Death of a Lady

Edith Kermit Carow, born during the Civil War, was brought up in a brownstone house in New York's then-fashionable Union Square. Her upbringing was strict. The only suitable entertainments , were symphony concerts, the theater (if it was Shakespeare), and an occasional children's party, at one of which she met a neighbor, twelve-year-old Theodore Roosevelt. Sixteen years later, they were married in London. Roosevelt was then a widower of three years, his first wife having died soon after the birth of their only child, Alice.

A woman with an instinct for privacy, Mrs. Roosevelt reportedly never let her picture appear in a newspaper until her husband was elected Vice President (although he had previously been New York City Police Commissioner and Governor of New York). In the White House, she managed her family and her husband with serene competence and quiet humor. She improved the White House gardens and its housekeeping. Visitors caught glimpses of her reading to her children, or sewing at an upstairs window. She kept a watchful eye on Teddy, often interceded at state functions with a quiet "Theodore! Theodore!" (The President always meekly protested: "Why, Edie, I was only--".)

After her husband's death in 1919, she traveled widely. Visiting dignitaries called on her, but she avoided the public eye. She devoted herself to her family and friends, entertained the local Women's Republican Club, was always ready to help charity drives and benefits for servicemen. Every year on her birthday, the family gathered at her Long Island home, at Oyster Bay.

Last week, at 87, death came to Mrs. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, a great lady.

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