Childhood
Kenneth Kermit Roosevelt was born at the family residence Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York, the second son born to Theodore Roosevelt and his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. As a child he went by the nickname Kermit, and as an adult he adopted the name. He had an elder brother, Theodore Jr., and three younger siblings: Ethel, Archibald, and Quentin. His older half sister was Alice, from his father's first marriage to Alice Roosevelt.
As a child, he had little resistance to illness and infection. He had a flair for language, however, and read avidly. He showed a talent for writing that led to recording his experiences in World War I in a book.
After attending the Groton School, he enrolled at Harvard. In 1909 as a freshman, he and his father (recently out of office as President)—both of whom loved nature and outdoor sports—went on a safari in Africa. After this trip and a swing through Europe, Roosevelt returned to Harvard and completed four years of study in two and one-half years. He was a member of the Porcellian Club.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime. A man at five and thirty should no more regret not having had a happier childhood than he should regret not having been born a prince of the blood.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“... all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments of my whole life, are light, when balanced with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the theological dogmas which I sincerely believed, and the gloom connected with everything associated with the name of religion, the church, the parsonage, the graveyard, and the solemn, tolling bell.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“From his childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers.... In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour of the world and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage alliance will follow, and the end of it will be the country will be called upon to pay the bill.”
—James Keir Hardie (1856–1915)