Edith Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt (August 6, 1861 –
September 30, 1948) was the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt and
served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency
from 1901 to 1909.
Born in Norwich, Connecticut, the daughter of Charles Carow
(1825-1883), a merchant, and the former Gertrude Elizabeth Tyler
(1836-1895) and a granddaughter of Daniel Tyler who was a general
in the American Civil War, Edith grew up next door to Theodore
"T.R." Roosevelt in New York and was best friends with his younger
sister Corinne. She was T.R.'s first real playmate outside his
immediate family.
She and her sister Emily Tyler Carow (1865-1939) were brought up in
an environment of comfort and tradition. An infant brother, Kermit
(b. February 1860; d. August 1860) died one year before her
birth.
At Miss Comstock's school, Edith acquired the proper finishing
touch for a young lady of that era. A quiet girl who loved books,
she was often T.R.'s companion for summer outings at Oyster Bay,
Long Island; but this ended when he entered Harvard College.
Although she attended his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee in 1880,
their lives ran separately until 1885.
The year after his first wife's death, T.R. ran into Edith at his
sister's house. They began seeing each other again; on November 17,
1885, he proposed and she accepted. However, for appearance's sake,
the young widower delayed the announcement.
Roosevelt, aged 28, married secondly Edith Carow, aged 25, on
December 2, 1886, at St. George's Church of Hanover Square, in
London, England. On the day of the wedding, a quiet affair with few
guests, the London fog was so thick that it filled the church. The
groom was visible however, for he wore bright orange gloves. His
best man was Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice, later British ambassador to
the U.S. during World War I.
After a 15-week honeymoon tour of Europe, the newlyweds settled
down in a house on Sagamore Hill, at Oyster Bay. Mrs. Roosevelt,
reserved and efficient, managed the household budget. Throughout
T.R.'s intensely active career, family life remained close and
entirely delightful.
After William McKinley's assassination, Mrs. Roosevelt assumed her
new duties as First Lady with characteristic dignity. She meant to
guard the privacy of a family that attracted everyone's interest,
and she tried to keep reporters outside her domain. The public, in
consequence, heard little of the vigor of her character, her sound
judgment, her efficient household management.
As First Lady, she converted the traditional weekly levees to
musicales, remodeled the White House at a cost of $475,000 into
what the president described as "a simple and dignified dwelling
for the head of a republic." During T.R.'s administration, the
White House was unmistakably the social center of the land. Beyond
the formal occasions, smaller parties brought together
distinguished men and women from varied walks of life. Three family
events were highlights: the debut of "Princess Alice" in 1902, the
wedding of "Princess Alice" to Nicholas Longworth, and Ethel's
debut. A perceptive aide described the First Lady as "always the
gentle, high-bred hostess; smiling often at what went on about her,
yet never critical of the ignorant and tolerant always of the
little insincerities of political life."
After her husband's death in 1919, she traveled abroad but always
returned to Sagamore Hill as her home. She kept till the end her
interest in the Needlework Guild, a charity which provided garments
for the poor, and in the work of Christ Church at Oyster Bay. She
established a second residence in the Tyler family's ancestral
hometown of Brooklyn, Connecticut. Mrs. Roosevelt came out of
retirement in 1932 and gave a seconding speech on the behalf of
Herbert Hoover in his bid for re-election, thus campaigning against
her nephew-in-law Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She had never cared
for her niece Eleanor and did not want to see her become First
Lady.
She died at her Oyster Bay home in New York on September 30, 1948,
at the age of 87 and is interred in Youngs Memorial Cemetery of
Oyster Bay, NY.
The Puzzle: Hint, hint substitute 10 for 0, underlined
charicters are letters.
42
31.(WI)KR
82
56.S(WI)E
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.