Little Known First Ladies: Edith Roosevelt Quiz

Answer: They were neighbors

Edith was born in Norwich, Connecticut but her family lived in Union Square in Manhattan. The Roosevelts, including Teddy who was three years older than Edith, lived next door. The Roosevelts and Carows were great friends and the children attended school together in the Roosevelt household. Edith was best friends with Teddy's sister Corinne.

Although it is not known for certain, presidential historians believe Teddy and Edith had a romantic relationship as teenagers that ended when Teddy went away to college.

Answer: Alice

Teddy's first wife was Alice Lee, a woman he met while studying at Harvard. The two married young and Edith even attended their wedding. However, Alice died at the age of twenty-two shortly after giving birth to their daughter Alice. She also died a few hours after Teddy's mother passed away.

Alice was a strikingly beautiful woman whom every called Sunshine. Teddy was madly in love with her and was heartbroken by his death. In order to move on from his first wife, Teddy called his daughter Baby Lee because he could not bear to call her Alice, the name she shared with her mother.

Answer: Nature

In the decade prior to her marriage, Edith's family experienced several financial hardships. She would spend much of this time with her grandparents in New Jersey. Her grandparents owned a farm and Edith took interest in wildflowers and animals both on the farm and along the shore.

One of the things Teddy is most remembered for is his love of nature and being a conservationist. Edith also shared his love of nature and was active in conservation campaigns.

Answer: They hardly saw each other

Teddy and Edith's engagement remained a secret for some time. Teddy had openly believed that men should not remarry after becoming a widower because he felt it showed weakness and was disrespectful to the first wife. After Alice died, Teddy avoided Edith, knowing he would fall in love with her. However, he met up with her at his sister's house unexpectedly.

Edith was in financial difficulties and had publicly mentioned her desire to marry a rich man to solve that issue. However, this engagement was one of love and Edith wished to avoid the appearance she was marrying Teddy for money. Edith, her mother and her sister continued on with their plan to move to London to avoid financial troubles further. Teddy went out to his ranch in the Dakotas. He traveled by boat to London in 1886 and married Edith there.

Answer: Lieutenant Colonel of the Rough Riders

In 1888, Teddy was appointed to the Civil Service Commission in Washington. Edith enjoyed life in Washington with her husband and their children and convinced Teddy not to run for Mayor of New York in 1894 because she did not want to move back to New York. She was dismayed when he was elected Governor of New York in 1898 but relocated to the Governor's Mansion with her family. She was further dismayed when Republican officials asked Teddy to be William McKinley's running mate during the presidential election of 1900 but helped elect the ticket anyway.

Edith supported Teddy going to fight as the leader of the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. Edith was recovering from major surgery when Teddy left and she relocated to Florida to keep up to date with the news from Cuba. She broke quarantine to visit Teddy after he came back from the war. However, the war made Teddy a national popular public figure and Edith hated the publicity. It was this attention that ushered in Teddy's political career.

Answer: Limited living space

Edith and Teddy had five children in addition to Alice, Edith's stepdaughter. The area of the White House that was typically set aside for the First Family was way too small to accommodate the family of eight. Teddy lobbied Congress for funding to improve the White House, which was in desperate need of upgrading.

Edith oversaw most of the domestic needs of the White House herself while previous First Ladies had housekeepers. Edith was the first First Lady to hire a social secretary, Belle Hagner, who oversaw most of the social expectations for Edith. Edith used Hagner to deal with the press because the First Lady hated the press. Edith greatly expanded the role of the First Lady. With Hagner's help, Edith frequently hosted parties and social events so as to not be outshone by the wives of other politicians. Edith's predecessor, Ida McKinley, was often ill and did not host social affairs, leaving those events to other political wives. Edith sought to bring the events back to the White House.

Answer: Yes

Because of her children, Edith did not always travel with the president especially when he traveled to the western part of the country. However, she became the first sitting First Lady to travel abroad when she went with Teddy to the Panama Canal Zone. As her children grew older, Edith began traveling more with her husband and making more public appearances.

Answer: Her husband being assassinated

Roosevelt was president from 1901-1909 during which time anarchist threats against world leaders were common. His predecessor had been assassinated and Edith constantly worried about his safety. She purchased a cabin in rural Virginia called Pine Knot as a private retreat for her husband. While her husband was at Pine Knot, she had the Secret Service observe him without the president's knowledge.

In 1912, Roosevelt attempted a comeback to the presidency. He was shot while giving a speech in Chicago and Edith, who was in New York at the time, traveled to be with him. She became overprotective of the former president and forbid anyone from visiting him. One exception to this was Jane Addams who helped found the Progressive Party that Roosevelt was running from.

Answer: Franklin Roosevelt

Edith despised the future president Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, both of whom were related to her husband. Much of her dislike for Franklin stemmed from the public mistakenly believing that she was actually his mother when he ran for president. However, Edith had already disliked both Franklin and Eleanor before then. She found Franklin loud and obnoxious at family events and thought Eleanor lacked any grace for a woman. During the 1932 Presidential Election, the widowed Edith campaigned extensively for incumbent president Hoover (who was extremely unpopular at the time).

Edith also hated Woodrow Wilson. When Wilson was president, Edith and Teddy actively campaigned against him and his foreign policies during World War I. She got along well with her husband's other successors, including FDR's Harry Truman.

During the Election of 1912, Taft was running for re-election. Taft and Roosevelt had been good friends and Taft was more or less Teddy's handpicked successor. However, Taft proved to be a poor leader and Roosevelt ran against him as their friendship suffered. Despite this, Edith maintained a good relationship with Taft and did not share the same progressive views Teddy adopted.

Answer: She handled it very well

Quentin Roosevelt, Edith and Teddy's youngest child, died in 1918 when his plane was shot down over France. All documented accounts of the situation reveal that Edith handled the news well. She made a special effort to remain physically and socially active to avoid falling into depression.

It was Teddy who did not. Teddy was already very ill at the time and the news of his son's death further deteriorated his physical condition. Quentin Roosevelt is the only child of a U.S. President to die in combat.