Mittie's Wedding Day
The bride was only eighteen, and her slight figure and girlish face made her seem even younger as she stood in front of the dining room fireplace to take her vows. The bridegroom, at twenty-three, was solidly built, and his girth, combined with a ruddy, bewhiskered face, gave an impression more of protector than lover. As the groom stood close beside the bride, her face practically glowing from the light of the fire, they were both nearly upstaged by their surroundings. With Christmas only three days away, Bulloch Hall, the childhood home that the bride would remember fondly long after she had grown up, had been lavishly decorated with ribbons, candles, and green mistletoe and red holly berries that grew in abundance on the plantation just north of Atlanta. The entire household had worked for days to prepare for the Thursday evening in 1853 when Mittie Bulloch, the youngest daughter in the family, married Theodore Roosevelt of New York City.
At first the bride had wished for a small wedding, one that would not cost her widowed mother too much effort or money. But then, rethinking the matter, she had decided to splurge. A girl married only once, she reasoned, and she ought to make the most of it. When her parents built the house fewer than twenty years earlier, they had insisted on a fireplace in every room, and on this evening, Mittie wanted every one of them blazing. And blaze they did.
She might be young, but the bride had already developed a strong will of her own. Before Theodore arrived in Georgia for the ceremony, she taunted him with the fact that she was receiving attention from other men. It was her right, she insisted, even as an engaged woman to dance with whomever she pleased. She even presumed to dictate his behavior, writing him careful instructions to arrive one day before the nuptials "and not a day sooner." Later it would be said that she possessed her own unique way of doing things, but even in her teens she showed a headstrong quality that set her apart from her contemporaries. For this occasion, she had boasted to the bridegroom that she meant to show everyone in attendance how such celebrations should be staged.
Mittie's self-confidence showed in her choice of bridesmaids: she selected local women all slightly older than herself. Besides sister Anna, three girlhood friends stood beside the bride that evening: Evelyn King, from the impressive Barrington Hall a half mile down the road, and two others who came from only slightly farther away but from equally stately homes. All of them wore white, but Mittie's sanguine manner left no doubt about which one deserved center stage. It is sometimes said that every woman is beautiful on her wedding day, but Mittie was extraordinary. Barely five feet tall, she had the clear blue eyes and tiny hands and feet of a mannequin. But her most remarkable features were her complexion, described by her granddaughter as "more moonlight white than cream-white," and her mass of shiny black hair.
Definitely the bride's party, this celebration drew guests from all over that part of Georgia but only a remarkably small contingent of Roosevelts. None of Theodore's four brothers or their families had made the trip south for the ceremony; only his parents, the severe Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, a prosperous New York merchant, and his Philadelphia-born wife, Margaret Barnhill, represented the clan. This marked the first time either Margaret or Cornelius had ventured into the Deep South. Evelyn King sensed some discomfort on their part, and many years later, as the last surviving bridesmaid, she told a young reporter, then known as Peggy Mitchell, but later famous as the author of Gone with the Wind, what she thought of the Roosevelts: "Like most northern people of that time, they were very ignorant about the South. Goodness only knows what they expected us to be like."
Immediately following the ceremony, the celebration began. The bride's family had been preparing for weeks, and now tables throughout Bulloch Hall displayed an array of hams, turkeys, and cakes, alongside a huge assortment of salads and pickled vegetables. Most dazzling of all, the "frozen cream" attracted a string of gawkers. Ice cream, known in England since the mid-1600s, had been introduced in the colonies around the time of the Revolution, and Dolley Madison served the delicacy at her husband's second inaugural ball in 1813. But places like Roswell, Georgia, where temperatures rarely fell to freezing, had less acquaintance with the cold, creamy dessert. For Mittie's wedding the ice had to be shipped in from the North, and then, using the newly invented ice cream freezer, servants cranked several gallons of cream, sugar, and flavorings into a luscious concoction in just a few minutes.
In the style of the time, the festivities continued for one full week. For guests who had traveled too far to return home each night, the neighboring houses provided sleeping space, although hours for sleeping were short. During the day, luncheons and teas kept the older guests busy while the young people walked and rode horses. In the evening, all ages mingled in dancing and storytelling that filled the houses with song and laughter. Mittie's brother Dan provided the music the day of the ceremony by playing his flute "in perfect time" and thus making an indelible impression on the staid Roosevelts. In the days following the reception, hired musicians joined in, rotating with each other and the guests until it became impossible to distinguish who among them had come to work and who to dance. After seven days of fun, the wedding finally ended. As Evelyn King told Margaret Mitchell many years later: "Everybody packed up and went home for it was all over and we were very tired."
The young Mrs. Roosevelt, who had written her fiancé just weeks earlier that he was the "only person who could so suit me and I put every confidence in you," now gamely set out with her new husband for the trip north. During the journey--partly in a carriage and partly by ship, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt had plenty of time to think about what she was leaving behind. She may have had some doubts about the family she was marrying into, but not because of any feelings of inadequacy about her own family tree. Quite the contrary, she had reason to sense a slight edge on her part, especially if she ignored money and counted up the many achievements of her ancestors. An unbiased observer might have backed her up. Seven generations of Roosevelts had lived in America without achieving much fame, but their star rose quickly after she married into the clan.