenagers. The kids would arrive at Val Kill, Eleanor’s home in Hyde Park, New York, for a retreat. But the place was so peaceful, conflicts didn’t arise. I said, “Maybe her spirit is still there.”  Ann looked me in the eye and said, “Why do you want to play my grandmother?”  I probably gulped and said, “Because of what we’ve been talking about, her work for social justice. We need to hear from her now. And because she never gave up.”  Ann simply nodded and the conversation went on. I didn’t know if I had passed muster, or even if there was any muster to pass.

A month or so later I had a call from the president of Franklin College, a small church-supported school in Indiana. He explained that they were planning their annual weekend in which they would focus on one person in history and what could be learned from that person’s life and work. They had chosen Eleanor as the historic figure and had invited Ann Roosevelt Johnson to talk about the Foundation. She  had told him about me. When he asked my fee, I just made up a high number. I hadn’t even thought about what it would cost to do a touring production. He said my fancy number it was too high, so I offered to cut my fee in half if Ann Roosevelt Johnson would be there and see the play. He said, “That’s what she said about you.”  Apparently, I was going on tour, albeit about 50 miles from home.

Franklin College needed publicity material from me, so I would have to suffer through the head shots. I have hated having my picture taken since I was a child, and it shows. I think I’ve had two headshots that were anywhere near attractive over my acting career. Telling a photographer that I wanted to look gentle and strong often meant blank looks or a lecture about how those two qualities didn’t go together. My professional photos were lackluster at best. But it had to be done despite my bad attitude. I was whining about this sad state of affairs to my friend Cynthia Rumbaugh one day, figuring she would have some advice for me because she is an excellent photographer. She said, “I’ll do them at my house, and we’ll have a good time doing it, too.”

I always have a good time with Cyndi and I trust her. She worked hard to set up a space in her unfinished basement with lighting and a backdrop of some kind. The lighting was tricky because the ceiling was so low, but she figured out how to get a good angle. We did have a good time; I remember laughing a lot. For once I didn’t have to worry about my crooked teeth. They are my favorite headshots of all time.

 Cynthia Rumbaugh and I were up to something, but who knows what.

Costume and accessories by Opportunity House thrift store, Bloomington, Indiana

At Franklin College I was to perform in a former chapel, so we set up a few pieces of furniture for ER’s sitting room and placed the props – photographs and mementos of Eleanor’s travels. The president came to meet us while we were setting up and showed the seat in the front row they had reserved for Ann Johnson. That meant I would be able to see her reactions to the play all too clearly, but I decided not to complain and to prove to myself that I was a real trouper. She would be sitting right behind the spot where my invisible guest, the reporter to whom I was telling “my” life story would be. I dressed in the room that opened directly onto the set and when the time came, simply opened my dressing room door and walked on. When I looked out, Ann wasn’t there. That meant she had decided not to come, a disappointment and a relief. I’d have to think about all that later.

I was surprised how comfortable I felt being back in Eleanor’s shoes, as it were. Not that those costume shoes had become any more comfy. But I felt completely at home, found new moments in the script to explore, and had a fine time. After my curtain call, without a crew this time because the two women traveling with me flatly refused, I walked into the little robing  room and promptly pulled off my very sweaty dress, wig, girdle, and stockings. There was a knock at the door. “May I come in?”  I thought it was one of the crew and didn’t worry that I was standing there in my slip with my sweaty hair plastered to my head. But it was Ann Roosevelt Johnson and she was teary-eyed and beaming all at once. She wrapped me in a hug despite my apologies for being so damp. She asked if we could talk, so I threw on some street clothes and we sat on the set while the crew packed up around us. It tuned out she had decided to sit at the back of the audience because she didn’t want to be a distraction to me. I was grateful for her understanding and nervous about what she had thought and felt. That sweaty hug was my answer.

“Your hands! I couldn’t stop watching your hands,” she said, “you got them perfectly. I loved watching Grandmere’s hands.” It was my turn to be a little teary, “And she loved watching her grandmother’s hands.”  “She did?” said Ann, “I didn’t know that.” It was an opportunity for me to give her the smallest gift, but one that clearly mattered to her.

Ann spoke the next morning and the other WomanShine women and I were there in the front row. She began by recounting something I had told her, that I’d heeded Alice Walker’s advice that we all choose a spiritual grandmother. Of course, I had chosen Eleanor. Ann told the audience that morning, “So, you see, Nan and I must be sisters,” and thanked me for my portrayal. That memory is still clear these 35 years later.

After the trip to Franklin College was over, capped by a letter of endorsement from the college president, I put Dear Mrs. Roosevelt away for another year. Sid Reger had been the WomanShine company booking agent for a couple of years after seeing a production in Indianapolis and asking what she could do to support our work. That is a dangerous question to ask about a shoestring feminist organization!  With the goal of touring in a year, she prepared brochures for a direct mail campaign and sent them to colleges and conference organizers in the Midwest. We figured the brochures, simple three-fold information sheets with my Eleanor headshot on the front, would arrive in time for people who were planning the following winter’s campus events and so on.

A few weeks after those went out, synchronicity popped up again and it became clearer to me that Goddess/the Universe had plans for my version of Eleanor that I could only guess at. Sid received a phone call from the organizer of an Illinois Humanities Committee chautauqua to be held in Southern Illinois. The gentleman had seen that brochure on someone’s desk at Southern Illinois University when he had stopped there to explore co-sponsorship. He hadn’t intended to find a presenter, but there was Eleanor looking up at him. He explained the Chautauqua plan and we said yes, though it was still in very early stages. My year off had shortened to a few months; we would spend two weeks in southern Illinois in early June.

The Chautauqua movement was popular in the late 19^th and early 20^th century and was a way for adults to gather for educational opportunities such as lectures and concerts and sometimes for religious services and classes. The first such event, in the upstate New York town of Chautauqua, was a way to expand a church camp summer session into a Sunday school for adults. The name, it is said, came from an Iroquois word meaning “a bundle tied in the middle” or “two moccasins tied together”, a description of the shape of the lake where the town is located. You can learn more about the movement at https://www.chautauqua.com/about-us-history/chautauqua-movement-history

As it turned out, we would perform in Muddy and Carbondale, Illinois in rotation with two other actors who portrayed historical figures. The theater performances would be in tents, in the Chautauqua tradition. We would also visit schools and community organizations in each city. I had wanted to do summer stock since I was a teenager, and this adventure would come close to fulfilling that dream.

Next time:  “Mrs. Roosevelt, when did you die?”

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