In April 1916 he was almost expelled from Harvard itself in a curious incident involving an unpaid $5 lab fee that with fines came to $15 before the thing was resolved. He had been expelled from Groton while a teenager. The Colonel was still waiting on Wilson’s decision regrading his division.Īrchie was Theodore’s third son and in some ways the most troubled. Theodore, Edith and other family had taken the train from New York the evening before and ensconced themselves in a group of suites at the Hotel Victoria. Presumably he met her while a students at Harvard, which is how his father met his first wife in the 1870s. It is interesting that he married a Boston girl. Even their father Theodore Roosevelt, as we have been discussing the past few days, was hoping to join the Allied fight. Like his three brothers, he was eager to join the Allied fight. Most of Archie’s siblings and spouses too stayed the Victoria.Ī deferment was not the objective for Archie Roosevelt. His mother and father, Edith and Theodore Roosevelt, stayed at the Hotel Victoria (the larger building). (image/ New York Times) Archie Roosevelt’s wedding When he spoke at the Oyster Bay reformed Church one hundred years ago today, he had a personal stake in the conflict that was not there even one week prior. Theodore Roosevelt had been an advocate for American involvement in the Great War since 1914. The waiting to go overseas was finally over. They had a few more days to pass before the passage of the Chicago and so went back to Long Island to say their final goodbyes to their families. It was there at the Department of the East that they received their final instructions. Eventually the War Department sent secret orders directing them to report to General J. They had spent the past several weeks getting in some final training in Plattsburg before traveling ceaselessly between New York City, Washington, and Oyster Bay as their fate was being decided. The late spring of 1917 had entailed a great deal of back and forth for Archive and Ted. That became a reality when the Chicago left New York for Bordeaux on Wednesday 20 June. The Colonel was committed, quite publicly, to sending his sons, so much so that he pulled all the strings he could get his sons to Europe as quickly as possible. By June it apparent that the Wilson Administration, wisely, was not going to let Roosevelt command a division in France. Raising funds and awareness for that relief organization was not his only reason to take to the podium however with sons Archibald and Theodore now crossing the Atlantic aboard the Chicago to join Pershing’s nascent forces, he could announce that the boys had indeed left American soil.

Theodore Roosevelt spoke from the pulpit of the Oyster Bay Reformed Church at Brookville on Sunday 24 June 1917 on behalf of the Red Cross.

Archibald and Theodore (Ted) Roosevelt Jr.

Archibald roosevelt