Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on 11 October 1884, a niece of Theodore Roosevelt. Her mother died when she was eight and her father two years later, and she was raised by her grandmother. At fifteen she went to Allenswood, a school near London whose headmistress, Marie Souvestre, gave her confidence. In 1905 she married her distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After he was struck by polio in 1921 she became his eyes and ears in politics. As First Lady from 1933 to 1945 she held press conferences, wrote a daily newspaper column, visited coal miners, soldiers and the poor, and spoke for the rights of women and Black Americans. After Franklin's death President Truman appointed her a delegate to the new United Nations. As chair of its Commission on Human Rights she led the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 with no votes against. She remained active in public life, an Episcopalian who taught Sunday school in her youth, until her death in New York on 7 November 1962.

Faith: A devout Episcopalian who regularly attended services and studied the New Testament. Source: Wikipedia

See also: Franklin D. Roosevelt · Theodore Roosevelt · Raphael Lemkin