Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-10-25
Roosevelt House
BY FRANCES L. GARsmE

/ the birthplace of this great Ameri-
can. If you have a relative who
furnished her parlor some 50-odd
years ago, and has never done any,
thing to it but give it semiannual
cyclonic cleanings since, you have
some idea of how you are biffed in
the eyes when you enter the parlor
of the Roosevelt house.
Perhaps 1t might be called the
mid-Victorian style. The name
doesn't sound at all bad unless you
have kin whose parlor had made you
previously acquainted with it. The
carpets are of floral design; great
punches of blue roses and pink lilies
with green of the greenest shade, all
surrounded with broad sprawling
frames of scarlet dividing one bunch
from the one in the next strip.
Haircloth Furniture
They are not pretty. Time is
slower In its work of subduing these
carpets than in anything else it
wall for relief, and a yellow morn
ing glory, as big as your grand
mothers sugar bowl, jars you. Per-
haps, with all these colors scream
| ing at you, you sit down on the sofa,
, hoping to shut your eyes and for
get them.
You slide off to the floor, for the
furniture is of haircloth, and it is
the same set on which the child
Theodore used to scratch his bare
legs. OF course, there is q chande-
lier, made of long prisms of glass;
there is a long mirror in q gold
frame, in which the morning glories
on the wall are reflected, and there
is the carved wood piece hanging
near showing a hunters dog pursuing
stag, which used to worry the
child on his rare visits to the parlor,
so afraid was he that the dog might
catch the fugitive.
The bookcases, to quote Mr.. Roose-
velt's own description, are of gloomy
respectability," and your kin's par
Tor has some just as gloomy and as
respectable, of course.
In the dining room there is a car
pet and wall paper as lurid, and
to brighten up this room there
are hung many fruit and game
pieces; the expected glass dish con-
tanning June strawberries and Octo-
Der apples in defiance of the differ
ence in their seasons; fish lying on
the bank, and hanging by their fins.
Beside these hang pictures of the
| OSiSASho AehIiiA6 siOpiiSo VI q liICL
day.
Fidelity to It's Day
| The interior of the house is not
beautiful; 1t is not even quaint, nor
in any way attractive, if one goes to
look for such things. But 1t is true
to life, which is much better. The
visitor to the Roosevelt house "0r-
gets all this in the very precious
privilege of standing, sitting or NOV
ng where Theodore Roosevelt stood,
sat or moved, of seeing the house
hold articles which he used from
infancy to manhood, and thus per-
petuating in q spiritual sense the
contact and cQmradeship which he
manifested toward all his country
men.
1t is recalled that a woman, Miss
Pamela Cunningham, of South Caro-
lima, started the movement among
women which eliminated in the &C
quirement and restoration of Mount
Vernon. In like manner the women
of to-day are perpetuating the init
mate life of another great American,
who, in bis aims and in his achieve
ments, comes a little nearer, per-
haps, than any other man of mod
ern time to embodying the popular
concept of the vigorous, resourceful
fearless and uncompromising Ameri-
can.