Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Me
Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the wild child of President Theodore Roosevelt and because we are distantly related and she loved a good gossip, I was often invited to have tea with her on Thursday afternoons. As a budding writer, I was an incurable eavesdropper.
Alice entered the White House as a rambunctious 17-year-old party girl. She publicly smoked, drank and caroused with men. She allegedly jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed while on a diplomatic mission to Japan.
She had a contentious marriage to Republican Congressman Nicholas Longworth, but it was common knowledge that her only daughter was fathered by Senator William Borah.
Her exasperated father said that “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both”.
I adored her especially because I was a timid little girl, the farthest thing from a wild child which is what I really wanted to be.
And she loved my company because I had a good ear for the kind of tale I heard around my parents’ dinner table that she wanted to hear.
So imagine my delight when recently, I learned from Michael Cullinane*, a historian in England, that he had just transcribed an interview with Alice in which she talks about me.
Apparently when I was only six years old, I picked up on her faux English accent which she herself admitted sounded “absurd” in 20th Century America, so she was especially amused when I imitated her. She declared that she thought I was a prim little girl, but when I turned around and repeated her exact words with her odd inflection, she roared with laughter and declared me to be a wicked child. She went on to say that “we became the kind of friends that have never been: we laughed until we cried.”
I have no memory of this encounter, but it does help explain why I loved her company and leapt at every chance to spend time with her. And all these years later, I’m pleased that she had bestowed on me her highest compliment… I too was a wicked child.
*Remembering Theodore Roosevelt: Reminiscences of his Contemporaries by Michael Cullinane
