Man of Letters, Words, Phrases, Sentences, Books

 

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Theodore Roosevelt talked a lot.

Six years ago when I started this blog, I wanted to publicize my study of our twenty-sixth president to a larger audience.  I’d finished my book about his childhood as a naturalist but continued to find he was more fascinating with each new thing I read about him.

Not only did TR like to talk, but he put 35 books and 150,000 letters down on paper (not counting personal letters before and after his presidency).  At one point, thinking his political career was going nowhere,  he referred to himself as a “literary feller.”

You may or may not realize his common catchphrases still in use today.  “Good to the last drop,” “the right stuff,” “throwing my hat into the ring,” and “lunatic fringe” came from him.  His political programs, “The New Nationalism” and “The Square Deal” sound familiar, don’t they?  Cousin Franklin, a TR wannabe from the time he was in college, combined them to make…The New Deal.  Seems the country wasn’t ready to adopt Theodore’s progressive ideas until it was in such a hole in the 30s.

A good friend and superb re-enactor of Theodore Roosevelt, Larry Marple, set to sharing TR’s thoughts on his Facebook page during the past month.  With his permission, I have copied some of them below.  Larry and his wife, Julia, who portrays Edith Roosevelt, spend the summers in Medora, North Dakota, enlightening visitors about the Roosevelts’ time in the West.

“There is no effort without error and shortcoming…”

 

“There must be honesty in public life…”

 

“That land of the West has gone now…”

 

“Some of my supporters sent me a small bear…”

 

I will share more of these delightful vignettes in a future blog.  Check out the Marples’ re-inactments on troosevelt1904.com.

Those Little Orange Books

First edition of one in the biography series which appealed to boys and girls.

I often had my nose in a book after the third grade, and usually it was a biography.  Stories about famous people which centered on them when they were my age fascinated me.  I read what they said, what they did, what their families were like and how their way of life differed from mine.  There were over 200 in this series; all were published in the 1940s and 50s by the Bobbs-Merrill Company of Indianapolis.

The covers morphed into blue by the time I checked them out in grade school.

Reading one after another before we studied American History in school, I found that Martha (Patsy) Dandridge and Abigail Smith grew up to be important figures in the colonies. Children who would be leaders on the frontier often had poor childhoods but close families.  The little biographies are classified by some as fiction, because they contain conversation that we don’t know happened, but might have.  The events which the talking evolves around really did, though.  And we were smart enough at the time to realize nobody had an electronic device to record what was said.  Even if they did, who knew the kids would turn out to be key figures of our past?

I just reread Teddy Roosevelt, All-Round Boy, publication date 1953.  From years of doing research about our 26th president, I find most of it to be correct.  Many facts are drawn from TR’s autobiography written in 1913.

I was fortunate to find an old library book in good condition which previewed my current collection of Theodore Roosevelt biographies.

Someone is checking up on the vintage books and issuing revised copies.  Florrie Binford Kichler, who formed Patria Press in 1997 (Bobbs-Merrill was acquired by Howard Sams and then Macmillan in 1985), had read many of the books in her own childhood.  She said she’d had rheumatic fever when she was eight, which required bed rest for three months. “My face lit up every time Aunt Mary came to visit with an orange biography.”  Her first was about Mary Todd.

Silhouetted drawings interpreted events in each subject’s life.  I know from spending time in the Houghton Library at Harvard that this amusing incident took place.  Theodore Roosevelt, and his friend, Freddy Osborn, tipped their hats to the wife of the US Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish.  They forgot that the frogs they had been collecting were in the hats.

Baby Boomers also recall the faceless illustrations on the inside pages.  They resemble scherenschnitte, or paper cutting, which was popular in the early American colonies.  Very different than today’s Who Was… series which plop on the covers a post-modern-looking giant head and shrunken body of the subject.  They, of course, are starkly accurate and leave little to the imagination.  I always liked to think I was there in the chapters of the Bobbs-Merrill ones.  It felt like I could have been in the same room or yard or school, watching and listening.

How about it?  Were you interested in those little orange books?  If so, did it lead to a lifelong love of history?  I’d be interested to hear your story.

Bells

Last year around the holidays, I did some looking into the history of Carol of the Bells and its composer, Peter Wilhousky.  A stirring piano duet of “Bells” by two gifted musicians at our church prompted me to share its video, below, and repeat the blog.  I invite you to listen to this amazing performance before you read it.

https://vimeo.com/307714796?fbclid=IwAR1OH9jQO9ejQRmzW9z74pQsgCu94AeYpq_Zl1kodHpGpeGil8K6ZDwYu_8

A prolific paleontologist reflected on his mentor, Peter Wilhousky, for a 1988 issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.  Stephen Jay Gould and another alumnus of the New York All City High School Choir had returned to listen to the group thirty years after they’d been members (In their day, there were equal numbers of SATB and the director frowned upon rock and roll).  As they listened, there was a noticeable imbalance of male voices, with the tenors nearly screaming by the end of the number Jeanette.  More fascinating is the fact that the writer’s career path had been not in music, but in science education at Harvard.  He remembered the rigorous training and Peter Wilhousky’s insistence on perfection.  “Fourth row, fifth seat: You’re flat.”

Peter J. Wilhousky (1902-1978) grew up in Passaic, New Jersey.  His parents had emigrated from what is now northern Czechloslovakia, and sang in the choir of SS Peter and Paul Greek Catholic Church (which in 1920 changed to Russian Orthodox).  Young Peter went to live at the school of the Russian Cathedral Boys choir as a soprano soloist.  He performed with them at the White House for President Woodrow Wilson in 1920.

After graduating from the Damrosch Institute of Musical Arts (now Julliard), he got a job teaching high school music in Brooklyn.  Gradually he built the program and became Director of Music for New York City Schools; in 1936 he trained 1500 students for a concert at the opening of Madison Square Garden.  Later he whittled the number to 250 for annual performances at Carnegie Hall.

The two songs for which he is remembered are Carol of the Bells and The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  He wrote the notes for neither, but arranged their scores with musical genius, adding English words to Carol (Schedryk), which had been composed by Mykola Leontovych.  His stirring version of Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn was made famous by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and is known to choirs young and old everywhere.

When Wilhousky died at the age of 76, the New York Times noted he had once played violin for Ozzie Nelson’s orchestra.  Then again, he conducted the NBC Symphony in a 1947 radio brWhen oadcast of Otello.  A versatile and accomplished artist, he left a mark on students he touched  — in the opera, in symphonies, on Broadway, as teachers in their own classrooms, and across their daily lives.  And on all of us who ever memorized his timeless combination of notes and dynamics for a concert.

I copied below a boys’ choir performance of Carol of the Bells.  It is a group much like the one Peter Wilhousky sang in when he was young.  Perhaps the beginnings of this song, which he would write thirty years hence, were in his mind then.

 

 

 

 

Der Alte

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” Jesus said in Matthew 22.  But what do you do when Caesar is Hitler?  And before that, an unpredictable German Kaiser named Wilhelm?

It would take a remarkable man to maintain his sanity, let alone be a just leader in the middle of chaotic regimes in the country largely held responsible for both world wars.  Konrad Adenaur (1875-1967) was that.

Adenaur served as mayor of the city of Cologne during both war eras, and as West Germany’s first chancellor in the 1950s and 60s.  When he left that post, he was 87 years old.  His nickname, “Der Alte,” means “The Elder.”

Though I was in high school the year of his death, I don’t remember studying about him.  When I to college for a teaching degree in the 80s and took a world history course,  I read his biography.  All I could think of was, “How could anyone keep going through all that?”

prezi.com

Adenaur had a pleasant childhood.  He was born in the Victorian Era to civil servants.  His Roman Catholic family taught him well, and throughout his long life he was committed to his faith.

When he married, it was into a wealthy family.  He studied law, had the opportunity to vie for new political positions, had three children, and was appointed mayor of Cologne in 1917.  But not before tragedies came: his wife died and he was involved in a horrific car accident which changed his facial features permanently.

During World War 1 he managed the food supply for the city and for the troops.  After the Kaiser abdicated, he filled leadership roles of the new Weimar Republic.  At first, it seemed to be going well.  But the U.S  stock market crash’s ripple effect on Germany was disastrous.  Coal and iron mines were shut down and  printing presses made more paper money, which became worthless.

In 1933 the Enabling Act gave Adolph Hitler absolute rule over the country.  The Nazis tried to arrest Adenaur during World War 2, but he hid for many months in a monastery.  When they did put him in prison, they confiscated his leg braces.  He managed to hobble home without them at his release.

The Cologne Cathedral stands in the background of the city’s ruins after World War 2.   bartcop.com

At the top of the list of “untainted politicians,” Adenaur once again became Cologne’s mayor.  But he clashed with British military leadership and was dismissed.  The Christian Democratic Union was formed in 1946; he was elected chancellor in 1949.  By one vote.  And he held the position for the next 14 years.

During postwar reconstruction he worked to restore relations with France and the US, and the economy, balancing relations between labor and management.  In 1953 he was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.  He’d led his country back to “moral respectability,” the editors said.

thelocal.de.com

Critics would say he opposed the reunification of Germany after it divided into East and West.  He said this was the responsibility of the government who caused the split, not his.

In a TV segment which may be viewed on YouTube, an interviewer asks Adenaur why he had become good friends with John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State.  “He tells the truth,” was the reply.

Cologne today as seen from the Rhine River.  thecrazytourist.com

Sometimes it is not apparent there are leaders who make decisions with integrity.  Their counterparts often get the headlines.  But throughout history, if we look, we can see some like “The Elder,” who personified persistence, through loss and hardship, to help the whole of mankind.

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Sources: history.com, weebly.com, kas.de, theneweuropean.co.uk.

The Hats of Corinne Roosevelt

Particularly close to Theodore Roosevelt was his younger sister, Corinne.  Here, decade by decade, along with some appropriate headwear, is her narrative.

1870

Teedie!  Ellie!  Wait for me!  I’m eight years old but I just can’t keep up with my brothers!

Teedie’s asthma is so much better here in Switzerland that he walked 19 miles yesterday.  We NEVER would have imagined him doing that at home in New York City, where he spent so much time in his sick bed.

Mother and Aunt Annie told him stories to pass the time, wonderful stories about growing up on a plantation: Bre’r Rabbit, the adventures of her daring brothers, and ancestors who fought the Indians!  I think that’s why Teedie likes to make up tales for me.

He does love to talk.  Here in Europe he talks to everyone: why, on the boat over he talked for hours with a man who knew all about nature.  He loves animals, and especially birds.  But we are missing our dear Grandpapa Roosevelt, our cousins, and my best friend Edie.  They are all waiting for us to come home.

I suppose we will just have to make the best of it.  I wrote in my little diary how we have a new hotel to explore tonight.  When our sister, Bamie, and the rest of the Big People are talking, maybe we’ll chase the help again, and throw more wads of newspaper at them!

1880

This fall will be so exciting.  My big brother Theodore is getting married to Miss Alice Lee of Boston.  Weren’t we just so proud of him when he graduated from Harvard this spring, and since then we’ve been busy having teas and social engagements for the bride.  But she said to me the other day, “I do enjoy Teddy’s friends, but I don’t know why I can’t get anywhere with Edith Carow.”

Teddy is thinking he will donate his large number of stuffed birds to  museums…I remember how he and Fred Osborn used to go hunting in the Hudson Highlands.  They took such pride in their collections.   He should have become a scientist, but he didn’t like looking at specimens under a microscope; he always wanted to be outdoors,  in the field.  Now he’s talking about studying law with our uncle.

Our father, the first Theodore Roosevelt, would be so proud of him.  Dear Father.  Greatheart, as my aunt used to call him.  His sudden death stunned us two years ago.  We will never recover from the loss of his guidance and love.

1890

I still don’t believe it.  I have rassled a calf!  My brother and his wife took us to his Elkhorn Ranch on a holiday.  His hired hands taught me how to rope the thing and hang over its back as it was running in the mud.  I grabbed one leg and over we went, both of our legs waving in the air.  A grand time we all had, in Dakota and the Yellowstone.  Theodore growled outside our tent like a bear to scare us.

Theodore, Edith, and the bunnies, as they call their children, will soon move to Washington D.C.  My, what a challenge to be a Civil Service Commissioner.  And what a change from the cattle business here in the west.  That WAS good for him, even though he lost a lot of money on the venture.  He built up his health after grieving for Alice Lee’s and our mother’s deaths, which most tragically happened  on the same day.  Now he has Edith, whom we have known for always, to help him.

It will be hard for them to leave their lovely home, Sagamore Hill, on Long Island.

1900

How exciting it is for Theodore to be elected Vice President of the United States!  I always knew he would do great things for our country.

I am sure he will make his mark, as he did in his other positions.  He began as a New York State Assemblyman.  Theodore, whom we called “Teddy” at the time, was such a young upstart.  When he was appointed to Civil Service Commissioner in Washington, he went after corruption in the Postal Service.  Next it was back to Manhattan to shake up the New York City Police Department as one of their Commissioners.

Let’s see — he became the Assistant Secretary of the Navy and influenced the beginning of the Spanish-American War.  He resigned to organize a volunteer regiment, the Rough Riders.  And he was just as vigorous as Governor of New York as he was charging up Kettle Hill.  No wonder he said, “I rose like a rocket.”

I wish our poor brother, Elliott, could see him now.  May he rest in peace.

1910

I AM growing uncomfortable with our national leaders.  Theodore just returned from his African trip, and to the adulation of great crowds.  He’s been troubled, I know, by President Taft’s actions and especially his  inactions on conservation.

I believe Theodore’s accomplishments in that office from 1901 to 1909 will stand firm for many years.  After the tragic assassination of President McKinley, he proved himself a true leader.   He negotiated settlement of the coal strike when the mines were shut down and people were shivering from lack of fuel.  He sued the business trusts to break up their monopoly.   He sought to make life better for the poor with the Food and Drug Act.

The little boy who toured Europe with us three decades ago understood the dynamics of monarchies, and stopped Russia and Japan from going to war.  For this he earned the Nobel Peace Prize.  He strengthened our navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to show other nations we “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Many times we joined him for supper in the White House — oh, and he was responsible for changing the name people used for the executive mansion, which he and Edith remodeled so beautifully.  Theodore thought he should use the power he had  to do what was best for the American people.  He called it a “square deal.”  He wanted to protect the natural world which we began our love affair with  so many many years ago at our summer homes in the country.

1920

Last year, after my husband died, I remember Theodore talking about the severe illnesses which plagued him ever since he was a child.  “I promised myself I would work to the hilt until I was 60, and I have done it,” he told me last year, hitting his fist on the arm of his char.  And now…he is gone.

Splitting with the Republicans in 1912 was hard for him.  The political bosses betrayed him again, taking the nomination which was rightfully his, and so he campaigned under a new party, the Progressives.  Even though he received more votes than President Taft, Wilson won the election.

Being refused permission to form a volunteer regiment in the recent world war, and losing his dear son Quentin in France in the summer of 1918 were terrible blows.  He never recovered from them.

I do think I shall write a book about my brother.  I must focus now on the task at hand, to present a speech for General Wood at the Republican National Convention.  It should have been you, Theodore.  I miss you so. We will carry on for you.

 

At Sagamore the Chief lies low–

Above the hill in circled row

The whirring airplanes dip and fly

A guard of honor from the sky;–

Eagle to guard the Eagle, –Woe

Is on the world.  The people go

With listless footstep, blind and slow;–

For one is dead — who shall not die —

At Sagamore.

 

Oh!  Land he loved, at last you know

The son who served you well below,

The prophet voice, the visioned eye,

Hold him in ardent memory,

For one is gone — who shall not go —

From Sagamore!*

 

*Poem from My Brother Theodore Roosevelt by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Scribner’s, 1920.

I am available beginning in the fall to present this narrative in costume for schools and civic groups at no charge.  Contact me in the comment section if interested!

Wilhousky

 

www.musicscore.com

A prolific paleontologist reflected on his mentor, Peter Wilhousky, for a 1988 issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.  Stephen Jay Gould and another alumnus of the New York All City High School Choir had returned to listen to the group thirty years after they’d been members (In their day, there were equal numbers of SATB and the director frowned upon rock and roll).  As they listened, there was a noticeable imbalance of male voices, with the tenors nearly screaming by the end of the number Jeanette.  More fascinating is the fact that the writer’s career path had been not in music, but in science education at Harvard.  He remembered the rigorous training and Wilhousky’s insistence on perfection.  “Fourth row, fifth seat: You’re flat.”

http://www.centralfloridamusical.com

Peter J. Wilhousky (1902-1978) grew up in Passaic, New Jersey.  His parents had emigrated from what is now northern Czechloslovakia, and sang in the choir of SS Peter and Paul Greek Catholic Church (which in 1920 changed to Russian Orthodox).  Young Peter went to live at the school of the Russian Cathedral Boys choir as a soprano soloist.  He performed with them at the White House for President Woodrow Wilson in 1920.

After graduating from the Damrosch Institute of Musical Arts (now Julliard), he got a job teaching high school music in Brooklyn.  Gradually he built the program and became Director of Music for New York City Schools; in 1936 he trained 1500 students for a concert at the opening of Madison Square Garden.  Later he whittled the number to 250 for annual performances at Carnegie Hall.

The two songs for which he is remembered are Carol of the Bells and The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  He wrote the notes for neither, but arranged their scores with musical genius, adding English words to Carol (Schedryk), which had been composed by Mykola Leontovych.  His stirring version of Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn was made famous by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and is known to choirs young and old everywhere.

When Wilhousky died at the age of 76, the New York Times noted he had once played violin for Ozzie Nelson’s orchestra.  Then again, he conducted the NBC Symphony in a 1947 radio broadcast of Otello.  A versatile and accomplished artist, he left an everlasting mark on students he touched personally — in the opera, in symphonies, on Broadway, as teachers in their own classrooms, and across their daily lives.  And on all of us who ever memorized his combination of notes, dynamics, and timing for a concert.

I copied below a boys’ choir performance of Carol of the Bells.  It is a group much like the one Peter Wilhousky sang in when he was young.  Perhaps the beginnings of this song, which he would write thirty years hence, were in his mind then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left to Us

After Theodore Roosevelt’s brief funeral service in January 1919,  mourners followed pallbearers up a steep grade to the burial place in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  The American flag was askew on the coffin, as Theodore’s clothes often were.  Today there are twenty-six steps on the hill, one for every president until him.  Descendants say one of their uncles used to make them recite the presidents from Washington to TR as they walked up.

We toured Youngs Cemetery on the day after the annual Theodore Roosevelt Association meeting.  Theodore and Edith, as well as many of their family members, rest here.  Since it was two days after the 158th anniversary of his birth, we were able to see the wreath from the White House.  Did you know the sitting president sends one to all former presidents’ graves on their birthdays?

Close by is the first national Audubon bird sanctuary.  Theodore’s cousin, Emlen, donated fifteen acres to honor the president’s efforts in saving America’s wildlife and their habitats.  When they were boys, the two had had their own little nature collection, the “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History,” in their bedrooms.  Only it wasn’t so small, growing to about 1,000 specimens!  Now people of all ages come to enjoy the same peaceful woodsy surroundings, watch birds, and learn about things Theodore loved all of his life.  Four hundred children a month attend camps here during the summer.

We watched as a group of kids learned about turtles in the crisp autumn air.  Certainly Theodore would have liked the program when he was their age.  When he grew up, he set aside almost a quarter of a billion acres of America’s land into national parks and sanctuaries so our children, and children’s children, would be able to see them.  He left to us an amazing gift.  It is left to us to continue conserving it.

Depth of Focus

http://www.huffingpost.com

A long time ago (in college) when I had a borrowed camera on which the knobs were so hard to turn that my thumbs were always red, I learned about aperture and depth of focus.  One had to do with light and the lens.  The other was the ability to transfer an object into a sharp image on paper.

I suppose, in a general way, depth of focus could also be used to label how much a body knows about something.  For me it is the growing up years of the twenty-sixth president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.

I didn’t narrow to that topic at the beginning.  I was just interested in “the biggest character in American history,” as a recent biographer has described him.  I knew something of his Rough Rider personality, but not much about the rest of his sixty years, even what he’d done a hundred years ago as highest elected official in our country.

TR speaking in 1902 (www.kingsacademy.com)

After tracking the places he’d lived, people he’d known, and jobs he’d held, I asked more questions.  Why was he interested in nature?  How could he have learned so much on his own?  I looked to primary sources for answers.  Mostly, I just kept reading.

I’m still amazed at how much one can learn independently by taking the time to read (Remember the Birdman of Alcatraz?).  Reliable websites instantly cough up facts for us, but sitting down with a book and reading it from cover to cover is crucial to our understanding.  Bits and pieces add up to information.  A book adds up to a conclusion of some kind, even if it isn’t the author’s.

William Henry Harbaugh artfully tells of Roosevelt’s political life.  David McCullough reveals family and social influences on a sickly little boy who metamorphosed into a leader.  Edmund Morris meticulously chronicles his drive to accomplish, but lets you make up your mind about which factors influenced him most.  Another earlier Pullitzer Prize winner, Henry Pringle, seems to have dipped his objectives in acid wash before he started to write.

There are more who used honey.  Some were TR’s contemporaries who could call upon their own memories.  Since then others have added to the list, among them Stephan Lorant (who assembled a photobiopic), Paul Cutright, Carleton Putnam, Nathan Miller, Kathleen Dalton, and Candice Millard.  The thirty-five books Theodore Roosevelt authored himself, including his autobiography, and the subjects he chose, say a lot about him, too.

Theodore at sixteen (Harvard University photograph)

I set out to tell more about “Teedie” between the ages of eight and eighteen than they had (and came pretty close).  New leads about his boyhood friends gave me more of the story.  Isn’t that true of our own friendships?  In the Houghton Library at Harvard University I read a cache of papers from the boys’ nature club which had never been published.  I also located photographs of the house he lived in from 1872 to 1884, which no one else did.

With Theodore’s life as the connecting wire, I’ve spiraled a notebook into other worlds  — of days gone by and of the outdoors — which you can see in my blog posts.  Birds are an obvious tangent.  Due to my research, I can tell you scientific names, songs, habits, and the danger they’re in today.  Looking closely at movers and shakers of the past, particularly presidents, has been enlightening.  It is much easier to remember people and events when you have stories to go with them.

The Lilly Foundation of Indiana continues to give grant funds to teachers like me to make physical searches into all kinds of things — under the headings of history, science, art, music, literature, which also adds to the sum of understanding as we pass the experiences to others.

I discovered much about an interesting American and kept looking.  Theodore Roosevelt not my idol, but he is my hero.  Looking through any lens, we need more of those.

Field of Roses

Some have pronounced the Dutch name Roosevelt with an “oo” — but it is supposed to sound like the old-fashioned flower of its meaning, “field of roses.”  In the early 1800s TR’s grandmother, Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt, kept a big rose garden behind their mansion on Union Square in Manhattan. Her favorite, as well as that of her son Theodore, was the yellow saffronia.  The night that his son Theodore first ate supper as president in the White House, he noticed yellow roses in the centerpiece. “I believe there is a blessing connected with this,” he said to his sisters, guests at the table.

Sarah Delano R00sevelt, who married a distant cousin of TR’s, had a rose garden at her home in Hyde Park, New York, where her son Franklin’s family also lived.  Today Franklin and Eleanor’s final resting place is nearby.

 From the rose garden at Hyde Park, New York. http://www.postcardsfromthewoods.blogspot.com

Roses have played a part in history, art, poetry, literature, medicine, music, fashion, perfume and cuisine.  According to Greek mythology, blood from Aphrodite’s foot changed the white rose to red when she was trying to save her mortal lover, Adonis.  The first known painting of the fragrant blooms was from Crete in 1600 BC; Confucius wrote about roses growing in the Imperial Gardens of China.  Maybe you know some of these facts, or maybe, like me, you’re realizing them for the first time.

• The War of the Roses, from 1455-1487, was between the House of York (white, or alba rose) and the House of Lancaster (red, or gallica rose).
• Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, tried to create a rose garden containing all the varieties in the world.  French soldiers brought back plants from the places they’d been in battle.
• The rosa centifolia, or cabbage rose, with its 100 petals, was believed to have been developed by the Dutch in the 17th Century.
• The American Rose Society classifies old roses as those known prior to 1867, and modern roses after that year.
• There are now 30,000 kinds of roses, including garden and tea varieties.

The Botanical Gardens of Norfolk, Virginia — a perfect field of roses in May.

Humor in Rough Rider’s Uniform

http://www.loc.gov

“Nobody ever had as good a time as I did as president,” Theodore Roosevelt reflected in 1909.  His serious side, which included negotiating peace between Russia and Japan, breaking apart trusts, and preserving the wilderness for generations of Americans, was balanced with pillow fights and outdoor adventures with his children — and boxing matches and Japanese wrestling with friends in the White House.  He often drew funny cartoons in letters he wrote to his family.

TR loved to tell stories and laugh at them.  He said, “When they call roll in the Senate, the senators don’t know whether to answer, ‘Present,’ or ‘Not guilty.'”  His eldest child was notorious for living it up, to which he responded, “I can be president of the United States or I can control Alice.  I cannot possibly do both.”

Those who served as chief of the executive branch before and after him could let their sense of humor show, too.

George Washington: When a junior officer boasted he could break a spirited horse and was thrown off head over heels, Washington was so “convulsed with laughter tears ran down his cheeks.”  He also wrote in a letter about a duel:  “They say Jones fired at his opponent and cut off a piece of his nose.  How could he miss it?  You know Mr. Livingstone’s nose and what a capitol target it is.”

John Adams: “I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.”

Abraham Lincoln: “If I were two faced, would I be wearing this one?”  Lincoln’s stories were legendary — it was not always what he said but how he said it.  He was an expert mimic.  During the horrible days of the Civil War he often got relief by listening his two secretaries with knee-slapping laughter.  “Tell it again, John!” he said to young John Hay.

Calvin Coolidge: After a hostess said she’d made a bet she could get more than two words out of him, he replied, “You lose.”  He said in 1929 he didn’t want to run for president again.  There was no chance for advancement.

Franklin Roosevelt: “Twenty-two minutes,” he said, when asked what the next Fireside Chat was to be about.

 Harry Truman: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

Lyndon Johnson made some famous analogies but that doesn’t mean they should be repeated.

Jimmy Carter: “It’s nice now that when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.”

http://www.utexas.edu

Ronald Reagan, a natural storyteller, was the only president with a prior career in entertainment.  He poked fun at himself: “Just to show you how youthful I am, I intend to campaign in all thirteen states.”   When horseback riding with Queen Elizabeth, her mount passed a substantial amount of gas.  She apologized: “I’m sorry.”  Reagan shot back, “Why, Your Majesty,  I thought it was the horse.”

George W. Bush: “These stories about my intellectual capacity really get under my skin.  For awhile, I even thought my staff believed it.  There on my schedule first thing every morning it said, “Intelligence Briefing.”

Barack Obama: At an observance of International Woman’s Day he said, “I salute heroic women from those on the Mayflower to the one I’m blessed to call my wife, who looked across the dinner table and thought, ‘I’m smarter than that guy.'”

Some information in this post came from http://www.npr.org, http://www.revolutionaryarchive.org, http://www.alternet.org, and http://www.politicalhumor.org.