Bidding Gregor and Lincoln Lang farewell, Theodore and Joe headed north with his prized buffalo trophy. Watching Theodore ride away, Gregor turned to his son and said, “There goes the most remarkable man I ever met. Unless I am badly mistaken, the world is due to hear from him one of these days.”22
The House with a Curse
The light has gone out of my life.
THEODORE REMAINED AT MALTESE CROSS RANCH, AWAITING A TELEGRAM from Sylvane and Merrifield. During this time, he wrote Alice another letter, informing her that he was becoming a cattle rancher:
All day long I spend, rifle in hand, tramping over the rugged hills, or, much more often, galloping or loping for hour after hour among the winding valleys or through the river bottoms. Of course I am dirty— in fact, I have not taken off my clothes for two weeks, not even at night, except for one bath in the river—but I sleep, eat and work as I never could do in ten years’ time in the city.
During these ten days I have also been making up my mind to go into something more important than hunting. I have taken a great fancy to the three men, Merrifield and two brothers named Ferris, at whose ranch I have been staying several days, and one of them has been with me all the time. I have also carefully examined the country, with reference to its capacity for stock raising; and the more I have looked into the matter—weighing and balancing everything, pro and con, as carefully as I knew how—the more convinced I became that there was a chance to make a great deal of money, very safely, in the cattle business. Accordingly I have decided to go into it; very cautiously at first, and, if I come out well the first year, much more heavily as time comes on. Of course it may turn out to be a failure; but even if it does I have made my arrangements so that I do not believe I will lose the money I put in; while if it comes out a success, as I am inclined to think that on the whole it will, it will go a long way towards solving the problem that has puzzled us both a good deal at times—how am I to make more money as our needs increase, and yet try to keep in a position from which I may be able at some future time to again go into public life . . . Even Uncle Jimmie will approve of the step I have taken; but I have long made up my mind that any successful step I take must be taken on my own responsibility. I have been on the ground, I have carefully looked over the chances; I know I run a certain risk, but I do not consider it a very large one, and I believe that the chances are very good for making more of a success than I could in any other way.1
Sylvane and Merrifield sent a telegram stating they had been released from their contract. Theodore Roosevelt was now a cattle rancher. The agreement called for Theodore to place four hundred head of cattle on the ranch, not to exceed twelve thousand dollars in value. Both Ferris and Merrifield would act as ranch managers for seven years, and at the end of that period, they would return to Theodore the value of his original investment, plus half the increase. Sylvane and Merrifield could make intermediate settlements on either account of principal or income, provided the sales would not reduce the herd below its original value without Theodore’s approval. Any purchase of additional cattle would be managed under the same terms during the seven-year period.2
Arriving in St. Paul on September 27, Theodore signed the contract with Sylvane and Merrifield and instructed them to buy an additional three hundred head of cattle. He also asked them to build a better cabin with the basic comforts to make the harsh winters more tolerable.
For the cabin, the two men looked to the Little Missouri River. A large amount of unused pine logs, which had been cut and floated down-river for the Northern Pacific Railroad, were still residing on the riverbanks. The new cabin consisted of three rooms, with wooden floors and whitewashed walls. The steep-pitched roof, which had an attic that served as sleeping quarters for ranch hands, had factory-cut cedar shingles, unlike the common sod or dirt roofs found in many cabins of the area. The three rooms comprised a kitchen, living room, and bedroom. For access to the quarters in the attic, there was a ladder built into the kitchen wall, as well as one outside, next to a square barn-like door. The living room consisted of a small dining table, chairs, a book cupboard, rocking chair, and potbelly stove to heat the room. The kitchen, like the land itself, was sparse, consisting of a stove and work table, and shelves made from a wooden box. Theodore’s small bedroom contained a bed, washstand, small table, chair, a shelf for several books, and a modest bureau. The wooden bed frame either had slats or ropes to hold the tick cloth mattress (filled with either hay or horsehair). A canvas trunk, emblazoned with his initials, sat in the corner of the room. Theodore added two unique items for his frontier living: sheets for his bed (most cowboys simply used their wool blankets on the mattress) and a collapsible rubber bathtub.3
When Theodore returned to New York, people noticed a change in him. He wasn’t the reedy, sickly young man that had left the city several weeks before. He had a stronger confidence about himself. He had gone to see the elephant.4 Theodore Roosevelt was now a bona fide frontier hunter, and he had the buffalo head to prove it. He was no longer a dude from the East but a true Western cattleman with a ranch and stock. He would not be one of those absentee owners who wouldn’t work with the cowhands. No, Theodore would live his dream. In typical fashion, he would embrace it with both hands and heart.
Theodore returned to Albany to begin his third term as a member of the New York legislature, and campaigned vigorously for the position of speaker of the Assembly. Although initially it appeared that he would be elected on the first ballot, many supporters quickly switched their allegiance, and he lost, 30 to 42. Despite the setback, Theodore was made chair of three committees: banking, militia, and cities.5 The Christmas season of 1883 gave way to the frigid winter days of January 1884 and the upcoming arrival of the Roosevelt’s first child.
Alice, entering her final months of pregnancy, was greatly longing for her husband’s company. He typically traveled home on the weekends. “How I did hate to leave my bright, sunny little love yesterday afternoon!” he wrote Alice on February 6. “I love you and long for you all the time, and oh so tenderly; doubly tenderly now, my sweet little wife. I just long for Friday evening when I shall be with you again.”6 Missing Theodore was only part of Alice’s unhappiness. She suffered miserably from cramps, although the family doctor was not terribly concerned, claiming the malady was a common side effect of her pregnancy.7
With assurances from the doctor that the baby would not arrive until at least February 14, Theodore rushed to Albany on Tuesday, February 12, to check on a bill he was sponsoring. With the doctor in attendance, as well as Bamie overseeing the household, Theodore felt confident that Alice and his mother, who was battling a severe cold, were in good hands.
As he left his home, New York City was shrouded under heavy, foggy skies. There was a biting chill to the air, and the sun never broke through during the day. Evening was even darker due to the heavy fog, making visibility extremely difficult. The dense haze muffled the noise of the city to a whisper, except for the croaky call of the foghorns. Train service was limited to the bare essentials, while veteran dockworkers noted that this was the worst fog they’d seen in nearly twenty years. Exterior walls, gates, and iron handrails were covered in a slippery film.
It seemed as if it was the beginning of the end.
Contrasting the bleakness of New York City, Albany’s weather was bright and clear, seeming to symbolize that Theodore’s bill would have little, if any, obstruction when it came to a vote. Advancing through the halls with his usual no-nonsense, purposeful stride, he set to work with plans to return home within a day. Wednesday morning greeted him with a telegram informing him he was the father of a baby girl, born late the previous night. Theodore was heartily congratulated by members of both parties on this momentous event. He requested, and was granted, a leave of absence after the passage of his bill that day.
Within hours a second telegram arrived. Alice’s condition had taken a dramatic turn for the worse, and he was urged to return home at once. Catching the next availa
ble train to Manhattan proved to be a grueling ride. Because of the dense fog, the train plodded its way along the 145-mile route at a maddeningly slow pace. Theodore could do nothing but sit and stare out the windows. For a man who was used to taking action, this laggard train ride must have been sheer hell for him.
The train pulled into Grand Central Station around 10:30 p.m. Theodore hired a hack, and the carriage slowly made its way down the wet foggy streets of Manhattan. When Theodore at last rushed up the steps of the house on West Fifty-Seventh, he was greeted at the door by his younger brother, Elliott, who solemnly told him, “There is a curse on this house. Mother is dying, and Alice is dying too.”
Theodore went to his wife’s bedside on the third floor. Alice, suffering from kidney failure, hardly recognized him. At midnight, church bells tolled. It was February 14—Valentine’s Day—the same day, in 1880, on which he and Alice had announced their engagement. Around two o’clock in the morning, the doctor informed Theodore that he should come to his mother’s room. Mittie, suffering from typhoid fever, passed away an hour later as Theodore and his other siblings stayed at her bedside. She was forty-eight years old.
Summoning whatever strength he had, Theodore returned to Alice, who had slipped into a coma. As dawn broke, the city was shrouded in a blanket of inky, thick fog, requiring the gas streetlights to remain on. A burst of rain in the middle of the morning cleared the air, allowing the sun to shine for a fleeting five minutes before giving way once more to dark, gray skies. Alice Roosevelt, twenty-two, died in Theodore’s arms at two o’clock in the afternoon.
In his diary for that day, he marked an X, and underneath wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”
The two caskets stood next to each other during the service at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church on Saturday, February 16. Throughout the service, Theodore sat in the pew, expressionless. His former tutor, Arthur Cutler, wrote to Bill Sewall that Theodore was in a “dazed, stunned state . . . He does not know what he does or says.”8
The following day, Alice Lee (named after her mother) was baptized. Family and friends recall Theodore’s bewilderment at the passing of his mother and wife within hours of each other. He showed little or no interest in his newborn daughter, pacing endlessly in his room. His siblings were worried that he was on the verge of going mad over his grief.
“We spent three years of happiness greater and more unalloyed than I have ever known fall to the lot of others . . . For joy or sorrow, my life has now been lived out,” he wrote in his diary a day after Alice’s funeral.9
Now surfaces one of the most perplexing traits of Theodore as a person. Obviously distraught over Alice’s death, he would begin to take steps to withdraw her from his life. Aside from writing a parting remembrance for family and friends, it would be the last time he would publicly mention Alice. Within a year of her passing, her name was never mentioned by Theodore or by anyone close to him. Most of the letters between them were destroyed, with only a small handful surviving, including the five Theodore wrote during his buffalo-hunting trip. Pages of Theodore’s scrapbook from his days at Harvard are missing, leading one to surmise that those pages dealt with his romantic pursuit of Alice. He completely excludes Alice from his 1913 autobiography. It was as if she had never existed in his life.
In later years, he disliked the name Teddy, claiming it was the name of a child, not a man. Although that may be partly true, the real reason appears to be that Alice had called him Teddy, or Teddykins. He forever refused to have those names mentioned again. After his exploits at San Juan Hill in 1898, the public and the press often referred to him as Teddy Roosevelt. He could only ignore it.
Alice Lee, Theodore’s first child, was given to Bamie to raise for the time being. Theodore would refer to her as “Baby Lee,” ignoring her first name, another memory of Alice. In later years, although father and daughter were close, there is no documented evidence that he ever spoke to Alice Lee about her mother. It was reported that when Alice would ask her father about her mother, Theodore suggested she ask her aunt Bamie. Like his father’s refusal to join the Union Army in the Civil War, Theodore would blot from his memory anything that pained him. For him, looking back was reserved for only the happy memories in his life. Anything involving great pain quickly became a closed door that was never opened or spoken of again. Alice Roosevelt was expunged from his memory, from his scrapbooks and future diaries. Even the home he was building would be renamed, forever distancing the memory of the woman it was initially built for. If Theodore Roosevelt ever thought of, spoke of, or remembered Alice Roosevelt after her death, he took it with him to the grave.
“There is nothing left for me except to try to so live as not to dishonor the memory of those I loved who have gone before me,” he said.10 The home on West Fifty-Seventh Street was sold within a week of its listing. Theodore sold the brownstone he and Alice had purchased, never again setting foot in the home. He left it to Bamie to handle the sale and disbursement of its contents. In a letter to Bill Sewall, Theodore noted, “I have never believed it did any good to flinch or yield for any blow. Nor does it lighten the pain to cease from working.”11
After the funeral and Alice’s christening, Theodore threw himself back into his work, returning to the New York Assembly on February 18. This was his way of dealing with loss. In a February 21 letter to Carl Schurz, he thanked the man for his “words of kind sympathy,” stating he was back at work. “Indeed I think I should go mad if I were not employed.”12
Theodore set a grinding and endless schedule, from holding investigative hearings to introducing numerous bills on the Assembly floor. Theodore even rewrote his committee’s investigative report on political corruption in New York City just hours before it was to be delivered to the Assembly. Rarely sleeping, he would nap on the train going back and forth from Albany to Manhattan. “He feels the awful loneliness more and more, and I fear he sleeps little, for he walks a great deal in the night, and his eyes have that strained red look,” his sister Corrine wrote to Elliott.13
The Republican presidential convention began on June 1 in Chicago. The party was heavily fractured, with many rallying to nominate James G. Blaine, while others pushed for current president, Chester A. Arthur. Having assumed the presidency after James A. Garfield’s assassination in 1881, Arthur decided to run for a full term, although many in the party felt he was too weak (both politically and physically) to survive the upcoming election. Blaine, who had served in the House and Senate since 1863, was the favored choice, despite persistent rumors of financial impropriety. His 1876 bid for the presidency had crashed when rumors circulated that he had received a hefty payment (nearly $64,000) from the Union Pacific Railroad in exchange for bonds he owned of a smaller railroad, the Little Rock and Fort Smith, which were virtually worthless. While charges of accepting a bribe were never proven, Blaine could not shake its shadow. He lost a second bid for nomination in 1880, but was now the leading contender for nomination.
Theodore arrived with the intention of helping to nominate Vermont senator George F. Edmunds, an honest, conscientious, and banal candidate. A contentious battle for the nomination saw votes for Edmunds dwindle on each ballot while Blaine’s numbers increased. Both Edmunds and President Arthur, who would die from kidney failure in 1886, lost the nomination to James G. Blaine. With another party machine hack in the running, several Republicans toyed with jumping ship to support the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland. Even though he was disgusted with the antics of the Republican Party machine, Theodore told a reporter he would not bolt from the party or the convention, adding that he had “no personal objection” to Blaine.14
Politics now lacked the spark it once held for Theodore. The actions that got Blaine nominated only reinforced his distaste of corrupt party hacks pushing their candidate of choice. Obviously, his recent personal tragedy exacerbated his feelings. The grief he suffered was still there, no matter how hard he worked, how little he slept, or how many bills he introduced. Trav
eling to Manhattan every weekend to visit his baby daughter was a constant reminder of his tragic loss.
In a letter to the Utica Morning Herald, Theodore stated that his work in the Assembly had been “very harassing,” leaving him tired and restless. He planned to leave public life and return to the Dakotas, spending two or three years hunting and writing.15
It was time for a change.
“Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough; at any rate, not when he first feels the horse move under him,” Theodore wrote in 1888 of cowboys riding during a roundup.16 Like the heroes that appealed to his romantic nature, Theodore would saddle up and ride out into the vastness of the Badlands to lose himself. He would bury his grief in the unbounded rolling hills, the coulees, the dry creek beds, and the bottomland along the Little Missouri River. Cottonwood trees, with the leaves whispering in the wind, would comfort him. The West, as it had done for many others over the recent decades, would allow Theodore to work, ride, and grieve without asking questions. It would also test him as a man. The Western land would force him to face his fears, his grief, and his moral beliefs like nothing he would experience in the East. The West was the proving ground. Many had tried, few had succeeded. He would have to show, as the cowboys would say, that he wasn’t “all hat and no cattle.”17 Shooting a buffalo was one thing, but riding the range for hours, or days, branding cattle, and standing up to men who thought the law did not apply to them was another situation entirely.
THE COWBOY PRESIDENT Page 8