Gehrig, Eleanor, 1904-1984

Eleanor Grace Twitchell was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 6, 1904 to parents Frank Twitchell and Nellie Mulvaney Twitchell. Eleanor worked from March 1929 until 1931 as the secretary to the general manager at Chicago’s branch of Saks Fifth Avenue. Then she found work as a secretary for the Century of Progress—the planning committee for the upcoming Chicago World’s Fair.

She may have met Lou at a party in the fall of 1927, or at Comiskey Park, which Eleanor frequented as a guest of the Grabiners. They had little contact, until 1931, when Eleanor’s poker companion Kitty McHie urged her to stop by her penthouse apartment for a beer, where Lou would be. Lou walked Eleanor home that night and a week later a package arrived for Eleanor containing a diamond-cut crystal necklace he’d brought back from a barnstorming voyage to Japan. From there, a correspondence ensued, that blossomed into love over the next year.

Eleanor married Lou on September 29, 1933 in their apartment in New Rochelle, New York. The wedding was originally scheduled for the following day, September 30, but after coming home from a fight with his mother, Lou called the Mayor of New Rochelle who came directly to their apartment to marry them. The mayor’s motorcade then escorted the newlywed couple to Yankee Stadium for the afternoon game, where Lou went 0-for-4. A small reception was held in Long Island the following day, as planned; Bill Dickey was the only Yankees player in attendance.

Eleanor accompanied Lou on barnstorming and world tours. The Gehrigs extended one of their tours and made stops in Singapore, Bombay, Cairo, Naples, Rome, Munich, Paris, London. During this time, according to Eleanor, they made a pact that regardless of how well (or poorly) he was playing, Lou Gehrig would hang up his spikes for good on June 19, 1939, his thirty-sixth birthday.

In 1938 Eleanor began noticing little things, at home, kitchenware inexplicably slipping through his strong hands, the “unnatural clump” his foot made stepping off the curb, losing his balance on ice skates more frequently than usual. Friends of Eleanor’s had a contact at the Mayo Clinic, and she arranged for Lou to secretly deviate from the Yankees’ road trip and fly from Chicago to the facility in Rochester, Minnesota. After testing Eleanor was given the diagonis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. She instructed the doctors at Mayo to dull the blow. So her husband learned he had a sort of “chronic infantile paralysis,” and that there was a fifty-fifty chance of arresting the disease. His playing career was over. The date was June 19, 1939—Lou’s thirty-sixth birthday.

After the 1939 season Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia offered Lou a job at the New York City Parole Commission. To satisfy the residency requirements of being a municipal employee, the Gehrigs relocated from Larchmont to a two-story house in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Following the death of her husband on the night of June 2, 1941 Eleanor became devoted to promoting his legacy. She received $30,000 for the rights of Samuel Goldwyn’s production studio to Gehrig’s story, "Pride of the Yankees." Gary Cooper played Lou, Teresa Wright played Eleanor. To add to the realism, Eleanor lent various personal items to be used in the production, including the bracelet Lou had made for her. The movie grossed over $3 million and was one of the top ten films of 1942, nominated for eleven Oscars, including both Cooper’s and Wright’s performances.

During World War II, Eleanor used Gehrig’s wholesome all-American image to sell war bonds, raising over $6 million by auctioning off some of Lou’s memorabilia. She also joined the local Red Cross, chauffeuring the disabled, for which she received Presidential recognition. Through Christy Walsh, her husband’s agent, Eleanor secured a position with the All-America Football Conference, first as secretary-treasurer, then, promoted to vice president in 1946. Partnering with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, she testified before Congress to fund research in various debilitating paralytic diseases. She would eventually will much of her estate to the cause. To this day, the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig MDA/ALS Multidisciplinary Care Center at Columbia University (Lou Gehrig’s alma mater) remains a hub for clinical trials and treatment for ALS and related paralytic diseases.

In 1976 Eleanor published her memoir, "My Luke and I." The book was successful enough to lead to a television movie, "A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story," starring Blythe Danner and Edward Herrmann. The film aired on NBC in 1978 to mixed reviews. In 1984 Eleanor also wrote for The Ed Sullivan Show.

Eleanor Gehrig died on her eightieth birthday, on March 6, 1984, leaving behind no survivors.