Roosevelt Loses Alice
A few months after Alice had died TR wrote this private memorial sitting at a small table in a cabin in the Bad Lands.
“
She was born at Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts on July 29, 1861. I first saw her on October 19, 1878 and loved her as soon as I saw her sweet, fair young face; we were betrothed on January 25, 1880 and married on October 27th of the same year; we spent three years of happiness such as rarely comes to man or woman; on February 12, 1884, her baby girl was born; she kissed it and seemed perfectly well; some hours afterward she, not knowing that she was in the slightest danger, but thinking only that she was falling into a sleep, became insensible, and died at two o’clock on Thursday afternoon February 14, 1884, at 6 West 5th Street, in New York; she was buried two days afterward, in Greenwood Cemetery.
She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit; as a flower she grew, and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine; and there had never come to her a single great sorrow; and none ever knew her who did not love and revere her for her bright sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving, tender, and happy as a young wife; when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be but just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her – then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her.
And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went out from my life forever.”
