Roosevelt, John Aspin (b. 13 MAR 1916, d. 27 APR 1981)

Census: Date: 1930
Place: Albany, Albany, New York

Note: ROOSEVELT, Franklin Delano, Jr., (son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and brother of James Roosevelt), a Representative from New York; born in Campobello, New Brunswick, Canada, August 17, 1914; graduated from Groton School, Groton, Mass., 1933; graduated from Harvard University, 1937; graduated from the University of Virginia Law School at Charlottesville, 1940; was admitted to the bar in 1942; was called from the Naval Reserve on March 13, 1941, to active duty as an ensign in the United States Navy and served in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific; discharged from active duty in January 1946; awarded the Purple Heart Medal and the Silver Star; lawyer, private practice; vice president of President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights in 1947 and 1948; chairman of mayor’s committee on unity in New York City in 1948 and 1949; delegate to Democratic National Conventions in 1952 and 1956; elected as a Liberal Party candidate to the Eighty-first Congress, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of United States Representative Sol Bloom (May 17, 1949-January 3, 1951); changed from a Liberal to a Democrat on January 3, 1951; elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-second Congress and to the succeeding Congress (January 3, 1951-January 3, 1955); was not a candidate for renomination in 1954, but was unsuccessful for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination; unsuccessful candidate for election for attorney general of New York in 1954; engaged in the automobile import business in 1958; appointed by President Kennedy as chairman of Appalachian Regional Commission, 1963; appointed by President Kennedy as Undersecretary of Commerce, 1963; appointed by President Johnson as first Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1965; unsuccessful candidate for Governor of New York State for Liberal Party in 1966; businessman and farmer; died on August 17, 1988, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; interment in St. James Episcopal Church, Hyde Park, N.Y.

Note: Brother to Theodore Roosevelt and father to Eleanor Roosevelt, who eventually married Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

President Theodore Roosevelt gave away the bride at the wedding.

Census: Date: 1850
Place: New York Ward 18 District 3, New York, New York

Census: Date: 1870
Place: New York Ward 18 District 2, New York, NY

Occupation: Date: BET 1850 AND 1860
Place: Merchant

Census: Date: 1850
Place: New York Ward 15 Eastern half, New York, NY

Census: Date: 1860
Place: New York Ward 18 District 3, New York, New York

Census: Date: 1870
Place: New York Ward 18 District 2, New York, NY

Note: With the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the youngest President in the Nation's history. He brought new excitement and power to the Presidency, as he vigorously led Congress and the American public toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy.

He took the view that the President as a "steward of the people" should take whatever action necessary for the public good unless expressly forbidden by law or the Constitution." I did not usurp power," he wrote, "but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power."

Roosevelt's youth differed sharply from that of the log cabin Presidents. He was born in New York City in 1858 into a wealthy family, but he too struggled--against ill health--and in his triumph became an advocate of the strenuous life.

In 1884 his first wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt, and his mother died on the same day. Roosevelt spent much of the next two years on his ranch in the Badlands of Dakota Territory. There he mastered his sorrow as he lived in the saddle, driving cattle, hunting big game--he even captured an outlaw. On a visit to London, he married Edith Carow in December 1886.

During the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was lieutenant colonel of the Rough Rider Regiment, which he led on a charge at the battle of San Juan. He was one of the most conspicuous heroes of the war.

Boss Tom Platt, needing a hero to draw attention away from scandals in New York State, accepted Roosevelt as the Republican candidate for Governor in 1898. Roosevelt won and served with distinction.

As President, Roosevelt held the ideal that the Government should be the great arbiter of the conflicting economic forces in the Nation, especially between capital and labor, guaranteeing justice to each and dispensing favors to none.

Roosevelt emerged spectacularly as a "trust buster" by forcing the dissolution of a great railroad combination in the Northwest. Other antitrust suits under the Sherman Act followed.

Roosevelt steered the United States more actively into world politics. He liked to quote a favorite proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick. . . . "

Aware of the strategic need for a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific, Roosevelt ensured the construction of the Panama Canal. His corollary to the Monroe Doctrine prevented the establishment of foreign bases in the Caribbean and arrogated the sole right of intervention in Latin America to the United States.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War, reached a Gentleman's Agreement on immigration with Japan, and sent the Great White Fleet on a goodwill tour of the world.

Some of Theodore Roosevelt's most effective achievements were in conservation. He added enormously to the national forests in the West, reserved lands for public use, and fostered great irrigation projects.

He crusaded endlessly on matters big and small, exciting audiences with his high-pitched voice, jutting jaw, and pounding fist. "The life of strenuous endeavor" was a must for those around him, as he romped with his five younger children and led ambassadors on hikes through Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.

Leaving the Presidency in 1909, Roosevelt went on an African safari, then jumped back into politics. In 1912 he ran for President on a Progressive ticket. To reporters he once remarked that he felt as fit as a bull moose, the name of his new party.

While campaigning in Milwaukee, he was shot in the chest by a fanatic. Roosevelt soon recovered, but his words at that time would have been applicable at the time of his death in 1919: "No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life in every way."

Occupation: Date: 1900
Place: Governor

Occupation: Date: 1910
Place: Editor

Census: Date: 1860
Place: New York Ward 18 District 3, New York, New York

Census: Date: 1870
Place: New York Ward 18 District 2, New York, NY

Census: Date: 1900
Place: Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York

Census: Date: 1910
Place: 5-Dist Oyster Bay, Nassau, NY

Census: Date: 1860
Place: New York Ward 18 District 3, New York, New York

Census: Date: 1870
Place: New York Ward 18 District 2, New York, NY

Note: EDITH KERMIT CAROW, daughter of CHARLES CAROW and GERTRUDE ELIZABETH TYLER, residents of New York City's Union Square, knew Theodore Roosevelt practically from birth. As a toddler she became a playmate of his younger sister Corinne, the two girls had been born just seven weeks apart. Edith was born into an environment of breeding, comfort and tradition. But the family finances which would have once labeled them "privileged" if not "wealthy" became increasingly limited. Edith's father's battle with alcoholism, and inflation after the Civil War, changed the family's economic position, but not necessarily its social one. From the time Edith was six years old, she and her parents lived with various relatives.

Theodore Roosevelt's mother, invited "Edie" to join the the younger Roosevelt children for her earliest schooling at the Roosevelt home with Theodore's Aunt Anna, the Roosevelt children's governess. Edith also attended Miss Comstock's "finishing" school, appropriate and proper for a young lady of that era. Edith was a quiet and serious girl who loved books.

Throughout childhood Edith and "Teedie" had a special relationship. She was often Theodore's companion for summer outings at Oyster Bay, Long Island, though not by any means his only female companion. She was afterall three years his junior. But it was the name "Edith" that Theodore painted on the transom of his little rowboat the summer he was 16 and she a mere 13!

The close friendship survived through Theodore's first year of college and until the summer after his father's death. Edith and Theodore were very close and many expected they would marry. There is some evidence he may have proposed to her that summer of 1878, but whether she turned him down or they had some other disagreement, their relationship turned sharply and cooled for many years. Of their "breakup"Theodore would only say later, "we both of us had tempers...that were far from the best."

It was during this "cool period" that Theodore in his second year at Harvard College met and courted Alice Hathaway Lee. Edith attended Theodore's wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee in 1880 with his family and mutual friends. But their lives ran quite separately until 1885.

Theodore was reluctant to marry again after his first wife died. Though still quite a young widower, he felt it was immoral and disloyal to the memory of his dear first wife "Alice". Finally able to look forward again, Theodore and Edith were married in London in December 1886. Baby Alice came to live with them shortly thereafter.

They settled down in the house Theodore had built (originally for Alice) at Sagamore Hill, at Oyster Bay on Long Island, NY. This became the headquarters for a quickly growing family.
In addition to raising her stepdaughter, Edith gave birth to five children in the next ten years: Theodore, Kermit, Ethel, Archibald and Quentin. Sadly she also had several miscarriages. In the early years the young brood headed by Edith and Theodore were very close.While TR's relationship with his children is famous and exemplary for its day, Edith too was a loving and


Edith with TR, stepdaughter Alice and her first four children. Quentin was not yet born when this photo was taken in 1895. Theodore was in Washington as Civil Service Commissioner. Sympathetic (although not soft) mother. A small son remarked one day, "When Mother was a little girl, she must have been a boy!"

The tragedy of President McKinley's assassination brought Edith to the position of First Lady rather abruptly. But she was no stranger to Washington or the life of a political family. She played her roles well as her husband served as a Civil Service Commissioner, Police Commissioner in New York City, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the Rough Rider war hero "Colonel Roosevelt", Governor of New York and Vice President.

Assuming her new duties with characteristic dignity, Mrs. Roosevelt guarded the privacy of a family both from outsiders and even Theodore's extended family. In her book [1], Sylvia Jukes Morris quotes a classmate who remarked, "I believe you could live in the same house with Edith for fifty years and never really know her."

She was a very private person, finding solitude where others might have been lonely. Indeed she reveled in a level of solitude that to some bordered on isolation. However, her vigor of character, sound judgment, her practical and frugal management of the household and the family finances were her private strengths. Edith's presence was indelible and she was very much a force in shaping Theodore's outlook and actions.

She did make a public stamp. Under Edith's careful eye the White House collection of china and the portraits of First Ladies were begun. The task of restoring the house to its classic and simple federal style, inside and out, while accommodating a large family and executive branch of government for a growing nation came to the Roosevelts. First Lady Edith Roosevelt played the major role in overseeing the largest renovation of the White House into the stately and practical government center it is today.

The White House became unmistakably a social center of the nation with two bright lights burning. Obviously her husband Theodore energized both the country and any social event. And soon was the launching of his daughter, "Princess Alice" who captured the hearts and attention of the American press and public. Two family events were highlighted on the social scene: the wedding of "Princess Alice" to Nicholas Longworth, and Ethel's debut.

To this high profile family, Edith added the balance and careful consideration. The First Lady was, "always the gentle, highbred 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."

It was Edith who recognized the TR's need for a break from the frenetic pace of Washington and even Sagamore Hill. During the White House years she purchased "Pine Knot" a small cabin in the wooded

Virginia countryside (Albemarle County near Charlottesville) with no running water or plumbing, but with plenty of the nature that Theodore loved. This became their "Presidential retreat"; this was where Theodore could find a change of scene after the intense negotiations of the Russo-Japanese Treaty at Portsmouth.

Edith was cultured, dignified, scholarly with a keen wit and love of poetry. Of the pair, Edith was considered the sounder judge of men and of money, providing a balance for her husband's exuberance.

After TR's death in 1919, Edith traveled extensively, including visits to Puerto Rico, Portugal and one to the Philippines when her son, "Ted, Jr" was Governor of those islands.

She made a few public appearances on behalf of Hoover as he campaigned against TR's cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although the rift between branches of the family was greatly overblown by press and gossip, this did contribute to some fodder to the idea.

It is a difficult thing for any parent to survive her children. Edith outlived three of her sons as well as her husband. Quentin had been shot down behind enemy lines and killed in WWI at the tender age of twenty. WWII again called her sons. Edith watched as Kermit sought and was occasionally given various posts including his final post in Alaska. And she watched with great sadness his fiercest battle, the same that her father had fought, the battle with alcoholism leading to Kermit's eventual suicide (although she was told he died of heart problems).

Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren gave her joy in her last years, but there would still be one more of her children to bury. "Ted, Jr", was by now Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr, and again in the thick of a World War. She was proud when he fought again in France, this time earning France's highest military honor, the "Legion of Honor". He was in the first boat to land on Utah Beach, the oldest man in the first wave on "D day". Ted's son, called Quentin after his uncle, also fought with distinction in that war. After several months of terrible and exhausting battle, Ted Jr. died suddenly of heart failure. He received the Medal of Honor, posthumously.

Edith also outlived the "other" Roosevelt President. According to Morris [2], "She was stunned. During the years of war she had changed her mind about 'Cousin Franklin' to the extent of saying that though he was 'on the wrong side of the fence' he was, nevertheless, ' a nice man,' who, to her satisfaction, had turned out to be as conservative as Alexander Hamilton, and as democratic as Lincoln. 'Could he but have lived until Peace,' she mused in her diary . . ."

She survived a broken hip, often a difficult ordeal, even more then than today. Her recovery was slow and coupled with watching Kermit's difficulties, only her will power and fond memories kept her from depression.

Organizing her death as she had her life she made her will almost exactly two years before she died, dividing the bulk of her estate between her natural surviving children Archie and Ethel or their spouses Eleanor (Ted) and Belle (Kermit). She left only a token amount and a John Singer Sergeant painting of the White House to Alice only because she had significant means from other sources. She also remembered her most faithful servants well and even left lesser amount to others who had severed her based on their years of service. She had done her estate planning well in advance, giving to her grandchildren well in advance of her death and thus avoiding inheritance taxes. She planned her own funeral service, and had had a plot put aside in nearby Youngs' Cemetery nearly forty years earlier. It was there that Theodore was buried, and there she would be buried beside him after she died on September 30, 1948, at the age of 87.

Sagamore Hill - Old Orchard Museum label copy:

* Little Edith Carow was well respected for her tidiness, a trait that earned her the nickname "Spotless Edie" from her childhood friend Theodore Roosevelt.

* The family finances were skillfully managed by Edith. In a letter to Theodore shortly before their marriage she had written, "Mama says I must tell you that I am very practical. I know a great deal about money."

* Soon after Theodore Roosevelt became President, Edith instituted the tradition of East Room Musicales in the White House. One evening in January 1904, the young Pablo Casals played for the First Lady during his initial solo tour of the United States.

* In 1902 Edith commissioned McKim, Mead and White to supervise the expansion and renovation of the White House. The distinguished architects obliterated the proud luxuries of the Victorian era and restored the classic simplicity of the early 19th century.

* Following Theodore Roosevelt's death in 1919, Edith traveled throughout the world as an honored and distinguished guest.

* Shortly after her 87th birthday, Edith died at Sagamore Hill. "Nothing," she once said, "would please me more than when I die they put this inscription on my tombstone, 'Everything she did was for the happiness of others.' "

More About EDITH KERMIT CAROW:

* Generally Edith refrained from public political involvement, however, in the 1930s she made appearances for Herbert Hoover and openly criticized the New Deal policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

* The first First Lady to catalog contents of the White House

* Began practice of hanging First Ladies portraits in the East Corridor of the White House

* Began the White House collection of samples of china used by all previous administrations

* Edith wrote a book on her family - American Backlogs: The Story of Gertrude Tyler and Her Family, 1660-1860 (1928), and contributed to Cleared for Strange Ports (1924).


Sources:
Theodore Roosevelt Association Office;
Sagamore Hill - Old Orchard Museum label copy;
Official White House Internet biography;
Betty Boyd Caroli, The Roosevelt Women, Basic Books, 1998.
[1] Sylvia Jukes Morris; Edith Kermit Roosevelt, Portrait of a First Lady; Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc. NY; 1980.
[2] Ibid., 511.

Census: Date: 1900
Place: Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York

Census: Date: 1910
Place: 5-Dist Oyster Bay, Nassau, NY

Census: Date: 1920
Place: Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York

Note: The first born son and namesake of President Roosevelt, "Ted" lead a very distinguished life in his own right. Ted was the first child of Theodore and his second wife Edith. Remember his father's first wife and older sister Alice's mother had died shortly after childbirth. Ted began following his father's footsteps at a very early age, though father Roosevelt admittedly pushed him a bit too enthusiastically in this direction.

As a child, Ted was closest to his sister Alice, and they adored each other as playmates and fellow adventurers. Ted spent most of his childhood here in Cove Neck where he explored the woods by day, and enjoyed many nights camping out with his father.

Like his father before him, Ted attended Harvard, worrying his father by cutting classes, but graduated with excellent grades. He married Eleanor Alexander in 1910 and began his political career with election to the New York Assembly. He later became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In 1929, Hoover appointed him Governor of Puerto Rico, from which post he was named Governor General of the Philippines.

He saw active duty in both World War I (receiving the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star) and World War II. As a Brigadier General in World War II, Ted Jr. led the first assault at Normandy. A few weeks later, he died of a heart attack.

Census: Date: 1900
Place: Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York

Note: KERMIT ROOSEVELT Born 10 October 1889 and educated at Groton and Harvard, Kermit — like all the boys — shared his father's love of the outdoors and physical activity. He accompanied TR on his post-presidential safari in Africa, and later joined the 1914 exploration of the River of Doubt (subsequently renamed Rio Roosevelt) in the heart of the Amazon. After returning from South America in 1914, TR credited Kermit with saving his life during the course of that expedition.

It seemed it was always Kermit — the lucky one, his brothers called him — who got to go along with TR on his most splendid adventures. Family tradition says Kermit’s luck was not, however, accidental. Early on, TR sensed in Kermit the seed of something he had seen before, in his brother Elliott. There was, it seems, something about the young Kermit that TR recalled from many years before, in the years before his beloved brother became a full-blown addict enslaved by drink and drugs. In an effort to head-off what he hoped would not be a repeat of Elliott’s tragedy, TR made a special effort to spend time with young Kermit.

And there would, indeed, be some measure of drink and some measure of tragedy in Kermit’s future, but there would also be great successes. He proved a worthy man of business in his early years after his marriage to Belle Wyatt Willard in 1914, organizing the Roosevelt Steamship Company and the United States Lines. He was also, like his father, a great hunter, explorer and writer on these themes, and he enjoyed splendid literary friendships with the likes of Rudyard Kipling, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Gertrude Stein and William Butler Yeats. A few of the gems from Kermit’s pen include The Happy Hunting Grounds (an eloquent look back on his outdoor experiences both with and without his father), Trailing the Great Panda (co-authored with his brother and fellow explorer, Theodore Jr., with whom he traveled to China in 1929 in quest of a Panda for display by the Field Museum), and Quentin Roosevelt: A Sketch with Letters, which commemorated the youngest Roosevelt brother who died in the First World War.

Along with being a fine writer, Kermit was also a courageous soldier. Unwilling to wait for American entry into World War I, he fought first with the British in the Middle East and subsequently served with the American Expeditionary Force in France. He later wrote a splendid memoir of his time fighting with the British entitled War in the Garden of Eden. During World War II, he once again served briefly with the British in the days before the United States entered the fracas. He subsequently received a commission in the United States Army, this despite the fact that his recent years of hard-drinking and hard-living had rendered his body useless for the type of service he most craved: front-line action, the absence of which made him feel inadequate and went against his Rooseveltian grain.

Assigned to Fort Richardson, Alaska without any specific portfolio, he endeavored to create his own. He convinced army pilots to allow him to come along as an observer when they made bomb runs over Japanese positions in the Aleutians. And he volunteered to help his friend Muktuk Marston establish a territorial militia of Eskimos and Aleuts — these to form the backbone of an insurgent underground should the Japanese overrun the region. Two or three times a week he’d visit a little place in Anchorage called Nellie’s Diner and have a few glasses of wine — all his broken body could handle. He was severely weak: his stomach distended, his arms and legs mere sticks. He had little strength, and found most tasks exhausting. Towards the end, it was all he could do to gather himself to make the rounds and enforce the local blackout, which he did many an evening in the company of Marston. This is how the two men were occupied early in the evening of June 3rd, 1943. When they were done, and had returned to the post, Kermit asked Marston what he was going to do next.
“Sleep,” said Marston.
“Sleep,” echoed Kermit. “I wish I could sleep.”

A short while later, alone in his room, Kermit put a .45 to his chin and pulled the trigger. His father had always said: “Where a tree falls, there let it lay.” Kermit lays today at Fort Richardson in Grave 72, Plot-A, beneath a simple white military headstone no different from that of any other serviceman.

-- Edward J. Renehan Jr.

Census: Date: 1900
Place: Oyster Bay, Nassau, New York

Census: Date: 1910
Place: 5-Dist Oyster Bay, Nassau, NY