Martha "Mittie" Stewart Roosevelt

Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (July 8, 1835 – February 14, 1884) was the mother of US President Theodore Roosevelt and the paternal grandmother of Eleanor Roosevelt. She married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and had four children. She was a descendent of Archibald Bulloch. A true southern belle, she was affectionately known as Mittie, and is thought to have been the inspiriation of Scarlett O'Hara.

Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, was a well-known Confederate sympathizer.

Martha (Mittie) Bulloch Roosevelt [Mother of President Theodore Roosevelt]

7/8/1835 - 2/14/1884

Married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. of New York City on 12/22/1853

Martha, or "Mittie" as she was more commonly known, was born in Hartford where her mother (also Martha) was visiting a step-son and escaping the blazing summer heat of the family's early home in Savannah. Mittie was initially raised in Savannah, but the family moved to Roswell when she was about five.

Roswell, Georgia, located about about 20 minutes north of Atlanta, was and is the site of Bulloch Hall, the Bulloch Family estate. Mittie's southern roots, her two brothers fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, brought an added dimension to the Roosevelt household. TR's father did not fight actively in the War, although he supported the Union war effort in many other ways, largely, it is believed out of sensitivity to his wife's relatives. Mittie, surreptitiously sent "care packages" of medicine and supplies to the southern effort.

TR's mother, Mittie, and his first wife, Alice Lee died in the same home, on the same day, a few hours apart. Mittie died of typhoid. This double tragedy, 2 days after the birth of his first child, also named Alice, affected TR greatly. At the time, TR was an Assemblyman in the State Legislature of New York State. He returned there for a few months and then made a temporary career and life change. Leaving his infant daughter in the capable hands of his older sister Bamie, he headed west to Medora North Dakota and for a few years lived his life as a rancher.

Both the impact of TR's southern roots and his experiences after the tragedy of his mother's death, contributed to his understanding of the dynamics of Americans of many walks of life as he served in the various national offices he held during his lifetime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Bulloch_Roosevelt

Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (July 8, 1835 – February 14, 1884) was the mother of US President Theodore Roosevelt and the paternal grandmother of Eleanor Roosevelt. She married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and had four children. She was a descendent of Archibald Bulloch. A true southern belle, she was affectionately known as Mittie, and is thought to have been the inspiriation of Scarlett O'Hara.

Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (July 8, 1835 – February 14, 1884) was the mother of US President Theodore Roosevelt and the paternal grandmother of Eleanor Roosevelt. She married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and had four children. She was a descendant of Archibald Bulloch. A true southern belle, she was affectionately known as Mittie, and is thought to have been one of the inspirations for Scarlett O'Hara.

Childhood

Martha was born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 8, 1835, to Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha (Stewart) Elliott Bulloch; the family had traveled north with Mittie's older brother, James Dunwody Bulloch, who was studying with tutors in preparation for boarding school. After a few months in Hartford, baby Mittie and her mother returned to their home in Savannah, Georgia.

When Mittie was four, Major Bulloch moved the family to Cobb County, Georgia and the new village that would become Roswell, Georgia. It lies just north of the Chattahoochee River and the city of Atlanta, Georgia, and Major Bulloch had gone there to become a partner in a new cotton mill with Roswell King, the town's founder. Bulloch had a mansion built, and soon after it was completed in 1839, the family moved into Bulloch Hall. As a significant antebellum structure, it has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Bullochs were a wealthy planter family, members of the Georgia elite. In 1850, they held thirty-one enslaved African-Americans, most of whom worked in their cotton fields. Others were assigned to such domestic tasks as cooking, sewing, and related work. Recent research in Bulloch records identified 33 slaves who were owned by the family. They have been commemorated on a plaque on the mansion grounds.

After Major Bulloch's death in 1849, the family's fortunes declined somewhat, but Mittie was given a grand wedding to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. in 1853. Later, as was expected of young southern gentlemen, Mittie's brothers, James and Irvine, fought in the Civil War as Confederate officers. They both lived in England after the war.

It is believed by some that the character of Scarlett O'Hara, in Margaret Mitchell's novel, Gone With the Wind, was based partly on Mittie. (Another inspiration is said to have been Mitchell's own businesswoman grandmother.) Mittie was a true southern belle, a beautiful and spirited woman at her best, not unlike the fictional Scarlett. Mitchell had, in fact, interviewed Mittie's closest childhood friend and bridesmaid, Evelyn King, for a story in the Atlanta Journal newspaper in the early 1920s. In that interview, Mittie's beauty, charm, and fun-loving nature were described in detail.

During the war, Mittie was terrified for her brothers, James and Irvine. James was a confederate agent in Britain, and Irvine was the youngest officer on the CSS Alabama, firing the last gun before the ship sank in battle off the coast of Cherbourg, France. These emotional crises were mitigated somewhat by the maturity and management skills of Mittie's eldest daughter, Bamie, who stepped into a leadership role at a young age, especially when her father, "Thee," was out of town in Washington, visiting Lincoln and lobbying Congress for programs to support the northern troops in the field and their families back home. Thee, a Northerner himself, left his conflicted home situation to fight for the Union cause, acting as an Allotment Commissioner for New York and traveling to persuade soldiers to send a percentage of their wages to their families.

Marriage to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.

Fireplace mantle in the room where Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. and Mittie Bulloch were married.Mittie married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. on December 22, 1853 at the Greek Revival-style family mansion Bulloch Hall in Roswell; they were wedded in front of the pocket doors in the formal dining room.

After their honeymoon, the couple moved into their new home at 28th East 20th Street, New York, a wedding present from Cornelius van Schaick (CVS) Roosevelt (Theodore's father). All four of CVS's sons lived near his own house at 14th Street and Broadway in Union Square. Shortly afterward, her mother, Martha, and sister, Anna Bulloch, moved north to join them in New York.

Mittie bore four children:

Anna, nicknamed Bamie, (1855–1931)

Theodore, nicknamed Teedie (T.D.), (1858–1919)

Elliott, nicknamed Ellie, (1860–1893), the father of Eleanor Roosevelt

Corinne, nicknamed Conie, (1861–1933), grandmother of Joseph and Stewart Alsop

During her children's education, the family traveled to Europe, predominantly spending time in England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Germany from May 1869 to May 1870. And then on a second trip, an extended boat trip down the Nile, a trip through the Holy Land, and on to Vienna, Germany and France from October 1872 to November 1873. On this second tour, Theodore Sr. returned to America to go back to work and oversee the building of the new family home at Number 6 West 57th Street. The three youngest children stayed in Dresden while Mittie and Bamie went to Paris and then the spa at Carlsbad so Mittie could restore her health.

Death

Martha Roosevelt died of typhoid fever on February 14, 1884, aged forty-eight, on the same day and in the same house as her son Theodore's first wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt, who died of Bright's disease, and two days after the birth of her granddaughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth. She is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery located in Brooklyn, New York.

Mittie described in Theodore Roosevelt's Autobiography

Theodore Roosevelt, in his autobiography published in 1913, described his mother with these words, "My mother, Martha Bulloch, was a sweet, gracious, beautiful Southern woman, a delightful companion and beloved by everybody. She was entirely 'unreconstructed' (sympathetic to the Southern Confederate cause) to the day of her death."