October 11

October 11 is the birthdate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, who preferred, from a young age, her middle name. The niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she was born into a world of wealth and privilege in New York’s high society (among the "swells"). When Eleanor was eight her mother died from diphtheria, and her alcoholic father died less than two years later, so she was raised by her maternal grandmother. In 1902, she met her father's fifth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom she married in 1905 over the firm resistance of Franklin’s mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt. The couple settled in a house in New York provided by Sara. Only when Franklin was elected a New York State senator (1910) and the couple moved to Albany did Eleanor win some independence from Sara. Pictured: the couple in 1906.