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Alice Roosevelt was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, her mother and paternal grandmother died, as her father, then New York Assemblyman, Theodore Roosevelt, floated between the deathbeds.
She was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, and the half sister to five younger siblings. There are conflicting stories about her relationship with her stepmother: some experts say it was a generally good relationship that had some bumps, while others paint Edith Roosevelt as the original Wicked Stepmother. It was probably a combination of both. While it was Edith who patiently massaged Alice's legs (she needed to be in leg braces in her early childhood), Edith also resented what young Alice represented, Theodore's first marriage. This created a natural friction between them.
It also created a feeling in Alice that she did not quite belong to her family, and this feeling of diconnectedness most likely contributed to her independent wild streak. Alice enjoyed shocking people, a characteristic which remained over her long life.
When she was first daughter, a guest in the President's office, annoyed by Alice's frequent interruptions, demanded that Alice be disciplined. Roosevelt sighed and said, "I can either run the country or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both."
The media loved this presidential wild child. They dubbed her Princess Alice, and the attractive young woman was the source of songs, poems, even a color (Alice Blue). When her father banned her from smoking in the White House, she went to the roof to puff away. She bragged about setting speed records in her friend's roadster, as they drove around the Northeast unchaperoned. While representing her father on an official government junket to the Far East, she literally made a splash by jumping into the ship's pool fully dressed. Hardly scandalous these days, but her antics were quite newsworthy at the turn of the century.
She married a playboy Congressman from Ohio, Nicholas Longworth. It was not a happy marriage by any accounts, but it kept Alice in Washington, where she became a fixture in the Congressional and Senate galleries. She was staunchly Republican, and there is some debate to how much she worked behind the scenes to kill Wilson's League of Nations. She denied it, but her father and Wilson were great enemies, and after her father's death, Alice seemed determined to make sure her father's idealisms be carried out. During the debates surrounding the League of Nations, Alice invited Senators to her home to meet informally with other Senators who opposed the League. She hosted late night pow-wows of the group fighting the League on the Senate floor. And she was in the gallery the day it was defeated.
After her husband's death, Alice remained in Washington and became known as "the other Washington monument." Her home was a salon, full of politicians, writers, movie stars -- anyone who kept her entertained. She kept a pillow on her sofa with the following phrase embroidered on it: "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me." She loved gossip, and while she denied ever creating them, many one-line quips are credited to her, such as "Coolidge looks like he was weaned on a pickle."
She had one daughter, Paulina, with whom she had a strained relationship. After Paulina's death, Alice fought for -- and won -- custody of her granddaughter, Joanna, giving her a second chance at motherhood.
Alice died in 1980, at the age of 96.
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