My Brother, Theodore RooseveltRobinson, Corinne Roosevelt
History
My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt
Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
On September 12 my husband, Douglas Robinson, the unfailing friend
and devoted brother of Theodore Roosevelt, died very suddenly, and
my brother and sister-in-law hurried to the old home on the Mohawk
Hills which my husband had loved so well. Putting themselves and
their own grief for Mr. Robinson and their own late personal sorrow
entirely aside, they did all that could be done by those we love to
help me in every way. My brother had always cared for Henderson House,
its traditions and its customs, and even in the midst of the sorrow
which now hung over the old place, he constantly spoke to me of his
appreciation of its atmosphere. At the time of my husband’s death my
eldest son came quickly back for two days from the camp where he was
training, to his own home adjoining mine, and his children were with
us constantly during those days, as were the children of my nephew and
niece, Hall and Margaret Roosevelt, who occupied a little cottage on my
place. I remember with what tender thoughtfulness my brother withdrew
himself on the Sunday afternoon after the funeral and wrote a long
letter to my second son, Monroe, a captain in the 77th Division, then
in the Argonne Forest in France. Just as he had found comfort in his
own little grandchildren during those hard days at Dark Harbor, Maine,
so, while facing the great loss of his lifelong and devoted friend
and brother-in-law, he turned to an affectionate intercourse with the
little ones of the youngest generation of the family, and on September
19, when he had left me and gone to Oyster Bay, he writes: “I think of
you with tenderest love and sympathy all the time. I cannot get over my
delight in Helen and Teddy’s darling children; and I loved Margaret’s
brace of little strappers also. Archie and Gracie have hired a little
apartment in town.” His son Captain Archibald Roosevelt had returned
from France sorely wounded in both arm and leg, wounds and disabilities
which he bore with undaunted patience and courage.
On October 13, in response to a letter of mine in which I told him that
a Monsieur Goblet had wished the honor of dedicating to him a poem, and
at the same time had also asked the privilege of translating my verses
“To France” into the French language, he writes to me:
“I have written to M. Goblet as you suggested; I feel that you have
every right to be really pleased with what he says about your poem--a
noble little poem.
“How admirably Monroe has done. It is astonishing how many men I meet
who speak of Douglas [my husband] not only with deep affectionate
regard but with a keen sense of the loss of an exceptionally vigorous
and powerful personality. Tell Helen that I am really counting on that
visit from her delightful children. Their attitude touched me very
much. I am much concerned at what you tell me about gallant Bye’s
health. Give her my dearest love.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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