He didn’t quite understand what was happening. He was in Albany working when he received a telegram stating that his beloved wife of four years had delivered a healthy baby girl. They named her Alice Lee, same as her mother. Now there was another cable advising him to hurry home.
It was midnight when he rushed into the house on West 57th Street finding her semi-unconscious in the throes of preeclampsia, a condition in which convulsions occur in a pregnant woman, before or after birth. Its main symptom is high blood pressure often followed by coma posing a threat to the health of mother and baby…in this case, the baby was fine, but the mother wasn’t.
He held her for hours, helplessly watching as nothing could be done to save her. She died in his arms in the early morning of February 14th, 1884. The light has gone out of my life, he wrote in his diary that night.
She was beautiful…tall and willowy with blue-gray eyes and wavy, golden hair. Her nickname was Sunshine because of her cheerful disposition. According to lore, every head turned whenever she entered a room.
Theodore Roosevelt met Alice Hathaway Lee in the spring of 1878.
It was love at first sight, he said. I had never beheld anyone more lovelier than she. Although Alice showed no interest at first, Theodore besieged her relentlessly determined to have her for his bride.
He proposed on Valentine’s Day, 1880…and she accepted. 22 year old Teddy, was over the moon.
They were married that October, she dying on the four year anniversary of their sweetheart engagement. He was positively heartbroken, releasing some of his grief onto the page as writers often do…he wrote:
She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit; As a flower she grew, and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine; there had never come to her a single sorrow; and none ever knew her who did not love and revere her for the bright, sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. 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 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.Alice Lee Roosevelt was 22.
July 29, 1861 – February 14, 1884SB
Thanks for this beautiful Valentine history lesson…I loved it!
I always remember Alice on this day. What I didn’t say, didn’t want to take the focus away from her, was that Teddy’s mother Mittie, died the same day in the same house of Typhoid Fever. There was a double funeral for them at a church on 55th and Fifth that still stands. They are buried together at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Amazing, isn’t it?
What are the chances of that happening? Amazing indeed!
It’s quite a story. Whenever I go by that church where the funerals took place I think of it. The sanctuary is pretty much the same so I can picture Teddy sitting in the front pew a sister on either side. That whole part of Fifth Avenue was lined with mansions but only 3 churches remain, St. Pats being one of them. If they could only talk…imagine.
Death in childbirth is not a pretty subject. How such a joyous occasion may be turned to tragedy
I know…I always remember her since I find the tale so sad and poignant. She was so young as was he. Fragile times they were.
Well, it ain’t all Roses and Chocolates but it’s still a hell of a St. Valentine’s Day story.
I know. Puts a different spin on the day.
Tragic ending of two who seemed destined for a heavenly life…Alice was such a beauty and so loved…as was he. A double blow for Theodore…losing both mother and wife. Oh my! Such pain.
The Roosevelt crest “He Who Has Planted Will Preserve” seemed prophetic since he fathered five more children after the birth of his daughter by Alice. A sad but lovely tribute to such a famous couple on this day. Thank You.
Didn’t know about the family crest. Thank you for that.
Oh my, I have family in that cemetery
Childbirth was a dangerous business back then.
It’s a beautiful cemetery…the very first one, at least in New York, to ever have been landscaped. I love graveyards. Alice is buried alongside her mother-in-law. At one point Teddy wanted them moved to the family plot in Oyster Bay but Edith, the second Mrs. Roosevelt, wouldn’t allow it. Not a big fan of hers. Think you should come East and visit your kin
I did not know this part of Teddy’s story. That’s a hell of a lot of loss in one day. Teddy had a lot to overcome. Thanks for this history lesson.
It’s such a great part of his story yet it’s not mainstream. Have never understood that. It was the whole reason he went out West…to grieve such a double loss. He left baby Alice with Bamie, his eldest sister and in essence became a cowboy. Anything to drown out the pain. We can all guess how he did running it out…it goes with you…this I know.
My Teddy is glad I am too old to have a baby and there is little chance of typhoid fever here.
Seriously though, it is a tragic story. Amazing what people can endure.
It’s nice you have a Teddy of your own and yes, it is amazing what people endure…well said.