Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor, 1906-1975

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Halsted (May 3, 1906 – December 1, 1975) was an American writer who worked as a newspaper editor and in public relations. Halsted also wrote two children's books published in the 1930s. She was the eldest child and only daughter of the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt and assisted him as his advisor during World War II.[1]

Halsted worked with her second husband Clarence John Boettiger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, serving as editor of the women's pages for several years. She later worked in public relations for universities. In 1963, John F. Kennedy appointed her to the Citizen's Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She also served for several years as vice-chairman of the President's Commission for the Observance of Human Rights.[1] Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Jr. was born at 125 East 36th Street in New York City. She was named for her mother, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, and maternal grandmother, Anna Rebecca Hall. She graduated from Miss Chapin's School in 1924. She then entered Cornell University for a short course in forestry.[2] On June 5, 1926, she married Curtis Bean Dall, a New York stockbroker, in Hyde Park, New York. They had two children, Anna Eleanor, born March 25, 1927, and Curtis Roosevelt, born April 19, 1930. The Dalls were divorced in July 1934, and Anna returned to her family, living in the White House. She then married Clarence John Boettiger, a journalist she met on her father's campaign train, in March 1935. They had one son, John Roosevelt Boettiger, born March 30, 1939.[3] Anna was active as an editor and journalist. After Roosevelt's death in April 1945, William Randolph Hearst no longer had reason to favor Boettiger and they had a falling out. Boettiger left the Seattle Post Intelligencer and he and Anna bought a weekly newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona. They renamed it the Arizona Times and had turned it into a daily paper by May 1947. However, they were attempting to turn it into a left-leaning newspaper in Arizona, and the paper failed. The failure left the Boettigers bankrupt and put a great strain on their marriage. They divorced August 1, 1949.[1] For a year after her divorce, she and Eleanor collaborated on a joint radio show called the Eleanor and Anna Roosevelt Program. She also edited a magazine called The Woman and contributed a series of articles called My Life with F.D.R.[4]

In 1952 she married Dr. James Halsted, a doctor who was employed by the Veteran's Administration. They moved to New York where she took up work in public relations for hospitals and medical centers. The Halsteds moved to the Imperial State of Iran, where Halsted helped establish the Pahlavi University Medical School. Anna worked there in public relations and administration. When they returned to the United States, Anna immersed herself in humanitarian work and contributed to the legacy of both her parents.[6]

In October 1963, Anna was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the Citizen's Advisory Council on the Status of Women. In February of that year, she was appointed vice-chairman of the President's Commission for the Observance of Human Rights.[2]

In 1971, the Halsteds retired to a cottage in Hillsdale, New York. Anna continued to be active in most of the same organizations until her death from throat cancer on December 1, 1975, aged 69, at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, New York.[8]

Anna Roosevelt (1906-1975) was the eldest child and only daughter of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt. After her 1924 graduation from Miss Chapin''s school, she attended a short course at Cornell University in the forestry school. On June 5, 1926, she married Curtis Bean Dall. They had two children, Anna Eleanor Dall, known as Sistie (b. 1927), and Curtis Roosevelt Dall, known as Buzzie (b.1930). Between 1932 and 1934, Anna was associate editor of a magazine called Babies Just Babies, hosted a radio program sponsored by the Best and Company Department Store, contributed articles to Liberty magazine and wrote two children''s books, Scamper and Scamper’s Christmas. The Dalls divorced on July 30, 1934.

Anna married Clarence John Boettiger on January 18, 1935. Their son, John Roosevelt Boettiger, was born March 30, 1939. From December 1936 to September 1943, Anna was an associate editor and columnist of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Her husband was the editor of this Hearst publication. In 1943, she went to the White House to serve as an unofficial secretary to her father, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her responsibilities included answering mail, assisting with social functions, arranging appointments, and writing presidential speeches. In addition, Anna mapped out the President''s itineraries during the 1944 campaign and accompanied him to the Yalta Conference in February 1945.

After President Roosevelt''s death, she and John Boettiger bought a weekly newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona, renamed it the Arizona Times and rapidly increased its circulation. By May 1947, it was a daily paper. Anna was executive editor and columnist until February 1948 when she became editor and publisher. The paper was sold in July and by September 1948 Anna and her mother were co-hosting an American Broadcasting Company radio program, The Eleanor and Anna Roosevelt Program, which was discontinued in September 1949. In 1949, Anna also edited The Woman, a monthly magazine, to which she contributed a series of articles entitled My Life with F.D.R. The Boettigers
were divorced August 1, 1949.

Anna contracted coccidiomycosis in 1949 and curtailed her activities for several years to convalesce from the disease. On November 11, 1952, Anna married Dr. James A. Halsted, a doctor with the Veterans Administration. She entered the public relations field in labor unions, working for Union Service, Inc., in Los Angeles during 1953 and 1954. In the fall of 1954, she entered the U.C.L.A. School of Social Work.

The Halsteds moved to Syracuse, New York, in the fall of 1955. In October, Anna was hired as the assistant to the irector of Public Relations at the State University Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. In April 1957, she became the Director of Public Relations and Assistant to the Dean, a position she held until her resignation in September 1958 when the Halsteds traveled to Iran. In Shiraz, Iran, Dr. Halsted helped to set up the Pahlavi University Medical School. Anna did public relations and administrative work as well as organizing the journals sections of the medical library.

Upon their return from Iran in the summer of 1960, the Halsteds moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where Anna was a Staff Assistant to the Dean of the University of Kentucky Medical Center. A year later, the Halsteds moved to Birmingham, Michigan where Anna became the public relations director and coordinator at Metropolitan Hospital for the Comprehensive Medical Care Program sponsored by the United Auto Workers. In 1963, she became the Director of Public Relations for the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. In October 1963, she was appointed by President Kennedy to the Citizen''s Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She resigned from the Council in January 1968. In February, she was appointed vice-chairman of the President''s Commission for the Observance of Human Rights Year 1968.

The Halsteds moved to Washington, D.C., in 1964. While there, Anna was a volunteer with the Washington Work and Training Opportunity Center and a board member of Americans for Democratic Action and the Capitol Area Division of the United Nations Association of the United States of America. She became chairman of the board of the National Committee of Household Employment and a board member of Wiltwyck School as well as an ex-officio board member of the Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation.

In 1971, Dr. and Mrs. Halsted retired to a cottage in Hillsdale, New York, which they had acquired in 1966. Anna Halsted continued to remain active in many of the above-mentioned organizations until her death.