Hasten forward quickly there12/13/2023 Of course with my 21st century definition picturing a blonde surfer….seeing Teddy Roosevelt referred to as "That damned dude" was all the funnier. 100 years ago it meant more like a dandy, someone who liked to dress up in fancy clothes. Part of the fun researching this part of T.R.’s life is to see how the word "dude" has pretty much done a 180 degree turn in what it means. However he proved his manliness by helping to catch a pair of horse thieves….and even became friends with Seth Bullock, future sheriff of Deadwood. One he got excited while riding and told someone to "Hasten forward quickly there!" which became his nickname for a while. Even the language he used was off putting. The cowboys were distrustful of the man with glasses and the outfit bought at Tiffany’s. This was a life changing experience for him, and in the various biographies and documentaries most agree that without this experience, he would never have been president. went off to spend some quality time on his land in the Dakota territory. To deal with his grief, after his term as assemblyman ended, T.R. For example, she once commented about her father "He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and baby at every christening." She was one of the great smart asses of the 1920’s. However I am grateful he had his first marriage, otherwise we would have been deprived of the future Alice Roosevelt Longworth….who had her mother’s good looks, and her father’s wit. The Morris book suggests that Alice, while pretty, may have not been the sharpest knife in the drawer, and this probably would have frustrated T.R. In the long run Alice’s death may have been a blessing in disguise. He wrote in his journal "The light has gone out of my life." After the funeral he never spoke about her again. He managed to get home in time for both his wife and mother to die on Valentine’s Day. Just a few hours later he received the news that both his wife and his mother were dying. It was there in Albany that he got the happy news that his wife had just given birth to a girl. was happily occupied as an assemblyman in the state legislature. Unfortunately, nobody realized she was also suffering from Bright’s Disease, a fatal kidney ailment. got his sense of duty from his father, but his flair and panache from his Southern born mother.Īlice was a beautiful blonde woman also of the same wealthy upper class as Roosevelt. In the PBS "American Experience" special on Roosevelt, they suggested that T.R. His older sister was Anna or Bamy and he had a younger brother Elliot and younger sister Corinne. I half expect to hear that he emerged fully formed out of a cowboy hat in the Dakota Territory….) He was the second of 4 children born to Theodore Roosevelt Sr. Theodore Roosevelt was born on Octoin New York City. So to quote Inigo Montoya: "Lemme ‘splain….no….is too much….lemme sum up!" As for me, I did about 3 months of research. The majority of research I did for this entry was with Edmund Morris’s amazing trilogy: "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt", "Theodore Rex" and "Colonel Roosevelt." It took him over 3 decades to complete this thorough, yet very approachable, series of biographies. What a breath of fresh air after a series of 19th century presidents that David McCullough referred to as "bland and overfed." One thing bothered me about the portrayal of T.R….he’s not moving! He was such a force of nature, I half expect him to come exploding out of the mountain side, start shaking hands with all the tourists, and then give an impromptu history and nature lecture on the area. I recently looked back at the pictures I took of it when I visited. Roosevelt is the most recent of the presidents that appear on Mount Rushmore. Numerous times while researching T.R., I was amazed at how relevant the issues and his quotes were to the United States today. I am, of course, talking about Teddy Roosevelt’s administration. There was a major nationwide kerfuffle over the presence of a Black man in the White House. There was an increasing gap in income between rich and poor. Business models were changing, and there was a lot of labor unrest. New technology and changes in industry meant that the United States was changing at a speed it had never known before.
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