The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (12 page)

TR filled pages of his diary with accounts of his love, their activities, and the lengths to which he would go to see her. He wrote in his diary on February 3, 1880, “Snowing heavily, but I drove over in my sleigh to Chestnut Hill, the horse plunging to his belly in great drifts, and the wind cutting my face like a knife.”

TR just could not believe his luck. He wrote in his diary a few months after he met her, “It seems hardly possible that I can kiss her and hold her in my arms; she is so pure and so innocent, and is very, very pretty. I have never done anything to deserve such great fortune.” He decided to push his luck and her, too. TR did everything he could to get her to marry him.

As soon as TR met Alice his interest in his studies and campus activities dwindled. There were two pieces of solid evidence that he was in love: he let Alice call him “Teddy” and he interrupted his naturalist expeditions.

Most of TR’s family members called him “Teedie” when he was a child. The nickname did not follow him to Harvard. Alice started calling him “Teddy.” He confessed later that he was never fond of that nickname, but she could have gotten away with calling him a lot worse because he was so much in love with her.

Lovestruck

Alice was also responsible to some degree for his diminished interest in ornithology. TR wrote a letter in 1879 to his close friend and Harvard classmate Henry Davis Minot to tell him about his new romance and that he had not done any collecting of specimens to think of that year. That was a startling admission from TR, who had been addicted to natural history since his very young days. And he did things that were out of the ordinary even for him.

TR attended club meetings rarely after he met Alice. Occasionally, he took her with him. At one Hasty Pudding gathering he pointed Alice out to a group of people and vowed that he was going to marry her, even though, he said, “She won’t have me.”

He turned the staid old Porcellian Club on its ears when he ushered Alice in for lunch. That was reportedly the first time any member had brought a woman into the club.

According to historian David McCullough, Henry Davis Minot was TR’s only close friend at Harvard. (See McCullough’s book,
Mornings on Horseback.)
Minot dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year, ostensibly due to a nervous breakdown, but actually because of the lack of morality he perceived in the student body. He became a railroad executive and died in a train wreck on November 14, 1890, at age thirty-one.

It was unorthodox, but TR specialized in doing things that had never been done. Red tape, bureaucracy, tradition, anti-female rules … nothing stood in the way of love—or much of anything else—as far as TR was concerned. When he wanted something, he went after it. He kept up the pursuit; she continued to put him off.

Love Grows

In June 1879, TR proposed to Alice. She procrastinated for months. Finally, at the beginning of 1880, she agreed to marry him. He spent February 13, 1880, with the Lee family at their home in Chestnut Hill. The next day the couple announced their engagement.

A July 4, 1880, entry in TR’s diary showed that his love was growing day by day. He wrote, “Not one thing is ever hidden between us. No matter how long I live I know my love for her will only grow deeper and tenderer day by day; and she always will be mistress over all that I have.”

TR returned to Cambridge to announce their engagement. One of the first people TR told was Henry Minot.

He sent a letter to his old friend and asked him to keep the engagement secret—which TR could not do himself. He said, “I write to you to announce my engagement to Miss Alice Lee; but do not speak of it till Monday. I have been in love with her for nearly two years now, and have made everything subordinate to winning her; so you can perhaps understand a change in my ideas as regards science, etc.” He could not wait for the wedding.

First Marriage

The wedding day finally arrived. TR and Alice Hathaway Lee were married either at the Unitarian Church in Brookline, Massachusetts, or at the Lee’s home, depending on conflicting historical accounts. In any case, they married on October 27, 1880—his twenty-second birthday.

Among the guests was TR’s childhood friend Edith Carow, who would also attend his second wedding a few years later—as his second wife.

TR’s wedding to Alice was the greatest birthday present he could have received, but the joy was short lived. The happy couple moved to New York City to take up residence as he started his career. They lived happily there—but not forever after. It started well, however.

The conflict in the wedding site is indicative of the reportage of many of the events in TR’s life: different people saw and/or heard events differently, remember different dates, etc. That is true of historical events in general—and explains why there may be a few differences in facts between this book and other sources.

A Short Honeymoon

Alice and TR spent their first night together in Springfield, Massachusetts, then honeymooned for two weeks at the Roosevelt home at Oyster Bay, Long Island. That was a long respite for the energetic TR, who needed to be working. He had begun his studies at Columbia Law School and his interest in politics was growing—as was his love for Alice.

Following the wedding, TR put into perspective the balance between his love for Alice and for nature. He wrote:

I do not think ever a man loved a woman more than I love her; for a year and a quarter now I have never (even when hunting) gone to sleep or waked up without thinking of her; and I doubt if an hour has passed that I have not thought of her. And now I can scarcely realize that I can hold her in my arms and kiss her and caress her and love her as much as I choose
.

The hunt was over; TR had married the woman he loved.

After TR was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1881, he spent a lot of time in Albany carrying out his legislative duties. He wrote letters to Alice during his times away and invited his friends and fellow politicians into their home in New York City often.

They were living at the family home on West 57th Street in New York City so Mittie and his sisters could provide Alice with company. He came home for weekends to help out. It was a happy time for TR—until Valentine’s Day, 1884.

A Daughter Is Born; Two Mothers Die

When TR began his third term in the Legislature, Alice was both pregnant and ill. That put pressure on him. But there was added work-related stress he had to contend with as his term began. TR was facing opposition from his own party as he struggled to become the Speaker of the Assembly. While he was in Albany looking for votes, a series of notes and telegrams arrived that sent him scurrying back to New York City.

Only six days before his daughter was born, TR wrote Alice in a letter, “How did I hate to leave my bright, sunny little love yesterday afternoon! I love you and long for you all the time, and oh so tenderly; doubly tenderly now, my sweetest little wife. I just long for Friday evening when I shall be with you again.” He did see her shortly, but not under the circumstances he imagined.

What was the cause of Alice’s death?

Alice’s death was attributed to Bright’s disease, a kidney ailment. Today, it is known as acute or chronic nephritis. Sadly, it might have been treatable under ordinary circumstances. In Alice’s case, her pregnancy masked the symptoms.

Alice sent TR a note on February 11 to assure him that she was fine and that the doctor was not particularly concerned about her health. Next, she sent him a telegram to announce that they had a daughter, who was born on February 12. Then, he received a telegram advising him to return to New York City immediately because Alice’s health was deteriorating. There, a terrible double tragedy and a moment of joy awaited him. They did not offset one another in his thinking.

When TR arrived at his house on February 13th, he walked into a scene of utter despair. Mittie was dying of typhoid fever in one room; one floor above, Alice was fighting for her life from complications of childbirth and Bright’s disease.

There was little that TR could do except shuffle from room to room in a futile vigil for two of the most cherished women in his life. Mittie and Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt passed away within hours of each other on February 14, 1884. Alice was twenty-two years old at the time. Mittie was relatively young, too. She was forty-eight.

A Devastating Death

Mittie died first, at approximately 3
A.M
. Alice clung to life for another eleven hours. She fought until she drew her last breath in TR’s arms at about 2
P.M
. It was a bitter anniversary for TR. Not only was it Valentine’s Day, but it was the fourth anniversary of his engagement to Alice. It was of little comfort to TR, but at least he was there to hold her as she died.

A few days after Alice died in 1884, TR expressed in his diary his fond memories of the three years they had together: “We spent three years of happiness greater and more unalloyed than I have ever known to fall to the lot of others.”

TR was devastated. Two entries in his diary showed his anguish. In one, he wrote a large X and a solitary sentence stating, “The light has gone out of my life.” Alice’s death left him with a large void that he sought to fill in the only way he knew how: work.

In a second entry, he wrote, “On February 17th I christened the baby Alice Lee Roosevelt. For joy or for sorrow my life has now been lived out.”

Burying Alice—But Not the Memories

The family buried Alice and Mittie at a double funeral on February 15, 1884. The ladies were laid to rest together in Greenwood Cemetery. The epitaph on Alice’s grave reads, “For joy or for sorrow my life has now been lived out.”

In a way, TR’s reaction to the double deaths was out of the ordinary. He tried to erase his memories of Alice by destroying any photographs and all correspondence that made any reference to her. He vowed to never speak of her again, even to her namesake and his daughter. For the most part, he managed not to.

TR even declared that he did not want to hear the name “Teddy” again. He could not escape the nickname, though, since he is forever connected with the “teddy bear,” which his name popularized. Inadvertently, the “teddy bear” became one of the world’s most beloved toys.