Margaret Suckley

Margaret Lynch Suckley (December 20, 1891 – June 29, 1991) was a sixth cousin, intimate friend, and confidante of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as an archivist for the first American presidential library. She was one of four women at the Little White House with Roosevelt in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945.

After Suckley's death at age 99, a suitcase full of confidential letters from FDR was found in her home, along with her diaries. These recorded details of people she met and events she witnessed at the White House and at the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park, which added to the historical record of Roosevelt's presidency.

Early life Suckley was born December 20, 1891, in the Hudson Valley at Wilderstein, the family home of Elizabeth Philips Montgomery and Robert Bowne Suckley. She was a descendant of the prominent Beekman, Livingston (Scottish) and Schuyler (Dutch) families of New York, as well as John Bowne and Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallet. Generally called "Daisy" by those close to her, Suckley was the fourth of seven children, and a sixth cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt. She grew up at Wilderstein, where she was a neighbor of the future president. Suckley attended Bryn Mawr College from 1912 until 1914, when her mother forbade her from finishing her degree. During World War I she served on Ellis Island as a nurse's aide.

During World War II, Suckley often stayed for long visits at the White House, keeping the president company. Roosevelt is known to have had an affair with Lucy Mercer during World War I, though there is no evidence that he had a similar relationship with Suckley, but there was an emotional connection.

Cultural references Numerous newspaper articles published about Suckley have speculated about her relationship with Roosevelt.

The relationship is also the subject of a play centered on the 1939 visit to Hyde Park by King George VI, by playwright Richard Nelson titled Hyde Park on Hudson. Drawn from Suckley's private journals, Nelson's play fictionalizes Suckley's relationship with FDR as sexual, even though most biographers suggest otherwise. A production of Nelson's play was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2009. The story was also adapted into the 2012 motion picture Hyde Park on Hudson, with Laura Linney as Suckley, Bill Murray as Roosevelt, and Samuel West as King George VI.

Focusing on how the historical events and people are portrayed, Conrad Black, author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, said Nelson's portrayal took "large, …. sometimes scurrilous, liberties with historical facts." In particular, he stated that Nelson erred in his depiction both of Roosevelt's relationship with women and of Eleanor Roosevelt's sexuality.

Suckley features prominently in Ken Burns' 2014 documentary series, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. Her words are read by Patricia Clarkson.

Suckley's relationship with Roosevelt was the subject of Daisy Chain (Claret Press 2023), a novel written by Suckley's relative, Justine Gilbert. It won the Page Turner Award 2022.