The Lions Pide

In 1900 President McKinley was elected to a second term, tragically, one year later he was

assassinated. The Vice President rose to the occasion and became the most popular President of the early 1900s and one of the most beloved Presidents America has ever had. His name was Theodore

Roosevelt and in his seven years in office he started America into a great new century and steered

America into becoming a major world power. The Roosevelt family became a definition of what an

American family should be and what it could be. Every member of the Roosevelt family deserves to

be called a "hero" because of what they accomplished with there lives and for what they died trying

to accomplish.

In New York City in 1858, Theodore Roosevelt was born to his mother Sara and father

Theodore Roosevelt Sr. Theodore Roosevelt Sr. Was a lawyer and in his older years a politician, he

also help found the YMCA. Theodore Roosevelt had a famous family heritage , he was related, either

by blood or by marriage, to nine other presidents and he was also related to Jefferson Davis and

Robert E. Lee. As a boy Theodore suffered from nearsightedness and asthma, but with the help of

his father he managed to overcome his physical limitations. Theodore Roosevelt never attended

school but instead had a tutor because of his illnesses. In 1878 Theodore began college at Harvard.

One year after Theodore began at Harvard his father died of stomach cancer, over two thousand

people came to his funeral and a 19 year old Theodore Roosevelt sat on the front row.

When Theodore was 25 he married his first wife Alice Hathaway Lee who soon became

pregnant with their first child. A year later Theodore finished the house on Sagamore Hill that he

built for his wife Alice. In February of that year Alice died during child birth and on the same day,

in another room of the house, Theodore's mom died. Theodore decided to name his new daughter

after her mother Alice Lee. For a while things looked dark. He wrote that his life of happiness was

over. Once Alice died Theodore wanted nothing to do with his new house. He chose to move to the

Badlands of North Dakota where he ranched; leaving baby Alice in the care of one of his sisters in

the East.

Theodore finally pulled himself together and married his second wife, Edith Carow. Edith

made Theodore Roosevelt the father of five more children: Ted Jr. was born in1887, Kermit in 1889,

Ethel in 1891, Archie in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. Theodore's first daughter, born in 1884, was

called sister within the family. Theodore and Edith moved into the house on Sagamore Hill when

Edith found she was pregnant with Ted Jr. Theodore took great joy in spending time with his

children, he once said "I love all these children and have great fun with them." Theodore Roosevelt

took great interest in his children's adventures and tried his best to be the Father Theodore Roosevelt

Sr. had been to him. Theodore described his father as "The greatest man I ever knew, and the only

man I have ever feared."

Theodore Roosevelt had a fascination with the navy ever since he was young. Theodore's

two uncles, Irvine and James Bulloch, both served in the Confederate Navy. The older of the two,

James Bulloch served as an Admiral and Irvine served on the Alabama. Legend has it that Irvine fired

the last shot of the Alabama right before the Kearsarge sank it. Theodore Roosevelt went to visit

his two uncles when he was eleven and he was nothing less than awestruck. More than ten years later

he finished his first book "The Naval War of 1812.". Theodore then persuaded his uncle to write his

memoirs of being a commerce raider. The result was his uncles two volume book "The Secret

Service of The Confederate in Europe." Theodore Roosevelt received a job as assistant secretary to

the navy and his love for the navy later contributed to his policy as President.

In the spring of 1898 the children of Theodore Roosevelt sat on the lawn of Sagamore Hill

and watched their father shoot his rifle at a life-sized paper cut out of a soldier. The children took

turns looking over there fathers shoulder and through the scope. The children tried there best to keep

quite so their father could concentrate. Theodore Roosevelt had just traded his job as assistant

secretary to the navy so that he could fight as a lowly lieutenant colonel in a new calvary division

soon to be known as the Rough Riders. The Roosevelts were not known as warriors but as merchants

as Theodores ancestors had dodged service in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

Theodore Roosevelts own father escaped fighting in the Civil War by paying a German immigrant one

thousand dollars to be his replacement. Theodore had a romantic idea of warfare and insisted that a

country must go through wars in order to grow. Its no coincidence that his favorite hymn was

"Onward Christian Soldier."

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