rosborne979 wrote:Setanta wrote:"If you have nothing nice to say about anyone, come here and sit by me. -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth"
What was up with Alice?
Theodore Roosevelt went away to Harvard, and in 1876 his father, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., died. He was emotionally devestated. Shortly after returning to school, he met Alice Lee, and fell deeply in love (or so he felt, at any rate). The conjunction of emotional events seems important to many biographers. T.R. married Alice Lee, and in 1881, published his
The Naval War of 1812 to modest acclaim and success, and entered the New York State Assembly, beginning his political career. He appears to have felt that his life were idyllic. A few years later, however, as she was about to be delivered of their child, Alice fell ill (i don't recall the cause-perhaps typhus or typhoid fever) and T.R.'s mother fell it with the same disease at the same time. They both died in less than 24 hours, and T.R. was once again devasted.
The child was born healthy, however. T.R. soon left his political career and took a long hunting trip in the West with his brother. He left his new daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt in the care of his sister Bamie (her name was Anne Roosevelt, but for reasons i do not know, was called Bamie). There is a very touching photograph of the three year old Alice standing by Bamie, who is seated in a wing chair, and they both are wearing expensive women's outer wear of the era, and poor little Alice looks into the camera very solemnly. T.R. got taken up with the Dakotas, and decided to become a cattle rancher. He was wiped out in the horrible winter of 1886-87, as was most of the Dakota cattle industry. When he had returned east for the political season of 1886, he had met again his "childhood sweetheart," Edith Kermit Carrow, whom one might allege he had "dumped" for Alice Lee. They became close again, and married in 1886. Little Alice Lee, known generally at that time as Baby Alice, was just past her second birthday.
T.R. returned east permanently, and restarted his political career. Edith and he produced many children, and at her insistence, Alice joined his family. T.R. seems never to have been able to discipline Alice (and he was very strict with the boys, even though given to irreverent michief himself), beyond prohibiting criminality. Alice was seventeen when the family moved 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and she plunged into Washington social life with a passion. She stayed out all night with the boys, drinking champagne with them, and caused other scandals, such as smoking cigarettes in public. She was a national celebrity in nation which loved its President, in the days before movie stars--they called her Princess Alice. She loved to wear a certain deep shade of light blue, and it is known to this day as Alice Blue. A popular song was also written about her,
Alice Blue Gown. So when the Chief Justice sugested to T.R. that he "do something about Alice," that was his response, and likely not delivered in too pleasant a manner. Alice was very intelligent, was well educated, and was married off to a party hack, Nicholas Longworth, from Ohio. He seems to have been something of a playboy, or thought himself so. They had a daughter, Paulina, with whom she had stormy relations. She remained cynical and witty throughout her long life, dying in 1980 at the age of 96. Throughout her life, her home was an informal meeting ground for Republicans, at least until Nixon was elected. She was often referred to as "the other Washington monument." I would have liked very much to have spent a few hours conversing with her.
I think you just made this whole thread worth the effort. 