Lorena Hickok

Lorena Hickok, or "Hick" was born on March 7, 1893 in East Troy, Wisconsin. In 1913 she began her career in journalism as a reporter for the Associated Press. Hickok has been described as looking like one of the boys, wearing men's shirt, smoking cigars, and playing poker with the other AP reporters. In 1932 she did a series of interviews with Eleanor Roosevelt. Through these meetings the two grew to be friends. It is said that Hickok helped Eleanor Roosevelt become even more assertive than she already was. Hickok helped the First Lady "get her wings." It was Hickok who suggested to Eleanor the idea that would become the column My Day. Hickok's close relationship with the First Lady compromised her position as a Washington news reporter, and she resigned from the AP in 1933. From 1933 to 1936 she wrote field reports for Harry Hopkins and the Federal Emergency Relief Agency. In 1936 she moved to Long Island to work for a public relations firm. In 1940 Hickok returned to Washington and the First Lady; she took up residence in the White House and began working for the Democratic National Committee as executive secretary to the Woman's Division. In 1945, poor health forced her to resign from political life. She moved into a cottage in Hyde Park and wrote many books on the lives of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. Hickok died in 1968.

Sources:

Goodwin, Doris, Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor The Home Front in World WarII. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.