The First Ladies by Feather Schwartz Foster

Author:Feather Schwartz Foster
Language: ru
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2012-01-25T09:03:05+00:00

EDITH ROOSEVELT

1861–1948

FIRST LADY: 1901–09

The Elegant White House

There was never a time Edith Carow did not know Theodore Roosevelt. Her best friend Corinne was Theodore’s younger sister, and their nannies wheeled their prams around Gramercy Park in New York City. Hers was an old and decent family, but her father was inclined toward drink and thus a spotty provider. The kindly patrician Roosevelts included little Edie in their outings whenever possible. Most of their acquaintances believed that when the children grew up, Edith would marry Theodore. But it didn’t happen. At least not the way they thought.

Theodore went off to college and fell deeply in love with beautiful and wealthy Alice Lee. They married when Theodore graduated. True to her steely reserved nature, Edith Carow showed little outward regret and kicked up her heels at the wedding. What happened within Edith usually stayed within Edith. Since her family’s lack of finances precluded either a college education or a traditional social debut, and it would have been social suicide to get a job, she led a quiet life, seeing a few friends, reading voraciously, and keeping to herself. She seemed destined to become an old maid.

Three years later, Theodore’s young wife died in childbirth. The grieving husband deposited his infant daughter with his older sister and went west to become a cowboy. It would be another two years until Theodore and Edith became reacquainted. This time, the grown man and the attractive twenty-five-year-old young woman discovered the commonalities that would make for a happy, prosperous, and never-boring union.

First and foremost, according to those who knew her, Edith Roosevelt was a wife and mother. In addition to baby Alice, there would be five more vigorous Roosevelts, all possessed of their father’s abundant energy and vitality and both parents’ unending curiosity about everything. It is said that Theodore read a book a day, and Edith matched him one-for-one, albeit their tastes were different. His were more scientific, hers more arty. What developed was an incredibly broad range of subjects that could and would be discussed intelligently and in detail at their always-lively dinner table. Since Theodore Roosevelt was not only wide-ranging and political, but very, very social, their large family table was usually expanded to include numerous, diverse guests nearly every night.

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