Jeff

“An appalling double tragedy overshadowed the joy that should have welcomed Alice Lee Roosevelt's entrance to the world on February 12, 1884. The popular, young New York assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt lost both his beautiful wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and his beloved mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, on Valentine's Day 1884. He gave the infant her mother's name, a wet nurse, a temporary home, and then relegated her to an afterthought. The family turned in upon itself, lost in grief at the sudden and unexpected deaths, too heartbroken to celebrate Alice's birth. It was the last time anything would eclipse Alice Roosevelt.”
― Stacy A. Cordery, Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker