Margaret Suckley

Margaret Suckley
Historian, Writer (1891–1991)

Margaret Suckley was a close friend and confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and served as the archivist for the first American presidential library.

Synopsis
Born on December 20, 1891, in Rhinebeck, New York, Margaret Suckley grew up in a traditional aristocratic home. A sixth cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she had a close relationship with him and served as librarian for the FDR Presidential Library. It was only after her death that the extent of their relationship was revealed through letters written over a 20-year span.

Biography
Margaret “Daisy” Lynch Suckley was born on December 20, 1891, at the Wilderstein house in Rhinebeck, in New York’s Hudson Valley. Wilderstein (“wild man’s stone,” in German) had been in the family since 1852, when Margaret’s grandparents, Thomas and Catherine Suckley, built the 35-room Italianate villa. Margaret was the fifth of seven children born to Robert Bowne Suckley and his wife, Elizabeth Philips (Montgomery) Suckley. She attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania from 1912 to 1914, but her mother forbade her from graduating, presumably due to traditional views of a woman’s role in society. During World War I, Margaret served as a nurse’s aide at a military hospital on Ellis Island.