Teddy Roosevelt's Assassin

The Courtship of Alice's Father

On the left is Elliot Roosevelt, Eleanor’s father, and on the right is TR. Not shown is Edie, who was there as well

Edie and Theodore as Young Adults

On February 9, 1878, Theodore’s father, Theodore Roosevelt Sr. died from stomach cancer at the age of 46.  TR, who was a 19 year old student at Harvard, inherited $60,000 [about the equivalent of $1.4 million in 2017].   He was now a man of means,  the oldest male in his household,  and ready to assume the mantle of family leader.  But was Edie ready?

On April 18 TR was considering how to make that transition.   In his private diary, speaking apparently about his chastity, he said “Thank Heaven, I am at least perfectly pure.”  That summer though, everything would change.

When TR returned home for the summer,  no longer would TR, Edie and Conie spend their vacation together.  Now it would be just TR and Edie.  He would many years later admit to his oldest sister Bamie that:

Eight years ago [in the summer of 1878] she [Edie] and I had very intimate relations; one day there came a break, for we both of us had, and I suppose have, tempers that were far from being of the best. To no soul living have either of us ever spoken a word of this.

Later TR proposed marriage, and Edie turned him down.  When he returned to Harvard,  crestfallen at having been rejected by his childhood sweetheart,  he met Alice Hathaway Lee.  She became his first wife.  Alice would die in childbirth.

As much as he believed that a man should be married only once,  he struggled.  While on the Elkhorn Ranch,  late at night, after everyone had turned in for the evening,  his camp mates could hear him striding about in his room,  apparently hitting himself and loudly saying “constantcy….constantcy.”

TR and Edie as Husband and Wife

It would be eight years after Edith had first rejected his proposal,  after the birth of Alice Roosevelt and the death of his first wife,  before Edie and TR would become husband and wife.  By all accounts,  despite his ambitions, he was an attentive husband.

Edie and TR both loved to horseback ride,  and the two of them would ride together.  She rode side-saddle,  her left foot in a stirrup and her right leg over the pommel,  but she nevertheless was able to climb up hills,  walk, trot, canter and jump through the woods alongside her husband,  who was an expert rider.

Edith Riding Side Saddle

On summer mornings in June they would have breakfast together on the White House terrace,  and would walk through the White House gardens,  smelling the flowers.  They took long walks through Rock Creek Park, and while in Oyster Bay,  he would row her on Long Island Sound while she read poetry out loud to him.  In the evenings they would read Shakespeare with each one taking a different role,  and Edie often opting to take a male lead,  much to the amusement of their children.

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