Is That Really TR…?
By Richard Cashman
It's been widely accepted a young Theodore Roosevelt witnessed Lincoln’s Funeral Procession from a window in his grandfather's house. Where did that start? Well, it all began once upon a time with this photograph.
The image was discovered in the New York Public Library by photojournalist Stefan Lorant. It was taken the day of Lincoln’s NYC Funeral Procession. The view is looking down 14th Street facing the back of Theodore Roosevelt’s Grandfather’s home at 849 Broadway.
At first glance it doesn’t seem like much, but if you look carefully you can see someone peering out a window on the second floor. Here’s where the plot thickens. What if that was Theodore Roosevelt. Imagine finding a photograph of a young TR staring down at Lincoln’s casket from a rear window in his grandfather’s house. This was pure gold.
The problem was when you enlarged the image it was impossible to tell who was looking out the window. For all anyone knew it could be a chambermaid with a bun in her hair, or any one of the Roosevelt children who lived in the house.
At the time of Lincoln’s Funeral TR’s grandfather was a widower sharing the house with his son James, his wife Elizabeth and their four children. Considering all the possibilities there’s no reason to think it had to be TR just because it was his grandfather’s house.
There was another problem. Roosevelt never said he saw Lincoln's Funeral Cortege. It’s not in the Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress where you’ll find the world’s largest collection of original TR documents. It doesn’t appear in any of his childhood diaries, or over 150,000 letters. You won’t read it in any of his speeches and you won’t find it in the Roosevelt Collection at Harvard.
If it didn’t come from TR where did it come from? It came from one person and one person only. It came from TR's second wife Edith who on the day of the funeral was a preschooler a little over 3 ½ years old. This is a picture of Edith at age 3. It’s on display at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site - Home of Theodore Roosevelt.
When Lorant met Edith in 1945 she was 84 and not at her best. In the 1930s doctors began treating Edith with morphine to relieve the pain of an arrhythmic heart condition. While morphine can help manage pain, its chronic use has been linked to dementia in older adults.
During WWII Edith began to have difficulty balancing her checkbook. Her diary entries showed signs of confusion. She frequently struggled to write a grammatically correct sentence.
In 1944 Edith mistook her grandson Quentin II for the son she lost shot down over France in WWI. She told him, “You are the first of my babies to die.”
It was apparent to her doctors and family that Edith’s cognitive impairment had gone beyond normal aging. It was affecting her judgement and visual perception.
In September 1945 Jessica Kraft was hired to help Edith balance her checkbook, pay the bills and keep up with her personal correspondence.
A few weeks later Lorant was sitting in the library at Sagamore Hill handing Edith the photo and asking if it was her husband looking out the window?
She paused and then replied, “Yes, I think that is my husband and next to him his brother. That horrible man. I was a little girl then and my governess took me to Grandfather Roosevelt’s house on Broadway so I could watch the funeral procession. But as I looked down from the window and saw all the black draping, I became frightened and started to cry. Theodore and Elliott were both there. They didn’t like my crying. They took me and locked me in a back room. I never did see Lincoln’s funeral.”
It’s a remarkable recollection when you consider Edith was recalling the details of an event that took place 81 years earlier when she a little more than 3 ½ learning shapes and colors. It’s even more remarkable knowing she was having difficulty balancing her checkbook.
In a speech to the Woman’s Roosevelt Memorial Association, March 15, 1933 a much younger Edith recalled first meeting TR when she was 4. Edith was born August 6, 1861 and if she was 4 that would have been months after the NYC funeral procession and the story ends there.
If you ignore the timeline, the blurry photo and that TR never mentioned witnessing Lincoln’s Funeral all you have left is the unquestioning acceptance of Edith’s 81 year old recollection that’s a mixture of unlikelihood and impossibility. Edith told Lorant she began to cry looking down at the mourning ribbon.
Rather than find an adult Edith said TR locked her in a back room. If he did that where did he get the key? Back rooms are locked from the outside with a key to keep what’s inside safe. It’s unlikely young TR had a key of his own and unlikely his grandfather gave him one without asking, “why?”
By all measure it’s an unprecedented recollection by an 84 year old who never told the story before and would never tell the story again.
Edith never said a word in the seven years the world was watching her husband’s image being carved next to Abraham Lincoln up on Mt. Rushmore.
Who said history isn't fun. Unless someone finds a note in TR’s own hand saying he witnessed Lincoln’s Funeral Procession from a rear window in his grandfather’s house, it's a story best left to your once upon a time imagination.