The Roosevelts of Oyster Bay: Part I

If looked at from the proper angle, the Roosevelts were a soap opera unto themselves.  In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Theodore Roosevelt, our nation’s twenty-sixth president, made his home on Oyster Bay, Long Island.  When he purchased the property, he named it Lee Holm, after his first wife’s maiden name.  After she perished and he remarried, he wisely changed its name to Sagamore Hill.  Interestingly enough, Sagamore bears no relationship to his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow; Sagamore was a Native American name. 

No one could forget that his first choice wasn’t Edith, least of all Edith.  The story of their romance is intriguing, for lack of a better word.  Theodore, or Teddy as he was called, and Edith were childhood sweethearts.  Nonetheless, he married her second for he quickly forgot her when he met Alice Hathaway Lee of Boston. 

To fully appreciate Teddy’s courtship of Alice you have to know this: she was a babe and he was a dweeb in every sense of the word.  In a society where coasting by in college with C’s was fashionable, Teddy earned straight A’s.  There is no doubt in my mind that he was one of those kids who jumped up and down and waved when he knew the answer to a question.  His classmates probably hated him. 

They almost definitely must have laughed at him.  He came from wealth, and those from the privileged classes did not do something so common as try in college.  Please.  To do so would mean that you were attending school on, horror of well-to-do horrors, a scholarship.  And only poor people needed scholarships.  So, what was Teddy’s deal?  Did he really like to learn?

Ew, everyone must have thought.  Alice Hathaway Lee was no exception.  Well, I don’t think she was so cruel as that.  I imagine she just thought him very odd.  His hobbies included reading (only weird-o’s do that), bird watching (you heard me), and Dungeons and Dragons.  I’m just kidding; obviously, they didn’t have Dungeons and Dragons in nineteenth century Boston, but if they had I’m sure Teddy would have been a veritable Dungeon Master.  And, to top it all off, he had a weird high-pitched voice. 

I mean, really.  He had no chance with Alice Hathaway Lee.  A nerd like Teddy should have known that.  Nonetheless, on the day that he first met her, he informed his diary that Alice was the girl he was going to marry.  He proposed to her twice even though she had given him no reason to hope for an affirmative response.  Still, he must have been endearing somehow, because she accepted his third marriage proposal.  You have to admit that it’s cute, the stuff of a good old-fashioned romantic comedy.  You can just imagine Teddy awkwardly making his way into Alice’s heart. 

On his wedding day, he told his diary that this was the happiest he had ever been.  He bought her the aforementioned property on Oyster Bay, Long Island, and named it Lee Holm after his dearest love.  Alice and Teddy were happy.  Let’s leave them like that for now, for happiness would not be theirs for very long.