February 7, 2020 • 19 mins
Between all of his writing, ranching, and governing, Theodore Roosevelt made time to maintain close relationships with his many family members—all of whom led vibrant, adventurous lives of their own, and also helped establish TR’s legacy. From sister Bamie’s restoration of TR’s birthplace to son Ted Jr.’s heroic efforts on D-Day, this episode explores the stories of the Roosevelts that we didn’t get to cover in season 1.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Flaws. Theodore Roosevelt was many things, a writer, a rancher,
(00:24):
a president, but above all, he was a family man.
Tira was exceptionally close to and dearly loved his family.
As he wrote in his autobiography, a household of children,
if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms
of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It
may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone,
(00:45):
but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. Tira
wasn't one to continually gush about his family members, but
he made it clear that they truly were the most
important part of his life. I'm your host Aaron McCarthy,
and in this bonus episode of History Versus, a podcast
from Mental Floss and I Heart Radio about how your
(01:06):
favorite historical figures faced off against their greatest foes, we'll
be covering all the other Roosevelt's that we didn't get
to talk about in detail in season one. Let's start
with TR's older sister, Anna Roosevelt Cowles, or as she's
more commonly known, Baby Baby, was born on January and
(01:29):
had a curvature of the spine that caused a small hump.
She required years of therapy in order to walk. According
to historian Betty Boyd Caroli, Baby was so often on
the go that her family gave her yet another nickname, Bye,
as in Bye Baby. With her endless energy, keen mind,
and outstanding work ethic, Baby was a studying force for
her family to rally around and rely on throughout her
(01:51):
entire life. As soon as she was old enough, she
managed the Roosevelt household and was sort of a third
parent to her younger siblings, Theodore, Elliott, and Karn. According
to the Theatore Roosevelt Center, Baby's maturity made her seem
like one of the grown ups when they were all young.
That impression never really wore off for Tire, and Baby
continued to advise and assist him when he was a
(02:12):
grown up himself. She decorated his room in the boarding
house at Harvard and even had a hand in planning
his first honeymoon when Tier and his first wife, Alice,
spent a few days after their marriage at the Roosevelt's
rented Long Island estate. Kathleen Dalton writes that Baby had
ordered all their meals ahead of time and arranged everything
with the three servants who cared for them. When Tierra
began his career in politics, Baby lent an ear, dolled
(02:34):
out advice, and helped him make political connections. And when
his brother, Eliot's made Katie Mann said that Elliott had
gotten her pregnant, a scandal that, if exposed, Tierra believed
would threaten his political chances. It was Baby who helped
Tier avoid a lawsuit. Baby married late in life to
a Navy officer named William Sheffield Cowles and moved to
Washington around the same time her brother was elected Vice president. There,
(02:56):
her home became what Tier would call the Other White House.
He visited often and consulted with Baby on political appointments
and maneuvers. Baby's health declined as she aged, and she
spent her final years with her husband in Connecticut, plagued
by arthritis, back aches, deafness, and deteriorating eyesight. She passed
away in nineteen thirty one at the age of seventy six,
but there was one vital bit of TR's legacy that
(03:18):
she saw to before she died. In eighteen ninety nine,
Baby sold the house where she tr and their other
siblings have been born, and various stores and restaurants would
go on to occupy the site after he died. In
nineteen nineteen, younger sister Karin led the Women's Roosevelt Memorial
Association in raising funds to buy back the site and
(03:39):
transform it into a memorial. Together, Bamy and Karin had
it reconstructed exactly as they remembered it, complete with family portraits, heirlooms,
and original furniture or replicas. The Roosevelt House opened on
Tierra's birthday in ninety three, and the National Park Service
took it over forty years later, renaming it the Theodore
Roosevelt Birthplace National His or Excite Today, the house that
(04:02):
Baby so skillfully ran in her youth stands as a
monument not only to TR's legacy, but Baby's two Tier's
younger sister, Karin, was a high spirited, mercurial woman who
devoted herself to him unwaveringly. While Tr looked up to
Baby as an advisor and a role model, Karn was
more of a buddy. According to Dalton, tr sought out
Karin's company when he felt soulful or needed unambivalent praise
(04:25):
or just playfulness. Karin's education consisted of private tutoring and
a stint at Miss Comstock School in Manhattan, much of
which she attended with her neighbor, Edith Kurmit Carrow. Edith,
of course, would later become tor second wife. Karin herself
married a boisterous, wealthy Scottish born real estate broker named
Douglas Robinson, a relative of former President James Monroe. Karin
(04:47):
sobbed through her engagement, but she didn't dare break it off,
and the energetic, socially active couple turned out to be
surprisingly well matched. They had four children, Two served in politics,
and one authored a book that talked about his child
hood at Sagamore Hill. The family was not without tragedy.
Their youngest son, Stewart, died at nineteen years old when
he accidentally fell from a window at Harvard. Throughout her
(05:09):
adult life, Karin split her time between poetry, politics, and parties.
Her first poem, The Call of Brotherhood, was published in
Scribner's magazine in nineteen eleven, and she followed it up
with several poetry books. Her friends and fellow writer Edith
Wharton encouraged and edited some of her work Karin also
(05:30):
hosted lavish parties at the family's estate in West Orange,
New Jersey. It was at one of these parties that
Franklin Roosevelt asked a girl to dance his distant cousin, Eleanor,
who was Karin's niece and would later become Franklin's wife.
In September nineteen eighteen, Karin's husband passed away unexpectedly of
(05:50):
heart disease at age sixty three, and she lost Theodore
just a few months later in January. The sudden death
of her beloved brother shook Karin to her or life
would always have glamor, enchantment, inspiration, and delight as long
as he lived, she said, and now he has gone.
From that point until her own death in nineteen thirty
(06:11):
three from pneumonia, Karin's life was essentially a tribute to
tr She worked with the Roosevelt Memorial Association, penned many
heartfelt poems about him, and published a memoir titled My
Brother Theodore Roosevelt. In Karnn threw herself into politics, backing
(06:32):
presidential candidates whom she felt what uphold Tire's vision for
the country. In nineteen twenty, she endorsed General Leonard Wood
at the Republican National Convention. She also served on President
Calvin Coolidge's advisory committee during his n campaign. Tr Son
Ted Junior summarized his aunt's dedication to tr in his diary.
She has talked so much about him that I really
(06:54):
believe she is more or less convinced that she is
he now. While Karin had processed her grief over Tier's
death very publicly, his second wife, Edith, did her best
to bury hers for the sake of her remaining family.
I am dead, but no one but you, dearest Karin,
must know that. She wrote in March nine, nineteen, just
a few months after Tier's death, I'm fighting hard to
(07:17):
pull myself together and do for the family, not only
my part, but also Theodores. Edith kept busy by volunteering
for the Women's National Republican Club and the Needlework Guild,
and took trips to Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.
She wasn't exactly a political activist, but she did encourage
women to vote after the nineteenth Amendment was passed, and
she spoke out in support of Herbert Hoover when he
(07:39):
ran against Franklin Roosevelt. According to the Theatre Roosevelt Center,
this was partly to clarify that Roosevelt wasn't her son,
as some Americans had assumed. As Sylvia Jukes Morris writes
in her biography of Edith, the former First Lady was
by nature reclusive and sedentary, and she had to fight
all the harder to be socially and culturally active. But
fight she did with courage that Theodore himself would have admired.
(08:05):
She frequently attended parties in Oyster Bay and even braved
Manhattan for concerts and operas. Between all her traveling, volunteering,
and keeping up with friends and family, Edith guided how
Tier was remembered in the eyes of the public. Not
only did she destroy many of their love letters, she
also had a lot of say and deciding which documents
got passed on to historians. It's for this reason that
some scholars, including Michael Cullinane, who we spoke to in
(08:27):
previous episodes of this podcast, consider Edith the true gatekeeper
of Tier's legacy. She was the gatekeeper of Sagamore Hill too.
After Tier died, his eldest son Ted had intended to
take over the estate and raise his family there. Edith, however,
didn't plan on moving. She wanted Sagamore Hill to be
a center for the whole family, and eventually allotted a
few acres of land to Ted so he could build
(08:48):
his own home. He did, and these days it's known
as the Old Orchard Museum. Edith lived at Sagamore Hill
for the rest of her life and died there on
September at the age of eighty seven. She's buried at
Young's Memorial Cemetery with her husband. Now let's move on
to the Roosevelt kids. Edith and Theodore's oldest son, Ted
(09:14):
the Third, or Ted Jr. Technically followed his father into politics,
but his path there was roundabout, and his defining legacy
was mostly a military one. After graduating from Harvard in
nineteen o nine, Ted worked for a carpet company and
then an investment banking firm. After World War One broke
out in Europe in nineteen fourteen, he planned for the
inevitability of US involvement by helping to organize a training
(09:36):
program in Plattsburgh, New York, which marked the beginning of
his lifelong passion for military service. In April nineteen seventeen,
the US entered the war, and Ted immediately commissioned major
was among the first soldiers sent to France. His wife,
Eleanor Butler Alexander left their children with Edith and set
(09:56):
off for France as well, where she ran a y
m c A, organized volunteers, and taught French to American soldiers.
The press lauded Ted as an adept, heroic leader, and
so did his father. Our pride even surpasses our anxiety,
tr wrote, I walk with my head higher because of you.
(10:17):
A bullet to the knee during a nineteen eighteen battle
would keep Ted away from the front lines for the
rest of the war, and he soon set his sights
on public service. Throughout the nineteen twenties and thirties, Ted
held a number of positions, including New York Assemblyman, Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, governor of Puerto Rico, and Governor
General of the Philippines. He also spearheaded the establishment of
(10:38):
the American Legion, ran for Governor of New York but
didn't win, and eventually settled into a vice presidency at
the publishing house Double Day Dorin. When the US got
involved in World War Two, a middle aged, Ted was
undeterred by his heart problems or the arthritis that forced
him to walk with a cane. He enlisted, was promoted
to brigadier general, and fought in Algeria. In Italy, he
(10:59):
was accompanyed by his son Quentin, named for Ted's younger brother,
who had died during World War One and had been
buried in France. Then came d day. Ted led the
troops onto Utah Beach, earning a Medal of Honor for
his valor. He survived, but a month after the battle,
while still in France, Ted died of a heart attack.
He was buried in the Normandy American Cemetery in France.
(11:22):
In nineteen fifty five, at the request of the Roosevelt family,
his brother Quentin's remains were relocated to rest there too.
We'll be right back in. Ted Jr. Published All in
the Family, a memoir with many colorful anecdotes from the
Roosevelt's childhood. One of them really captures the spirit of
(11:42):
his younger brother, Kermit. When father read to us, we
all interrupted him continually with questions, but Kermit was by
far the worst offender. Ted wrote one why bred another
so quickly? In his mind? That soon reading almost stopped.
(12:03):
Kermit's insatiable curiosity only strengthened as he got older, and
in a way, his whole life was a quest to
learn as much as he possibly could. He accompanied his
father on both the legendary African Safari of nineteen o
nine and the life threatening journey along Amazon's River of
Doubt in nineteen thirteen and fourteen. Without his father, he
globe trotted around places like Asia, the Indies, and the
(12:23):
Galapagos Islands, exercising his penchant for picking up languages along
the way. He could speak or read almost ten including Portuguese, Swahili, Arabic,
and Greek. Kermit built an impressive resume. He authored several
books and countless articles about his adventures, and he also
wrote book reviews and essays about his father. He also
(12:43):
worked at a bank in Buenos Aires and founded his
own steamship company. He commanded British forces during World War
One and later helped bring about the modern US Merchant Marine.
He fathered four children with his wife, Belle Wyatt Willard.
He was president of the National Association of Audubon Society
what would later become the Audubon Society, and he even
rubbed shoulders with Gertrude Stein and William Butler Yates. But
(13:06):
as Edmund Morris wrote in his book Colonel Roosevelt, Kermit's
nomadic nature and marvelous talent for languages fought against the
confinements of marriage and work. Depression steadily claimed him. He
became a philanderer and insatiable drinker, and as his body thickened,
developed a startling resemblance to his father. Kermit fought with
British forces again at the beginning of World War Two,
(13:28):
but he was soon sent home because of his weak heart.
He started drinking again, thinking military service would do him good.
His wife and younger brother, Archie, asked then President Franklin
Roosevelt to commission him in the American Army. He was
sent to Alaska, where he helped to organize a militia,
but the assignment wasn't the studying force his family had
hoped for. In June nine, Kermit took his own life.
(13:51):
His mother, eighty one at the time, was told that
he had died of a heart attack. Kermit is buried
at the Fort Richardson National Cemetery in a garage, Alaska,
m in TR's own words, his fourth child, Ethel was
a jolly, naughty, wacky baby, too attractive for anything, and
(14:13):
thoroughly able to hold her own in the world. Ethel
wasn't too attractive to rough house with her siblings, though,
As Edward J. Renahan Jr. Writes in his book The
Lions Pride Theodore Roosevelt and his family In Peace and War,
Ethel was a wild tomboy who spent her early years
swinging from trees with her brothers, running relay races, rowing
on Oyster Bay, and riding a succession of favorite horses.
(14:36):
But as she got older, Ethel became the reserved, responsible
daughter that her impulsive older sister Alice never was. While
tr called Alice his liability child, he praised Ethel as
the asset child. She stood beside her mother on White
House receiving lines. She taught Sunday school to less fortunate children.
In nineteen fourteen, World War One gave Ethel the opportunity
(14:59):
to devote herself to all tier work full time. She
had just married surgeon Richard Derby, and the two both
treated wounded soldiers at the American Ambulance Hospital in France,
years before the United States officially entered the Fray. Much
like her grandfather, the Ethel was committed to humanitarianism. After
(15:22):
the war, she supported a number of causes, many of
which were based in or around Oyster Bay, where she
lived with her husband and children. She volunteered for the
Red Cross and pushed for affordable housing for African Americans
in the area. She was an active member of both
her church and the local nursing service, and she also
became a trustee of New York's American Museum of Natural History,
(15:42):
an institution her grandfather had helped found. The Ethel pursued
her own charitable passions, she still made time to further
her father's conservation efforts and solidify the Roosevelt legacy in
Oyster Bay, and we can thank Ethel for the preservation
of Sagamore Hill too. She helped establish the house as
a National Historic Site after her mother died there in
eight Ethel lived in Oyster Bay until her death in
(16:02):
nineteen seventy seven at six. She's buried in Young's Memorial Cemetery.
While all of the Roosevelt children treated the White Houses
their playground in one way or another, a few of
Archibald's antics were especially memorable. It was little Archie who
smuggled a Christmas tree into the White House in nineteen
o two, and his shet limpony Algonquin reportedly rode the
(16:25):
White House elevator to visit him while he was recovering
from the measles the following year. Archi, atr second youngest son,
had inherited his father's sense of adventure and uncanny lack
of fear. His younger brother, Quentin, was his sidekick in
the White House and beyond. As Mars wrote in Colonel Roosevelt,
the two brothers were as different as Huck Finn and
Tom Sawyer. Quentin was easy going and uncompetitive, whereas tears
(16:48):
Aid called Archie the pugnacious member of the family. He
takes up the cudgel at every chance, the Aid wrote,
Archie's favorite companion may have been Quentin, but his personality
mirrored his older brother at Juniors in many ways. So
did his career. Like Ted, Archie worked for a carpet
company after graduating Harvard and was wounded in France during
(17:08):
World War One. After the war, Archie spent a few
years in the oil industry before founding his own investment firm.
His success kept his wife Grace and there are four
children from failing the worst of the Great Depression. But
Archie abandoned the comfort of his office to join the
American effort in World War Two. He fought in New
Guinea and suffered wounds to the same arm and leg
that had been shattered in World War One. Though Archie
(17:31):
survived the war, he never completely recovered. He had always
been politically conservative, but his postwar years were characterized by
paranoia and conspiracy theories about communism. He eventually retired to Florida,
where he died in nineteen seventy nine after a stroke.
Archie was eight five years old. During his last days,
at least, it seems like the ravages of war fell away,
(17:52):
and he returned instead to happy memories of his boyhood
in New York. I'm going to Sagamore Hill, he kept repeating.
And finally, we have Alice, or as she was known
in d C. The Other Washington Monument. In the End,
(18:12):
Alice Roosevelt Longworth, whom we covered at length in a
previous episode, outlived all of her half siblings. She was
Tire's oldest and arguably wildest child, the only one from
his first marriage. She died in nine eighty at age
ninety six, and she's buried in Washington, d C. With
her daughter, Paulina. We'll be back in a couple of
(18:38):
weeks with another bonus episode of History Verses. History Verses
is hosted by me Aeron McCarthy. This episode was written
by Ellen Gutowski, with fact checking by Austin Thompson. The
executive producers are Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas, and Tyler Klang.
The supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. The show was edited
(18:59):
by dyl And Fagan and Lowberlante. To learn more about
this episode and Theodore Roosevelt, check out our website at
mental fluss dot com, slash History Versus. That's mental flush
dot com slash h I S t O R y vs.
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Floss. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
(19:21):
listen to your favorite shows.
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Flaws. Theodore Roosevelt was many things, a writer, a rancher,
(00:24):
a president, but above all, he was a family man.
Tira was exceptionally close to and dearly loved his family.
As he wrote in his autobiography, a household of children,
if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms
of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It
may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone,
(00:45):
but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. Tira
wasn't one to continually gush about his family members, but
he made it clear that they truly were the most
important part of his life. I'm your host Aaron McCarthy,
and in this bonus episode of History Versus, a podcast
from Mental Floss and I Heart Radio about how your
(01:06):
favorite historical figures faced off against their greatest foes, we'll
be covering all the other Roosevelt's that we didn't get
to talk about in detail in season one. Let's start
with TR's older sister, Anna Roosevelt Cowles, or as she's
more commonly known, Baby Baby, was born on January and
(01:29):
had a curvature of the spine that caused a small hump.
She required years of therapy in order to walk. According
to historian Betty Boyd Caroli, Baby was so often on
the go that her family gave her yet another nickname, Bye,
as in Bye Baby. With her endless energy, keen mind,
and outstanding work ethic, Baby was a studying force for
her family to rally around and rely on throughout her
(01:51):
entire life. As soon as she was old enough, she
managed the Roosevelt household and was sort of a third
parent to her younger siblings, Theodore, Elliott, and Karn. According
to the Theatore Roosevelt Center, Baby's maturity made her seem
like one of the grown ups when they were all young.
That impression never really wore off for Tire, and Baby
continued to advise and assist him when he was a
(02:12):
grown up himself. She decorated his room in the boarding
house at Harvard and even had a hand in planning
his first honeymoon when Tier and his first wife, Alice,
spent a few days after their marriage at the Roosevelt's
rented Long Island estate. Kathleen Dalton writes that Baby had
ordered all their meals ahead of time and arranged everything
with the three servants who cared for them. When Tierra
began his career in politics, Baby lent an ear, dolled
(02:34):
out advice, and helped him make political connections. And when
his brother, Eliot's made Katie Mann said that Elliott had
gotten her pregnant, a scandal that, if exposed, Tierra believed
would threaten his political chances. It was Baby who helped
Tier avoid a lawsuit. Baby married late in life to
a Navy officer named William Sheffield Cowles and moved to
Washington around the same time her brother was elected Vice president. There,
(02:56):
her home became what Tier would call the Other White House.
He visited often and consulted with Baby on political appointments
and maneuvers. Baby's health declined as she aged, and she
spent her final years with her husband in Connecticut, plagued
by arthritis, back aches, deafness, and deteriorating eyesight. She passed
away in nineteen thirty one at the age of seventy six,
but there was one vital bit of TR's legacy that
(03:18):
she saw to before she died. In eighteen ninety nine,
Baby sold the house where she tr and their other
siblings have been born, and various stores and restaurants would
go on to occupy the site after he died. In
nineteen nineteen, younger sister Karin led the Women's Roosevelt Memorial
Association in raising funds to buy back the site and
(03:39):
transform it into a memorial. Together, Bamy and Karin had
it reconstructed exactly as they remembered it, complete with family portraits, heirlooms,
and original furniture or replicas. The Roosevelt House opened on
Tierra's birthday in ninety three, and the National Park Service
took it over forty years later, renaming it the Theodore
Roosevelt Birthplace National His or Excite Today, the house that
(04:02):
Baby so skillfully ran in her youth stands as a
monument not only to TR's legacy, but Baby's two Tier's
younger sister, Karin, was a high spirited, mercurial woman who
devoted herself to him unwaveringly. While Tr looked up to
Baby as an advisor and a role model, Karn was
more of a buddy. According to Dalton, tr sought out
Karin's company when he felt soulful or needed unambivalent praise
(04:25):
or just playfulness. Karin's education consisted of private tutoring and
a stint at Miss Comstock School in Manhattan, much of
which she attended with her neighbor, Edith Kurmit Carrow. Edith,
of course, would later become tor second wife. Karin herself
married a boisterous, wealthy Scottish born real estate broker named
Douglas Robinson, a relative of former President James Monroe. Karin
(04:47):
sobbed through her engagement, but she didn't dare break it off,
and the energetic, socially active couple turned out to be
surprisingly well matched. They had four children, Two served in politics,
and one authored a book that talked about his child
hood at Sagamore Hill. The family was not without tragedy.
Their youngest son, Stewart, died at nineteen years old when
he accidentally fell from a window at Harvard. Throughout her
(05:09):
adult life, Karin split her time between poetry, politics, and parties.
Her first poem, The Call of Brotherhood, was published in
Scribner's magazine in nineteen eleven, and she followed it up
with several poetry books. Her friends and fellow writer Edith
Wharton encouraged and edited some of her work Karin also
(05:30):
hosted lavish parties at the family's estate in West Orange,
New Jersey. It was at one of these parties that
Franklin Roosevelt asked a girl to dance his distant cousin, Eleanor,
who was Karin's niece and would later become Franklin's wife.
In September nineteen eighteen, Karin's husband passed away unexpectedly of
(05:50):
heart disease at age sixty three, and she lost Theodore
just a few months later in January. The sudden death
of her beloved brother shook Karin to her or life
would always have glamor, enchantment, inspiration, and delight as long
as he lived, she said, and now he has gone.
From that point until her own death in nineteen thirty
(06:11):
three from pneumonia, Karin's life was essentially a tribute to
tr She worked with the Roosevelt Memorial Association, penned many
heartfelt poems about him, and published a memoir titled My
Brother Theodore Roosevelt. In Karnn threw herself into politics, backing
(06:32):
presidential candidates whom she felt what uphold Tire's vision for
the country. In nineteen twenty, she endorsed General Leonard Wood
at the Republican National Convention. She also served on President
Calvin Coolidge's advisory committee during his n campaign. Tr Son
Ted Junior summarized his aunt's dedication to tr in his diary.
She has talked so much about him that I really
(06:54):
believe she is more or less convinced that she is
he now. While Karin had processed her grief over Tier's
death very publicly, his second wife, Edith, did her best
to bury hers for the sake of her remaining family.
I am dead, but no one but you, dearest Karin,
must know that. She wrote in March nine, nineteen, just
a few months after Tier's death, I'm fighting hard to
(07:17):
pull myself together and do for the family, not only
my part, but also Theodores. Edith kept busy by volunteering
for the Women's National Republican Club and the Needlework Guild,
and took trips to Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.
She wasn't exactly a political activist, but she did encourage
women to vote after the nineteenth Amendment was passed, and
she spoke out in support of Herbert Hoover when he
(07:39):
ran against Franklin Roosevelt. According to the Theatre Roosevelt Center,
this was partly to clarify that Roosevelt wasn't her son,
as some Americans had assumed. As Sylvia Jukes Morris writes
in her biography of Edith, the former First Lady was
by nature reclusive and sedentary, and she had to fight
all the harder to be socially and culturally active. But
fight she did with courage that Theodore himself would have admired.
(08:05):
She frequently attended parties in Oyster Bay and even braved
Manhattan for concerts and operas. Between all her traveling, volunteering,
and keeping up with friends and family, Edith guided how
Tier was remembered in the eyes of the public. Not
only did she destroy many of their love letters, she
also had a lot of say and deciding which documents
got passed on to historians. It's for this reason that
some scholars, including Michael Cullinane, who we spoke to in
(08:27):
previous episodes of this podcast, consider Edith the true gatekeeper
of Tier's legacy. She was the gatekeeper of Sagamore Hill too.
After Tier died, his eldest son Ted had intended to
take over the estate and raise his family there. Edith, however,
didn't plan on moving. She wanted Sagamore Hill to be
a center for the whole family, and eventually allotted a
few acres of land to Ted so he could build
(08:48):
his own home. He did, and these days it's known
as the Old Orchard Museum. Edith lived at Sagamore Hill
for the rest of her life and died there on
September at the age of eighty seven. She's buried at
Young's Memorial Cemetery with her husband. Now let's move on
to the Roosevelt kids. Edith and Theodore's oldest son, Ted
(09:14):
the Third, or Ted Jr. Technically followed his father into politics,
but his path there was roundabout, and his defining legacy
was mostly a military one. After graduating from Harvard in
nineteen o nine, Ted worked for a carpet company and
then an investment banking firm. After World War One broke
out in Europe in nineteen fourteen, he planned for the
inevitability of US involvement by helping to organize a training
(09:36):
program in Plattsburgh, New York, which marked the beginning of
his lifelong passion for military service. In April nineteen seventeen,
the US entered the war, and Ted immediately commissioned major
was among the first soldiers sent to France. His wife,
Eleanor Butler Alexander left their children with Edith and set
(09:56):
off for France as well, where she ran a y
m c A, organized volunteers, and taught French to American soldiers.
The press lauded Ted as an adept, heroic leader, and
so did his father. Our pride even surpasses our anxiety,
tr wrote, I walk with my head higher because of you.
(10:17):
A bullet to the knee during a nineteen eighteen battle
would keep Ted away from the front lines for the
rest of the war, and he soon set his sights
on public service. Throughout the nineteen twenties and thirties, Ted
held a number of positions, including New York Assemblyman, Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, governor of Puerto Rico, and Governor
General of the Philippines. He also spearheaded the establishment of
(10:38):
the American Legion, ran for Governor of New York but
didn't win, and eventually settled into a vice presidency at
the publishing house Double Day Dorin. When the US got
involved in World War Two, a middle aged, Ted was
undeterred by his heart problems or the arthritis that forced
him to walk with a cane. He enlisted, was promoted
to brigadier general, and fought in Algeria. In Italy, he
(10:59):
was accompanyed by his son Quentin, named for Ted's younger brother,
who had died during World War One and had been
buried in France. Then came d day. Ted led the
troops onto Utah Beach, earning a Medal of Honor for
his valor. He survived, but a month after the battle,
while still in France, Ted died of a heart attack.
He was buried in the Normandy American Cemetery in France.
(11:22):
In nineteen fifty five, at the request of the Roosevelt family,
his brother Quentin's remains were relocated to rest there too.
We'll be right back in. Ted Jr. Published All in
the Family, a memoir with many colorful anecdotes from the
Roosevelt's childhood. One of them really captures the spirit of
(11:42):
his younger brother, Kermit. When father read to us, we
all interrupted him continually with questions, but Kermit was by
far the worst offender. Ted wrote one why bred another
so quickly? In his mind? That soon reading almost stopped.
(12:03):
Kermit's insatiable curiosity only strengthened as he got older, and
in a way, his whole life was a quest to
learn as much as he possibly could. He accompanied his
father on both the legendary African Safari of nineteen o
nine and the life threatening journey along Amazon's River of
Doubt in nineteen thirteen and fourteen. Without his father, he
globe trotted around places like Asia, the Indies, and the
(12:23):
Galapagos Islands, exercising his penchant for picking up languages along
the way. He could speak or read almost ten including Portuguese, Swahili, Arabic,
and Greek. Kermit built an impressive resume. He authored several
books and countless articles about his adventures, and he also
wrote book reviews and essays about his father. He also
(12:43):
worked at a bank in Buenos Aires and founded his
own steamship company. He commanded British forces during World War
One and later helped bring about the modern US Merchant Marine.
He fathered four children with his wife, Belle Wyatt Willard.
He was president of the National Association of Audubon Society
what would later become the Audubon Society, and he even
rubbed shoulders with Gertrude Stein and William Butler Yates. But
(13:06):
as Edmund Morris wrote in his book Colonel Roosevelt, Kermit's
nomadic nature and marvelous talent for languages fought against the
confinements of marriage and work. Depression steadily claimed him. He
became a philanderer and insatiable drinker, and as his body thickened,
developed a startling resemblance to his father. Kermit fought with
British forces again at the beginning of World War Two,
(13:28):
but he was soon sent home because of his weak heart.
He started drinking again, thinking military service would do him good.
His wife and younger brother, Archie, asked then President Franklin
Roosevelt to commission him in the American Army. He was
sent to Alaska, where he helped to organize a militia,
but the assignment wasn't the studying force his family had
hoped for. In June nine, Kermit took his own life.
(13:51):
His mother, eighty one at the time, was told that
he had died of a heart attack. Kermit is buried
at the Fort Richardson National Cemetery in a garage, Alaska,
m in TR's own words, his fourth child, Ethel was
a jolly, naughty, wacky baby, too attractive for anything, and
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thoroughly able to hold her own in the world. Ethel
wasn't too attractive to rough house with her siblings, though,
As Edward J. Renahan Jr. Writes in his book The
Lions Pride Theodore Roosevelt and his family In Peace and War,
Ethel was a wild tomboy who spent her early years
swinging from trees with her brothers, running relay races, rowing
on Oyster Bay, and riding a succession of favorite horses.
(14:36):
But as she got older, Ethel became the reserved, responsible
daughter that her impulsive older sister Alice never was. While
tr called Alice his liability child, he praised Ethel as
the asset child. She stood beside her mother on White
House receiving lines. She taught Sunday school to less fortunate children.
In nineteen fourteen, World War One gave Ethel the opportunity
(14:59):
to devote herself to all tier work full time. She
had just married surgeon Richard Derby, and the two both
treated wounded soldiers at the American Ambulance Hospital in France,
years before the United States officially entered the Fray. Much
like her grandfather, the Ethel was committed to humanitarianism. After
(15:22):
the war, she supported a number of causes, many of
which were based in or around Oyster Bay, where she
lived with her husband and children. She volunteered for the
Red Cross and pushed for affordable housing for African Americans
in the area. She was an active member of both
her church and the local nursing service, and she also
became a trustee of New York's American Museum of Natural History,
(15:42):
an institution her grandfather had helped found. The Ethel pursued
her own charitable passions, she still made time to further
her father's conservation efforts and solidify the Roosevelt legacy in
Oyster Bay, and we can thank Ethel for the preservation
of Sagamore Hill too. She helped establish the house as
a National Historic Site after her mother died there in
eight Ethel lived in Oyster Bay until her death in
(16:02):
nineteen seventy seven at six. She's buried in Young's Memorial Cemetery.
While all of the Roosevelt children treated the White Houses
their playground in one way or another, a few of
Archibald's antics were especially memorable. It was little Archie who
smuggled a Christmas tree into the White House in nineteen
o two, and his shet limpony Algonquin reportedly rode the
(16:25):
White House elevator to visit him while he was recovering
from the measles the following year. Archi, atr second youngest son,
had inherited his father's sense of adventure and uncanny lack
of fear. His younger brother, Quentin, was his sidekick in
the White House and beyond. As Mars wrote in Colonel Roosevelt,
the two brothers were as different as Huck Finn and
Tom Sawyer. Quentin was easy going and uncompetitive, whereas tears
(16:48):
Aid called Archie the pugnacious member of the family. He
takes up the cudgel at every chance, the Aid wrote,
Archie's favorite companion may have been Quentin, but his personality
mirrored his older brother at Juniors in many ways. So
did his career. Like Ted, Archie worked for a carpet
company after graduating Harvard and was wounded in France during
(17:08):
World War One. After the war, Archie spent a few
years in the oil industry before founding his own investment firm.
His success kept his wife Grace and there are four
children from failing the worst of the Great Depression. But
Archie abandoned the comfort of his office to join the
American effort in World War Two. He fought in New
Guinea and suffered wounds to the same arm and leg
that had been shattered in World War One. Though Archie
(17:31):
survived the war, he never completely recovered. He had always
been politically conservative, but his postwar years were characterized by
paranoia and conspiracy theories about communism. He eventually retired to Florida,
where he died in nineteen seventy nine after a stroke.
Archie was eight five years old. During his last days,
at least, it seems like the ravages of war fell away,
(17:52):
and he returned instead to happy memories of his boyhood
in New York. I'm going to Sagamore Hill, he kept repeating.
And finally, we have Alice, or as she was known
in d C. The Other Washington Monument. In the End,
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Alice Roosevelt Longworth, whom we covered at length in a
previous episode, outlived all of her half siblings. She was
Tire's oldest and arguably wildest child, the only one from
his first marriage. She died in nine eighty at age
ninety six, and she's buried in Washington, d C. With
her daughter, Paulina. We'll be back in a couple of
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weeks with another bonus episode of History Verses. History Verses
is hosted by me Aeron McCarthy. This episode was written
by Ellen Gutowski, with fact checking by Austin Thompson. The
executive producers are Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas, and Tyler Klang.
The supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. The show was edited
(18:59):
by dyl And Fagan and Lowberlante. To learn more about
this episode and Theodore Roosevelt, check out our website at
mental fluss dot com, slash History Versus. That's mental flush
dot com slash h I S t O R y vs.
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Floss. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
(19:21):
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