We learned a lot of interesting things about Mr. Roosevelt and his life (especially thanks to some extra info from Patrick's blog post) but I wanted to contribute the only thing I previously had known about the Teddy Bear's namesake. The Roosevelt family had a thing for pets, and one look at the wikipedia page about presidential pets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pets) will surely leave you surprised about how great this love was.
The Roosevelt family owned (among others):
a small bear named Jonathan Edwards
a lizard named Bill
6 guinea pigs named Admiral Dewey, Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady
Maude the pig
Josiah the badger
Eli Yale the blue macaw
Baron Spreckle the hen
Peter the rabbit
Algonquin the pony
a one-legged rooster, a hyena, and a barn owl
The family pony Algonquin was even brought up to Quentin's, (one of Roosevelt's children) room when he was sick. Imagine if Obama brought a pony into the white house today!
The Roosevelts also had plenty of more conventional pets, especially dogs. This included Sailor Boy the Chesapeake retriever, Jack the terrier, Skip the mongrel, and Pete, a bull terrier. Pete ultimately was forced out of the White House after biting the legs of many innocent White House visitors. Alice had a small black Pekingese named Manchu, which she received from the last empress of China during a trip to the Far East. The family had two cats as well, Tom Quartz and Slippers. They also had a rat named Jonathan.
Roosevelt had 25 pets at one time or anther. Though this may not be particularly important in terms of his presidency, its an interesting piece of trivia about the man behind the glasses.
As we learn more about his presidency and his polices while office, it is always good to learn more about the person leading the nation. Having that many pets would seem like a lot to deal with, not to mention running the country. Also why would someone what a one legged rooster?
ReplyDeleteWow...BARN OWL! :D I love owls...this is really interesting...I always love the social aspects of history, and this is really cool! The names for the pets are hilarious too!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nick; it never hurts to learn some fun facts. This was a really interesting and fun read. Thanks Rebecca! I wonder how did he manage to care for all those pets, especially that hyena.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Rebecca. Perhaps the Roosevelts, in addition to being loving pet owners, also were trying to appeal to as much of the population as possible. I know that having something unlikely in common with someone can make you like them (I think that Kenneth on 30 Rock is by far the show's greatest character), and by having such a large and eclectic collection of animals, Roosevelt might have picked up some on-the-fence voters (imagine that both you and the person running for president had badgers).
ReplyDeleteOr maybe you both have one legged roosters...
ReplyDeleteMaybe thats why he wanted one, Nick.