Theodore Roosevelt

Personal life

Though Roosevelt was Dutch Reformed by birth, there was no church of that denomination available to him as a child, and he therefore did not join it until the age of 16. As a child he attended Madison Square Presbyterian Church. While attending Harvard University, he taught Sunday school at an Episcopal church ("Christ's Church") until the rector discovered Roosevelt had not been baptized Episcopalian. Later in life when he lived at Oyster Bay in Long Island, he attended an Episcopal church with his wife. While in Washington, D.C., he attended services at Grace Reformed Church. As President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unconstitutional to have In God We Trust on U.S. currency, not because of a lack of faith in God, but because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money. He tried unsuccessfully to have that legend removed.

Related Topics:
Dutch Reformed - Madison Square Presbyterian Church - Harvard University - Sunday school - Episcopal - Oyster Bay - Long Island - Washington, D.C. - Grace Reformed Church - Separation of church and state - In God We Trust - U.S. currency

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Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in pursuing what he called "the strenuous life." To this end he exercised regularly and took up boxing, tennis, hiking, rowing, hunting, polo, and horseback riding. As Governor of New York, he boxed with sparring partners several times a week, a practice he regularly continued as President until one blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye. Thereafter he practiced jiujitsu and continued as well his habit of skinny-dipping in the Potomac River during winter.

Related Topics:
Exercise - Tennis - Hiking - Rowing - Hunting - Polo - Horseback riding - Retina - Eye - Jiujitsu - Skinny-dipping - Potomac River

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At the age of 22, Roosevelt married his first wife, 19-year-old Alice Hathaway Lee. Their marriage ceremony was held on October 27, 1880, at the Unitarian Church in Brookline, Massachusetts. Alice was the daughter of the prominent banker George Cabot Lee and Caroline Haskell Lee. The couple first met on October 18, 1878, at the residence of her next-door neighbors, the Saltonstalls. By Thanksgiving Roosevelt had decided to marry Alice. He finally proposed in June 1879, though Alice waited another six months before accepting the proposal; their engagement was announced on Valentine's Day 1880. Alice Roosevelt died shortly after the birth of their first child, whom they also named Alice. In a tragic coincidence, his mother died on the same day as his wife at the Roosevelt family home in Manhattan.

Related Topics:
October 27 - 1880 - Brookline, Massachusetts - George Cabot Lee - October 18 - 1878 - Thanksgiving - 1879 - Valentine's Day - Alice - Manhattan

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In 1886 he married Edith Carow. They had five children: Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel, Archibald, and Quentin. Although Roosevelt's father was also named Theodore Roosevelt, he died while the future president was still childless and unmarried, so Roosevelt took the suffix of Sr. and subsequently named his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Because Roosevelt was still alive when his grandson and namesake was born, said grandson was named Theodore Roosevelt, III, and consequently the president's son retained the Jr. after his father's death.

Related Topics:
Theodore Jr. - Kermit - Ethel - Archibald - Quentin - Theodore Roosevelt, III

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