Marguerite LeHand, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMarguerite LeHand
American presidential secretary
Date of Birth: 13-Sep-1898
Place of Birth: Potsdam, New York, United States
Date of Death: 31-Jul-1944
Profession: secretary
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Virgo 
About Marguerite LeHand
- Marguerite Alice "Missy" LeHand (September 13, 1896 – July 31, 1944) was private secretary to U.S.
- President Franklin D.
- Roosevelt (FDR) for 21 years.
- According to LeHand's biographer, Kathryn Smith, in "The Gatekeeper," she eventually functioned as White House chief of staff, the only woman in American history to do so.Born into a blue collar Irish-American family in upstate New York, LeHand studied secretarial science in high school, took a series of clerical jobs, and eventually began to work for the Franklin Roosevelt vice presidential campaign in New York.
- Following the Democrats' defeat, FDR's wife Eleanor invited her to join the family at their home in Hyde Park, New York to clean up the campaign correspondence.
- FDR subsequently hired LeHand to work for him on Wall Street, where he was the partner in a law firm and also worked for a bonding company.
- After FDR was partially paralyzed in August 1921, LeHand became his daily companion and one of the main people to encourage him to return to politics, along with Eleanor and his political strategist, Louis McHenry Howe.
- She remained his secretary when he became Governor of New York in 1929 and when he became president in 1933, serving until a 1941 stroke left her partially paralyzed and barely able to speak.
- She moved to her sister's home in Somerville, Massachusetts and died after another stroke in 1944. The exact nature of LeHand's relationship with FDR is debated by historians.
- It is generally accepted that their relationship contained a romantic element, though scholars remain divided on whether the pair had a sexual relationship.
- LeHand was romantically involved with William C.
- Bullitt Jr., U.S.
- ambassador to Russia and later France, from 1933 to 1940, but apparently never contemplated marriage to him.
- Her devotion to the Roosevelt family and dedication to her career were the most likely impediments to marriage, though she once asked a friend, "How could anyone ever come up to FDR?"
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