Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-02-27
FROM CRADLE TO ALTAR.
Born Under Sad Ctrcumstances, the
Brides GfrIho0d Was HaDpy.

welt. That day the death angel descend
ed upon the old-fashioned, roomy home at
6 West Fifty-seventh street, New York,
brought his bride. Alice Hathaway Lee of
Boston, and where the young couple had
| dwelt in happiness with his mother, Mar
tina Bullock Roosevelt. He was then a
member of the Legislature, but had been
required to spend much of his time az
home, on account of his mothers illness
and because. Feb IL, of the same year,
little girl had been born into the family
whom he named Alice Lee. 1t was q
pathetic entrance into life-that of this
world-loved bride of to-day. When she
was three days old the crepe on the door
was the symbol that death had claimed
both the lovely young mother from the
North and the soft-voiced grandmother
from the South. On the 10th of Febru-
airy the two bodies were carried from the
same church to the same cemetery and
laid side by side in the same lot. Fight
ing against the despair which seized upon
his soul, Assemblyman Roosevelt returned
to his cherries home. The motherless
babe he confded to the care of a sister,
now the wife of Commander w. S.
Cowles of the United States navy, and
he fed from the scene of his heart break
ing experiences to the ranch of the NAL
tese Cross, in Dakota. Every American
who can read knows the history of the
Roosevelts from that time on.
After three years, the widowed father
married Miss Edith Carew, a friend of
his childhood. Her attachment to the
child instantly followed the first acquaint-
ance and as the years have ripened this,
the relationship has become as clocc, the
sympathy and affection as tender and sin
cere as that between a natural mother
and her child, and the price of the mis-
tress of the White House in the fair,
slender girl with whom tne whole world
is in love could not be greater had the
love-light which first greeted the baby
Alice shone in her own eyes, She helped
the father to make the girls childhood
an ideally happy one.
The girlhood days OF Miss Alice We're
divided between Oyster Bay, New York
City, Washington and Albany. She was
IA when her father went to the Spanish
war. She was not quite 10 when the fam
lily took possession of the executive man
sion at Albany and but little past IL
when her father became Vice President.
She was preparing to make her debut in
the Bellamy Storer mansion at Washing
ton, when the assassination of President
Mckinley changed all the family plans.
1t was several months after entering the
White House that the eyes of the country
began to catch glimpses of this charming
young occupant of the presidential home.
Hitherto she had attracted no attention,
but as the daughter of an exceptionally
popular President she soon became an OBJ
ject of more than ordinary interest. Early
in January, 1902, she made her debut to
society at a ball in the East room,
where she stood Saturday as a bride.
-Four years have transformed the slim,
unconventional debutante into the self
possessed, self-reliant and well-poised
bride at whose marriage altar the ma
lions of the earth have laid their gifts.
The great series of events of Miss
Roosevelt's life came in the tour of the
| Orient last summer, with Secretary Taft
| and his party and chaperoned by some OF
the foremost matrons of the country. The
triumphal pageant began at San Fran
cisco, where Representative Longworth
Joined the party. At Manila she received
royal welcome and clad IN a viceregal
gown was hailed as Princess Alice. She
had a private audience with the Dowager
Empress of China and the people of
Japan called her the American princess
and printed postal cards in her honor.
The Sultan of Sulu, lineal descendant of
Mohammed, asked her to marry him.. An
other asked the same privilege whether
upon the moonlit deck of the Manchuria
or upon the beautiful inland sea of Japan,
or amid the palms of the Moro country
or as they sat among the cherry blossoms
| and lotus buds of the Mikados gardens
| only they know. The answer to the pro-
posal of the young man from Cincinnati
who was the son of her fathers friend
was an aye. The formal announcement
of the engagement was withheld until the
President made it at the White House
Besides the tours above outlined Miss
Roosevelt has visited Cuba and Porto
Rico and there, as elsewhere, the people
thronged to meet her.