The
Roosevelt family is a prominent
American business and political family whose members include
United States Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and
Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
The Roosevelts were among the earliest to settle in the
Dutch colonial settlement of
New Amsterdam, in what would later become
New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_family
While
FDR was at
Harvard, his fifth cousin
Theodore "
T. R."
Roosevelt, Jr. (1858–
1919) became
President of the United States; his vigorous leadership style and reforming zeal made him
Franklin's role model and hero.[33] The younger Roosevelt remained a
Democrat, campaigning for Theodore's opponent
William Jennings Bryan.[34] In mid-1902,
Franklin was formally introduced to his future wife
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), Theodore's niece, on a train to
Tivoli, New York, although they had met briefly as children.[35]
Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins, once removed.[36] She was the daughter of
Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt (
1860–94) and
Anna Rebecca Hall (1863–92) of the
Livingston family. At the time of their engagement, Roosevelt was twenty-two and
Eleanor nineteen.[37] Roosevelt graduated from Harvard in 1903 with an
A.B. in history. He later received an honorary
LL.D. from Harvard in 1929.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was born as
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. on
October 27, 1858, in a four-story brownstone at 28
East 20th Street, in the modern-day
Gramercy section of
New York City. He was the second of four children born to socialite
Martha Stewart "
Mittie" Bulloch and glass businessman/philanthropist Theodore "
Thee" Roosevelt, Sr
.. He had an older sister, Anna (nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother,
Elliott, and a younger sister, Corinne. Elliott was the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His father was of half
Dutch[6] and half
English/Irish/
Welsh descent while his mother had
Scottish, English, and
French ancestry. Thee was the fifth son of businessman
Cornelius Van Schaack "
C.V.S." Roosevelt and
Margaret Barnhill. Thee's fourth cousin,
James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of
Major James Stephens Bulloch and
Martha P. "
Patsy"
Stewart.[7]
Roosevelt's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and his need to overcome severe asthma, which has a debilitating impact on the body and personality. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused near deathlike experiences of being smothered to death, terrifying Theodore and his parents.
Doctors had no cure.[8]
Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive.[9] His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a local market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and two cousins formed what they called the "Roosevelt
Museum of Natural History".
Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught; he then studied the animals and prepared them for display. At age nine, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "
The Natural History of
Insects".[10]
Roosevelt's father significantly influenced him. His father had been a prominent leader in
New York's cultural affairs; he helped to found the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had been especially active in mobilizing support for the
Union war effort. Although Roosevelt's father was dead by the time he entered politics, there were many family friends who came to his aid.[11] Roosevelt wrote: "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness."
Family trips abroad, including tours of
Europe in
1869 and
1870, and
Egypt in 1872, also had a lasting impact.[12] Hiking with his family in the
Alps in 1869, Roosevelt found that he could keep pace with his father. He had discovered the significant benefits of physical exertion to minimize his asthma and bolster his spirits.[13][14] With encouragement from his father, Roosevelt began a heavy regime of exercise. After being manhandled by two older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to help him strengthen his weakened body and psyche.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
- published: 30 Jan 2015
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