Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

History writer and impersonator Kathryn Smith will tell the inside story of working for Franklin Delano Roosevelt as she impersonates FDR’s private secretary, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand, at the next Live at Lanier event. 

Smith is the author of LeHand’s only biography,“The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR and the Untold Story of the Partnership that Defined a Presidency.” As one of a handful of people who worked for Roosevelt from the early days of his political career, LeHand rose in importance along with her boss, becoming one of the most powerful and respected women in his presidential administration. By 1937 she was his de facto White House chief of staff.

A resident of Anderson, South Carolina, Kathryn is the author of six non-fiction books and co-author of five mystery novels. She has acted as LeHand in dozens of venues, including the FDR Presidential Library and Museum in New York, the Little White House Georgia and the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. 

She last spoke at the Lanier Library in 2022 about her book “Baptists and Bootleggers: A Prohibition Expedition Through the South…with Cocktail Recipes.” Her newest book is a companion volume, “Methodists and Moonshiners.”

The event will take place on January 15 starting at 1 p.m. at Lanier Library located at 72 Chestnut St. in Tryon.