Valentine’s Day in Theodore Roosevelt’s Life
On Valentine's Day 1880, Theodore Roosevelt told his Harvard friends he was engaged to Alice Hathaway Lee and bought the champagne. Four years later, on February 14, 1884, Alice and his mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, died hours apart in the same New York house. On that day's page of his diary he drew a large X and wrote one sentence: "The light has gone out of my life".
Key Facts
| The engagement | Alice Lee said yes on January 25, 1880. T.R. announced the engagement "to the Club" on February 14, 1880. |
|---|---|
| February 14, 1884 | His mother died about 3 a.m. of typhoid fever. His wife, Alice, 22, died about 2 p.m., in the same house. |
| The house | His mother's home at 6 West 57th Street, New York City |
| Their daughter | Alice Lee Roosevelt, born February 12, 1884, christened February 17 |
| The funeral | A double funeral at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church on February 16, 1884, then burial together at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn |
| His diary that day | A large X and the words "The light has gone out of my life" |
A Valentine's Day Announcement, 1880
T.R. met Alice Hathaway Lee in October 1878. He courted her for more than a year. On Sunday, January 25, 1880, he drove over to the Lees' "determined to make an end of things at last," and she said yes. "I am so happy that I dare not trust in my own happiness," he wrote in his diary that day.
Almost three weeks later, on Saturday, February 14, 1880, he told his friends. His diary records: "Drove back to Cambridge in the morning, announced my engagement to the Club, and 'set up' champagne." That evening he went to a leap year party.
They married on October 27, 1880.
T.R.'s diary, February 13–14, 1880. The Feb. 14 entry records that he "announced my engagement to the Club." (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Theodore Roosevelt Papers)
Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt (Alice Hathaway Lee), three-quarter length portrait, between about 1880 and 1884
A House on West 57th Street
By the winter of 1884, T.R. was serving in the New York State Assembly in Albany. Alice, expecting their baby, was staying at his mother's house, 6 West 57th Street in Manhattan.
On February 12, 1884, Alice gave birth to a daughter. The New-York Tribune reported that T.R. was called home from Albany the next day, Wednesday, February 13. By then the house held two very sick women. His mother, Martha "Mittie" Bulloch Roosevelt, had typhoid fever. Alice was growing weaker.
Thursday, February 14, 1884
His mother died first, at about 3 o'clock in the morning. The cause was typhoid fever.
Alice died that afternoon, at about 2 o'clock, in the same house. She was 22, and their daughter was two days old. T.R. later wrote that she "died in my arms."
The next morning's Tribune ran the news under the headline "Double Bereavement." The paper's death notices the following day (Feb. 16) began both entries with the word "Suddenly." Mittie's read: "Suddenly, on Thursday, February 14, of typhoid fever."
"The Light Has Gone Out of My Life"
T.R. kept a small pocket diary for 1884. Its January pages are blank; the first entry in the volume, now at the Library of Congress, is the one for February 14. On that page he drew a large X and wrote one sentence beneath it: "The light has gone out of my life".
The diary does not stop there. After his entries for February 16 and 17, its pages sit blank for months. He took it up again in June, and the volume runs to December 17, 1884.
T.R.'s diary, February 14, 1884. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Theodore Roosevelt Papers)
Albany Mourns, and the Work Goes On
On February 15, the mood in the Assembly chamber was heavy. The Tribune's Albany correspondent wrote (Feb. 16): "There was a look of sorrow on the faces of the Assemblymen this morning." Former Speaker Husted offered a resolution of regret, and members rose to speak. The day before, T.R.'s special committee investigating New York City departments had called off its sessions for the week "in consequence of the double bereavement," the Tribune reported (Feb. 15).
On the evening of February 14, about 2,000 people packed Cooper Union in Manhattan for "the Roosevelt bill," his measure to take from the Board of Aldermen the power to confirm the mayor's appointments. William M. Evarts spoke, and Chief Justice Noah Davis presided. The Tribune's account does not place T.R. there. The Tribune covered the rally on the same morning it reported the deaths.
T.R.'s diary, February 17, 1884, the end of his tribute to Alice. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Theodore Roosevelt Papers)
Buried Together
On Saturday, February 16, a double funeral was held at Dr. John Hall's Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, at Fifth Avenue and 55th Street. Speaker Sheard came to the city to attend. Mittie and Alice were buried together at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
That day and the next, T.R. filled two diary pages with a short life of Alice. He recorded her birth at Chestnut Hill on July 29, 1861, and wrote, "I wooed her for over a year before I won her." Of their marriage he wrote, "we spent three years of happiness greater and more unalloyed than I have ever known fall to the lot of others."
He ended the entry on February 17, the day he christened their daughter Alice Lee Roosevelt: "For joy or for sorrow my life has now been lived out".
West to the Badlands
Four months later T.R. was in Dakota Territory. On June 9, 1884, his diary records: "Arrived at my cattle ranche ('Chimney Butte Ranche') on the Little Missouri".
The Badlands would hold much of his life for the next two years. That story, of a young widower who became a rancher on the Little Missouri, is part of why the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library stands in Medora today.
Other Valentine's Days
February 14 turns up again and again in T.R.'s life. At 11, on the family's tour of Europe, he wrote in his diary in Rome: "We all went to the Vatican to see the pictures." At 14, on the family's Nile voyage, the entry reads: "Sailed all day. Rough in afternoon."
As President, he signed the act creating the Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903. On February 14, 1905, he spoke on citizenship at the Hungarian Club dinner in New York City, opening, "It is a peculiar pleasure to me to be with you this evening". On February 14, 1906, his published addresses record a talk at the White House to students of the Manassas Industrial School of Virginia about "the fundamental duty of American citizenship—the duty of self-education." That same day Puck put "Cupid at the White House" on its cover. His daughter Alice, the baby of 1884, married Nicholas Longworth at the White House three days later.
In 1914, on the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition in Brazil, Valentine's Day was the day before his party reached Campos Novos, as his book Through the Brazilian Wilderness records. And on February 14, 1918, ill in a New York hospital, he saw his nephew W. Sheffield Cowles Jr., who was on his way to join the Marines, according to the family's edition of his letters to his sister Anna.
"Cupid at the White House," Puck cover by Carl Hassmann, February 14, 1906. (Library of Congress)
Did It Really Happen That Way?
Was T.R. engaged on Valentine's Day? Not quite. Alice accepted him on January 25, 1880. He announced the engagement on February 14. Even T.R. mixed up the date: in his 1884 memorial entry he wrote that the engagement "was announced on Feb 16th," but his diary from 1880 records the announcement on the 14th.
Did his mother and wife die within an hour of each other, or a day apart? Neither. The 1884 Tribune and the Library of Congress put the deaths at about 3 a.m. and about 2 p.m. on the same day, hours apart.
Did Alice die in childbirth? No. She died on February 14, two days after their daughter was born on February 12.
Is "I can hold her in my arms" from the day he got engaged? No. That line, often captioned as an engagement entry, comes from his diary for February 13, 1880, the day before the announcement: "And now I can scarcely realize that I can hold her in my arms and kiss her and caress her and love her as much as I choose."
Did he stop writing in his diary after February 14, 1884? Not for good. After February 17 the pages stay blank for months, but he took the diary up again in June. The volume runs to December 17, 1884, and includes his entries from the Badlands that summer.
Explore More
Timeline of T.R.’s Valentine’s Days
From the Vatican in 1870 to a New York hospital in 1918.
Thanksgiving with Theodore Roosevelt
Courting Alice Lee, and a quiet Badlands Thanksgiving in 1884.
Primary Sources
- T.R.’s diaries for 1880 and 1884 (Library of Congress, Theodore Roosevelt Papers)
- New-York Tribune, Feb. 15, 1884 (Chronicling America)
- Theodore Roosevelt’s Diaries of Boyhood and Youth (1928)
From the Archives
Letters, cards and papers about Valentine’s Day from the Theodore Roosevelt Center’s digital library.
Recommended Reading
- My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (1921)
- Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914)