Theodore Roosevelt’s mom and first spouse died simply hours aside on February 14, 1884. Every loss was an sudden shock. His 48-year-old mom, Martha “Mittie” Roosevelt, had been taken sick with what was initially thought of a chilly, and his 22-year-old spouse, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, had simply given start to their first baby, a daughter. Throughout her being pregnant, she hadn’t been recognized with the kidney ailment that will take her life. That evening in his diary Roosevelt marked an “X” and wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.” He had as soon as famous of his spouse, “I do not think ever a man loved a woman more than I love her,” and was so affected by her demise that he shunned mentioning her identify for the rest of his life.
READ MORE: What Theodore Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill Home Reveals About His Personality
Roosevelt fell in love with Lee at first sight
Roosevelt met Lee on October 18, 1878. Roosevelt, then a 19-year-old Harvard pupil, was instantly and forcefully captivated by the attractive Bostonian, who was two years his junior. The younger Roosevelt started courting Lee with devotion. At one level, he even arranged for his horse to be despatched from New York so he may extra simply journey the six miles to Lee’s residence. But Lee, whose household felt she wasn’t but prepared for marriage, resisted Roosevelt.
Roosevelt’s emotions continued, and as time progressed he grew to become determined to safe Lee’s love. Within the fall of 1879, as a part of his marketing campaign for her coronary heart, his mom, Mittie, made Lee and her household really feel welcome whereas they visited New York. Lee made her debut in society nonetheless uncommitted to Roosevelt, however he was undeterred. At one gathering he gestured throughout the room at Lee and declared, “I am going to marry her. She won’t have me, but I am going to have her!”
By 1880, Roosevelt’s ardor had gained Lee over. On January 25, he noted in his diary, “I had been nearly crazy during the past year; and after much pleading my own sweet, pretty darling consented to be my wife.” Their engagement was formally introduced on February 14, 1880, and so they wed on October 27, 1880, which was Roosevelt’s 22nd birthday. Earlier than the marriage he wrote, “My happiness is so great it makes me almost afraid.”
Martha “Mittie” Roosevelt and Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Photographs: Public Area; ©CORBIS/Corbis through Getty Photographs
The couple had totally different pursuits however had been glad collectively
Roosevelt and Lee established themselves in New York Metropolis, the place she loved the social whirl. In 1881 Roosevelt was elected to the New York State Meeting and located a brand new profession that took up a lot of his time and power. Nonetheless, Lee did not look after life within the state capital of Albany. She wasn’t interested in politics, and he or she missed being in the identical metropolis as her mother-in-law and her husband’s sisters, with whom she’d grown shut.
By the top of 1882, Lee was once more located in New York Metropolis and Roosevelt was commuting to Albany. Nonetheless, regardless of the gap, their marriage remained content material.
Lee was pregnant by the summer time of 1883, however Roosevelt wasn’t round for a lot of the being pregnant as he traveled west within the fall to hunt buffalo. After his return, he was as soon as once more consumed by politics and infrequently in Albany. On February 6, 1884, he wrote her a be aware that stated, “How I did hate to leave my bright, sunny little love yesterday afternoon!” Fortuitously, Lee was residing within the Roosevelt household residence along with her husband’s mom and sisters, so she had their help.
Roosevelt was in Albany when he realized his spouse and mom had been dying
Roosevelt was in Albany on February 13, 1884, when he realized Lee had given start to their daughter the day earlier than. However his happiness evaporated when one other telegram was delivered a number of hours later. He hurried again to the household residence the place each his spouse and his mom had been at demise’s door. Roosevelt was current when a 48-year-old Mittie died from typhoid fever within the early morning on February 14. Lee, aged 22, died that afternoon, simply 4 years after the Valentine’s Day announcement of their engagement.
Each deaths had been a shock. When Roosevelt had final left for Albany, Mittie was thought to have a nasty chilly. She had a history of well being complaints however that they had by no means been life-threatening. The conclusion that she was really affected by lethal typhoid fever got here solely shortly earlier than her demise. Lee’s demise resulted from kidney failure, often called Vibrant’s illness. She hadn’t been recognized with the ailment till after giving start, probably as a result of any prior signs she skilled had been attributed to her being pregnant.
If something, Roosevelt might need anticipated his personal well being to separate him and his family members. Throughout his senior yr at Harvard, a doctor had informed him he had a weak coronary heart and really useful sedentary residing so as to lengthen his life. However Roosevelt, who valued journey and bodily exercise, reportedly vowed, “Doctor, I’m going to do all the things you tell me not to do. If I’ve got to live the sort of life you have described, I don’t care how short it is.”
Theodore Roosevelt with Alice Hathaway Lee (left) and her cousin
Picture: Courtesy Everett Assortment
Roosevelt refused to debate his first spouse for the remainder of his life
A funeral for Lee and Mittie was held on February 16 in New York Metropolis. “Theodore is in a dazed, stunned state,” a former tutor commented of Roosevelt. “He does not know what he does or says.” The lack of his mom, whom he’d called “darling motherling,” got here virtually precisely six years after his father’s demise and made him an orphan. The demise of his younger spouse, with whom he’d began to construct a house, extinguished his hopes for the long run and left him reeling.
After the funeral, Roosevelt left his new child daughter, who was named Alice Lee Roosevelt after her mom, within the care of his older sister and returned to Albany. He wrote to a buddy, “I have never believed it did any good to flinch or yield for any blow, nor does it lighten the pain to cease from working.” Roosevelt attended the Republican conference in June however didn’t run for re-election. As a substitute, he headed west to a ranch within the Dakota Territory. He referred to his daughter as “Baby Lee” (she would later be identified to the household as “Sister”). He admitted to a buddy, “There can never be another Alice to me, nor could I have another, not even her own child, bear her name.”
After the deaths, Roosevelt wrote a remembrance of his mom and spouse. He stated of Lee, “Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving, tender, and happy as a young wife; when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be but just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her — then by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her. And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever.” Roosevelt remained in any other case unwilling to speak about his first spouse for the remainder of his life, even after he embarked upon what could be a profitable second marriage with childhood buddy Edith Carow in 1886.
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