Theodore Roosevelt #1: His Father's Influence (1858-1878)

Hi everyone, I'm David Fisher and this is Presidential Chronicles, the series of books and videos on American history as seen through the lives of the presidents of the United States. This episode is from the life of Theodore Roosevelt and the focus is his father's influence. And no one had more influence on Theodore Roosevelt than his father, Theodore Sr. Sr. was born into a wealthy family. In fact, the Roosevelts were one of the wealthiest families in all of New York, one of the first millionaire families in New York prior to the Civil War. So he didn't really have to work, although he did contribute somewhat to the family business. But mostly Theodore Sr. was a philanthropist. He raised money from the wealthy in the city to do good works. He started a hospital that bore his name for over 100 years. He founded the Natural History Museum in New York. He raised funds for child welfare programs. He was a highly respected member of the New York community. But none of that really mattered all that much to the four Roosevelt children, including his boy by his same name, Theodore Jr. They just wanted their dad. He was the center of their universe. They looked up to him as a man, as a father figure, as someone who they wanted to play with. They wanted to please. They learned from him. He was the center of their universe. Now, one of the four kids actually spent a little bit more time with him than the others, and that's because he was a sickly boy. And this is, of course, Theodore Jr. They called him TD. We'll call him Roosevelt for the rest of this episode. And Roosevelt was a sickly boy. He had stomach problems, headaches. He had poor eyesight, really bad eyesight, but nothing compared to the asthma. He had these horrific asthma attacks, and they would come and they would last for hours. The parents really didn't know if he was going to make it sometimes. He might be struggling for his very last breath, and there were no cures. There was no treatment for asthma at the time. They tried a bunch of things. They tried caffeine in the form of coffee. Didn't really help. They tried smoking cigars. Thought that might help as well. Again, of course, it didn't. But the one thing that the father could do is hold his son, comfort him, be with him for hours on end, sometimes in the house, sometimes out for drives, trying to get some fresh air. He was Theodore Jr.'s hero in more ways than one. Now, because Roosevelt was such a sickly child, he was homeschooled. But that didn't mean he stayed away from learning. In fact, he was a voracious reader. He would woo himself in books. He was very smart. His favorite were adventure stories where he could woo himself in characters that, of course, he couldn't be because he was such a sickly child, but he could imagine himself living these heroic roles through the books that he would read. At one point, he read, from reading of the people I admired, ranging from the soldiers at Valley Forge and Morgan's Riflemen to the heroes of my favorite stories, and from knowing my father, I had a great admiration for men who were fearless and who could hold their own in the world, and I had a great desire to be like them. In fact, he had that great desire his entire life. This was the thought process, the romanticism of Theodore Roosevelt, trying to reach for those unreachable stars, and his father was very much that guiding light. Now, his father took the family to Europe just after the Civil War, when T.D. was 10 at the time. He was kind of bored, actually, at the time. Again, he was a young child. He mostly had fun playing his adventure games, either in hotel lobbies or in hotel hallways. But one thing happened on that European trip that really made a big difference. The family was in a rigorous hike near the Alps, and Roosevelt found he actually felt better. He felt he was breathing better. And so, when they got home, his father put him aside and said, son, you know, you have the mind, but you don't have the body, and if you want to go far in this world, you're going to have to make your body to be able to help get you where you want to be. And so, Roosevelt was excited by this, and he said, he rose up in his chair, and he had a big smile on his face, and he told his father that I will make my body. And he committed from that day, really, for the rest of his life, to a rigorous exercise regimen that he felt really helped him, especially with the asthma. So, they actually set up a home gym in one of the rooms in the house. They had wrestling mats in there. They had a high bar for chin-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups. They had it put in a boxing bag to do a lot of heavy boxing work, and boxing became a sport of choice for Roosevelt, again, for most of the rest of his life. This is as an early teenager, mind you. And he started to feel better. He literally felt like he was expanding his chest so that he could breathe better. Whether the medical side of that is true or not, it's how he felt. And of course, his parents were much relieved that all of a sudden, their sickly little boy was starting to not only get in shape, but the bouts of the asthma attacks were dramatically reduced. Now, the other thing that really fascinated Roosevelt as a youngster was nature. He loved going out into the wild, where he would capture all kinds of critters. And he wanted to study them, the different species, whether it was reptiles or birds that he would, oftentimes, he would shoot, he would capture, he would then bring home, and he would stuff them and preserve them. He was literally a taxidermist with his official taxidermy kit as a young teenager. He would draw these animals to really get a finite knowledge of them. And again, this was some of his appreciation of nature that would last him for the rest of his life. In fact, it was his love of animals that was his focus when they went back to Europe a couple of years later. This time, Egypt was the first destination amongst many other countries, which was a big deal to Theodore Jr., because again, he was thinking of the romanticism that he had read about when it comes to Egypt. But mostly, he spent his time near the Nile bagging birds, like 200 of them, that he would capture, he would stuff, he would preserve, he would bring home. And at his home, he actually set up what he called the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History, right there in the Roosevelt home. Now, when they got home, his father said, Theodore, it's now time to take yourself to the next level. Remember, he had been homeschooled because he was so sickly, but now his father believed it was time to start talking about college. And for him, that meant Harvard. Well, for Roosevelt to be ready for Harvard, they brought in a tutor and they crammed three years of study into a two-year period of time. And sure enough, he aced those entrance exams. By the time he was just about to turn 18, he was off to Harvard for college. First time he'd ever been away from home, first time he'd ever been away from his father. His father left him with some pretty good guidance. He said, number one, take care of your morals. Number two, your health. Number three, your studies. All are important, but do them in that order. Morals come first. This sense of righteousness of doing the right thing was imbued in Roosevelt from a very early age, reinforced by his father, and again, something, a pattern, a trait that stayed with him the rest of his life. One of the other things that his father taught him is, look, the Roosevelts don't stand on the sideline. You're here in this world to engage. And that's exactly what Theodore Jr. did throughout his college career. He joined just about every club there was. He made friends very easily. And again, this was a new thing for him because he'd never been in a school environment before, but he was frankly the center of attention almost any time, any place, including in college. He also continued his rigorous exercise regimen. Boxing was his sport of choice in college where he got to be pretty good, even though he was undersized compared to some of the much bigger kids. He was a very happy person. At one point, he wrote his father a note. He says, I do not think there is a fellow in college who has a family who love him as much as you all do me. I am sure there is no one who has a father who is also his best and most intimate friend as you are mine. He was happy in college. He was happy at home. But a lot of that was going to be shaken the following year. His sophomore year, Christmas 1877, Roosevelt came home and his father was different. He was ill. He had no energy, lethargic, couldn't eat. And Theodore Jr. is trying to be compassionate, wondering what's going on, but he's really worried about his father's health. And frankly, he had reason to worry. His father had stomach cancer. His father was dying in his late 40s, still a young man. Now, they tried to hide some of this from Theodore Jr. to put the best face on it that they could. So they sent him back to college, but only a month later, they sent him the telegram. February 9th, 1878, you got to come home, son. Your father's not doing well. He gets on the first train. He comes home. He's too late. His father had passed earlier that day. Now, again, this was the center of his universe and he was more than distraught. He was in a grief period for weeks on end, wondering his journal entries, what am I going to do? How am I going to respond to not having this rock, this center of my universe around to counsel me, to be my friend, to be my coach and mentor? He was terribly distraught over the loss of his father, but he also had a turn to the future because it was important to him to live up to his father. And he wrote in his journal in one of these notes, how little worthy I am of such a father, how I wish I could ever do something to keep up his name. That was something that guided him really again for the rest of his life. His father was only around for the first third of his life in physical being, but he was with him his entire life from a mental capacity and a moralistic quality. Later on in life, Roosevelt would say, whenever he had a tough choice to make, something that again had a gray line and moralistic components to it, right and wrong, he would ask himself, what would father think if he knew that I just did X or Y? And that often would dictate his choices. So he really did stay with him the rest of his life. One of the other interesting things happened at the time of his father's passing. There was an enormous outpouring of emotion of support from the New York community for Theodore Senior. And this made a big impression on Roosevelt, who really had not realized what a tremendous impact his father had had on the community. And he realized at that moment that that's something that he wanted to do. It's one of the main reasons that he decided to go into politics. That is a story for another day. That is Theodore Roosevelt and his father's influence from the life of Theodore Roosevelt. For more presidential chronicles, check out my books on amazon.com and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Until next time, I'm David Fisher, and this is Presidential Chronicles.