But my mother and my father had no such complications in their own lives, and the Southern girl who went away with her Northern lover never regretted that step, although much that was difficult and troublous came into their early married life because of the years of war from 1861 to 1865, when Martha Bulloch’s brothers fought for the South and Theodore Roosevelt did splendid and unselfish work in upholding the principles for which the North was giving its blood and brawn.
The fighting blood of James Dunwoody and Irvine Bulloch was the same blood infused through their sister into the veins of their young kinsman, the second Theodore Roosevelt, and showed in him the same glowing attributes. The gallant attitude of their mother, Mrs. Stephens Bulloch, also had its share in the making of her famous grandson.
Her son Irvine was only a lad of sixteen, while her stepson, James, was much older and was already a famous naval blockade-runner when she parted from them. Turning to her daughter Anna she prayed that she might never live to know if Irvine were killed or Richmond taken by the Northern army. I cannot but rejoice that her life passed away before such news could come to her. It must have been bitter, indeed, for her under these circumstances to face the necessity of accepting the bread of her Northern son-in-law, and it speaks volumes for the characters of both that during the whole war there was never a moment of estrangement between them or between my father and his lovely sister-in-law, Anna Bulloch, who became, because of the fact that she lived with us during those early years of our lives, one of the most potent influences of our childhood.
I, myself, remember nothing of the strain of those troubled days; but my aunt has often told me of the bedtime hour in the nursery when a certain fair-haired, delicate little boy, hardly four years old, would kneel at her side to say his evening prayer, and feeling that she would not dare interrupt his petition to the Almighty, would call down in baby tones and with bent head the wrath of the Almighty upon the rebel troops. She said that she could never forget the fury in the childish voice when he would plead with Divine Providence to “grind the Southern troops to powder.”
This same lovely aunt taught us our letters at her knee, in that same nursery, having begged, in return for my father’s hospitality, that she should be accepted as our first instructress, and not only did she teach us the three R’s, but many and many a delightful hour was passed in listening to her wonderful renderings of the “Br’er Rabbit” stories.
Both my aunt and my mother had but little opportunity for consecutive education, but they were what it seems to me Southern women ever are—natural women of the world, and yet they combined with a perfect readiness to meet all situations an exquisite simplicity and sensitive sympathy, rarely found in the women of the North. This sensitiveness was not only evidenced in their human relationships but in all pertaining to art and literature. I have often said that they were natural connoisseurs.
I remember that my father would never buy any wine until my mother had tasted it, and experts of various kinds came to her in the same way for expressions of her opinion. She was very beautiful, with black, fine hair—not the dusky brunette’s coarse black hair, but fine of texture and with a glow that sometimes seemed to have a slightly russet shade, what her French hair-dresser called “noir doré,” and her skin was the purest and most delicate white, more moonlight-white than cream-white, and in the cheeks there was a coral, rather than a rose, tint. She was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of the New York of her day, a reputation only shared by Mrs. Gardiner Howland, and to us, her children, and to her devoted husband she seemed like an exquisite “objet d’art,” to be carefully and lovingly cherished. Her wit, as well as that of my aunt, was known by all her friends and yet it was never used unkindly, for she had the most loving heart imaginable, and in spite of this rare beauty and her wit and charm, she never seemed to know that she was unusual in any degree, and cared but little for anything but her own home and her own children. Owing to delicate health she was not able to enter into the active life of her husband and children, and therefore our earliest memories, where our activities were concerned, turn to my father and my aunt, but always my mother’s gracious loveliness and deep devotion wrapped us round as with a mantle.
Theodore Roosevelt, about eighteen months old, 1860.
