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A Siding in New Jersey

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  • Member since
    February 2014
  • From: Nescopeck and Topton, Penna.
  • 81 posts
A Siding in New Jersey
Posted by Eddie Sand on Wednesday, March 25, 2020 6:46 PM

It's fairly common knowledge that connubial life in FDR's White House didn't read like something out of The Brady Bunch; the physical relationship between Franklin and Eleanor ended in the early Twenties -- Franklin took up with a series of mistresses, while Eleanor turned to other women -- a subject regarded as taboo until fairly recently.

I bring this subject up because a thriller I read a very long time ago (late 1970's -- I've forgotten the name) makes mention of a Pesidential train stopping "at a siding in New Jersey" for a rendezvous with Lucy Mercer (Rutherfurd -- probably the best-known of FDR;s mistresses;  I dismissed the story as just an embellishment at the time.

But 2016 brought the publication of Eleanor and Hick, a scholarly (footnotes and all) chronicle of a 30-year laiason between the First Lady and Lorena Hickok -- reporter, author, and advisor to the Democratic Party on women's issues by Susan Quinn -- and this work also makes mention of the rendezvous (Chapter 22, Page 297).

Just wondering if anyone who lives in the area or is familiar with the PRR's New York Divisioncan back up (or disprove) this story.

19 and copy from 'NP' at Nescopeck, Penna.

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