Gehrig, Eleanor, 1904-1984

<p> Eleanor Grace Twitchell was born on March 6, 1904 in Chicago; Her father, Frank Bradford Twitchell; her mother, Nellie Mulvaney Twitchell. Her few months’ experience with shorthand and a few white lies landed her a job as the secretary to the general manager at Chicago’s branch of Saks Fifth Avenue, in March 1929. When eventually even “Miss Twitchell had been sacked by Saks” in 1931, Eleanor immediately found work as a secretary for the Century of Progress—the planning committee for the upcoming Chicago World’s Fair. </p>
<p> They [Eleanor and Lou] may have met at a party in the fall of 1927, or at Comiskey Park, which Eleanor frequented as a guest of the Grabiners, only “because it was the Thing To Do.” They had little contact, until 1931, when Eleanor’s poker companion Kitty McHie urged her to stop by her penthouse apartment for a beer. Lou Gehrig would be there, she said; he offered to walk Eleanor home; 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. </p>
<p> Eleanor never quite felt comfortable in the Gehrig home, where the family would converse in German, of which she knew none. And Christina Gehrig, whose relationship with her son seemed borderline Oedipal, frequently clashed with her daughter-in-law to-be. “Mom” Gehrig—“formidable, built something like a lady wrestler”27—had broken up Lou’s previous relationships with women before, and Eleanor was yet another intruder swooping in to steal away her only surviving child. o smooth the transition, Eleanor agreed to move in with the Gehrigs in New Rochelle while searching for an apartment. Instead, it nearly broke them—one night, Eleanor decided “the hell with it all” and called off the engagement.29 They had reconciled by the time they reached the ferry across Long Island Sound. However, Eleanor would stay with her aunt and uncle in Freeport in the days leading up to the wedding, scheduled for the Saturday evening following the Yankees’ next-to-last game of the 1933 season.

The day before they were to be married, Friday, September 29, Eleanor was directing plumbers and carpet-layers around their new apartment when Lou burst in after the latest row with his mother. He’d had it with Mom Gehrig coming between them and picked up the receiver. Within minutes, the Mayor of New Rochelle was on his way to pronounce them husband and wife amid a tangled mass of dust and furniture. 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; Mom Gehrig almost didn’t attend.</p>
<p> The Gehrigs extended their tour across the Orient around the world, making stops in Singapore, Bombay, Cairo, Naples, Rome, Munich, Paris, London. And 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. At first there were just prolonged batting slumps and slowness afoot attributed to poor mechanics, or maybe just age. But Eleanor began noticing little things, at home, kitchenware inexplicably slipping through his strong hands, the “unnatural clump” his foot made stepping off the curb,42 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. Eleanor knew more than she was letting on, because the doctors had already told her—amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is fatal, incurable and irreversible. 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
End of the 1939 season, after which Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia offered him 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. </p>
<p> Pride of the Yankees was the first big test. Eleanor received $30,000 for the rights of Samuel Goldwyn’s production studio to Gehrig’s story. 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.60

Through Christy Walsh, her husband’s agent, Eleanor secured a position with the All-America Football Conference, first as secretary-treasurer, then, after she resigned because (ironically) she “couldn’t even balance my own bank account,” she was somehow promoted to vice president in 1946.61

But Eleanor’s greatest contribution came with her tireless efforts to promote ALS research—if she couldn’t bring Lou back, she could at least attempt to slay the “tyrant” that had killed him. 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. She wrote a memoir, hoping it might lift her spirits. "My Luke and I" afforded her some reprieve, and the book was successful enough it led 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 197867 to mixed reviews. Eleanor Gehrig died on her eightieth birthday, on March 6, 1984, leaving behind no survivors. </p>

Eleanor Gehrig was born on March 6, 1904 in Chicago, Illinois, USA as Eleanor Grace Twitchell. She was a writer, known for A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (1977) and The Ed Sullivan Show (1948). She was married to Lou Gehrig. She died on March 6, 1984 in New York City, New York, USA.