Family
Robert Roosevelt's father was Cornelius Roosevelt (1794–1871) and his mother was Margaret Barnhill (1799–1861). He was also the nephew of James I. Roosevelt. He was the brother of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., the uncle of President Theodore Roosevelt and the great-uncle of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Roosevelt was to father many children. Some children were born from his marriage and others were born from his relationship with a long-term mistress. After the death of his first wife, he married his mistress. The offspring of his second wife were recognized as his stepsons.
First wife. The three children born to Elizabeth Ellis Roosevelt were Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt, John Ellis Roosevelt, and Robert Roosevelt Jr.. He purchased the Meadowcroft property at Sayville, New York in 1873 and it was later developed by his son as the John Ellis Roosevelt Estate. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
- In 1879, John Roosevelt married Nannie Mitchell Vance, daughter of Hon. Samuel B. H. Vance, at the recently-built St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, Fifth-avenue and Forty-eighth street, in New York City. Vance, who was active in New York State Republican politics, was a manufacturer who served as Acting Mayor of New York City for the month of December 1874.
Second wife. The two children born out of wedlock to Minnie O'Shea Fortescue were Kenyon Fortescue and Granville Roland Fortescue.
- Kenyon was destined for a career as an attorney.
- Major Granville Roland "Rolly" Fortescue married Grace Hubbard Fortescue (née Grace Hubbard Bell), who became a defendant in the notorious 1932 murder trial known as the "Massie Affair".
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Famous quotes containing the word family:
“Because it’s not only that a child is inseparable from the family in which he lives, but that the lives of families are determined by the community in which they live and the cultural tradition from which they come.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)
“I acknowledge that the balance I have achieved between work and family roles comes at a cost, and every day I must weigh whether I live with that cost happily or guiltily, or whether some other lifestyle entails trade-offs I might accept more readily. It is always my choice: to change what I cannot tolerate, or tolerate what I cannot—or will not—change.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“We all of us waited for him to die. The family sent him a cheque every month, and hoped he’d get on with it quietly, without too much vulgar fuss.”
—John Osborne (b. 1929)