Anna Hall Roosevelt - National Parks Gallery

Eleanor Roosevelt's mother, Anna Hall Roosevelt (1863-1892) around the age of twenty-five.

Anna was the eldest child of Mary Livingston Ludlow and Valentine Gill Hall. Anna could trace her heritage back to colonial New York and the American Revolution—one relative signed the Declaration of Independence. The eldest of six children, Anna was raised in a household that demanded discipline and viewed playfulness as an affront to God. Although her education was limited to etiquette and religion, at seventeen she had to take control of the family and help manage the finances after her father died. Respectable, charming, and a striking beauty, Anna became the leading debutante of the 1881 season, attracting the attention of Elliott Roosevelt, brother of Theodore Roosevelt who would one day become President of the United States.

Anna married Elliott Roosevelt on December 1, 1883 and had three children—Anna Eleanor (1884), Elliott Bulloch (1889), and Gracie Hall (1891). She died of diphtheria in 1892.