Edith Roosevelt in Her Own Words

"The wide world" (1927)

In 1927 Edith joined her son Kermit, his wife Belle and her son-in-law Richard Derby in a travel book, Cleared for Strange Ports. Her chapter, "The Odyssey of a Grandmother," opens with a defense of setting out late in life:

"Women who marry pass their best and happiest years in giving life and fostering it, meeting and facing the problems of the next generation and helping the universe to move, and those born with the wanderfoot are sometimes irked by the weight of the always beloved shackles. Then the birds fly, the nest is empty, and at the feet of the knitters in the sun lies the wide world."

She was a widow of eight years and had already traveled around the world, crossing Siberia by train.

Source: Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., "The Odyssey of a Grandmother," in Cleared for Strange Ports (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927).

"This sheaf of papers" (1928)

A year later Edith and Kermit published American Backlogs, a history of her mother's family built from old letters. Their foreword begins:

"The centre of this sheaf of papers will be a young lady who eighty years ago left Norwich, Connecticut, for a 'finishing school' in Paris."

That young lady was Gertrude Tyler, Edith's mother. The foreword is signed by both compilers, "Edith Kermit Roosevelt" and "Kermit Roosevelt," at Oyster Bay, April 1928.

Source: Edith Kermit Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt, American Backlogs: The Story of Gertrude Tyler and Her Family, 1660–1860 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928), Foreword.

"Too late to begin now" (August 1932)

At 71, Edith flew to Washington to support President Herbert Hoover at his notification ceremony. Reporters met her and asked for a statement. Her reply:

"I haven't talked for the press, not in 71 years, and it's too late to begin now."

It was a fair summary of a lifetime. As First Lady she had given reporters posed family portraits rather than interviews.

Source: Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), August 11, 1932, p. 2.

"A real New Yorker" (October 1932)

Eight days before the election, Edith surprised the crowd at Madison Square Garden by stepping up to introduce President Hoover. Her opening words, as the Associated Press reported them:

"I am a real New Yorker, and it is fitting and right that I should welcome the President of the United States into this city, where I have spent my childhood and my early youth."

She had grown up near the Roosevelts in Manhattan, around Union Square.

Source: Associated Press, in the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), November 1, 1932, p. 3.

A Note on Sources

Some lines often credited to Edith are not on this page. The best known, a saying about raising boys to be eagles rather than sparrows, appears in several biographies, but in different words and on different occasions, and no original source for it has been confirmed. Other memorable remarks survive only in a single biography. Until a letter, diary or newspaper of the time turns up, the Library describes those ideas rather than quoting them.

Have a primary source for Edith's words? The Library welcomes corrections and additions.