Teddy Roosevelt

When Teddy Roosevelt became president, he brought with him to the White House not only his wife Edith and their six children, but a menagerie of pets that would continue to expand during his two terms. As the Washington Evening Star reported in 1908, “There is no home in Washington so full of pets of high and low degree as is the White House, and those pets not only occupy the attention of the children, but the president is himself their good friend, and has a personal interest in every one of them.”

Along with numerous cats and dogs, the Roosevelts kept two ponies, twelve horses, a pig, at least five guinea pigs, a lizard, several bears, a badger, a blue macaw, several snakes, a flying squirrel, two kangaroo rats, a piebald rat, a rabbit, and a one-legged rooster—presenting lots of opportunity for mischief by the rowdy Roosevelt children.

Alice Roosevelt's favorite pet was a snake named Emily Spinach, which she carried around in her dress pocket. Her brother Quentin once burst into a meeting at the White House with four snakes he had just purchased from a pet store, dropping them onto the table and sending the attendees (other than TR, presumably) scrambling for the door. His father made Quentin catch the snakes and return them to the store.

Perhaps the most famous Roosevelt pet antic involved nine-year-old Archie’s Shetland pony Algonquin. In 1902, Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock purchased the 350-pound pony in Iceland and presented it to Archie as a gift. The pony immediately became Archie’s favorite pet and the two of them became favorite subjects for White House photographers.

In February 1903 Archie was recovering from measles, bed-ridden on his mother’s orders. He begged for permission to visit Algonquin in the stable, but his mother refused, insisting he remain quietly in bed until fully recovered. Recognizing an opportunity both to cheer up their brother and to have some fun, Quentin and Kermit Roosevelt (with the assistance of White House footman Charles Reeder) snuck Algonquin onto the White House elevator and brought him up to Archie’s room. Archie was delighted. Upon hearing the commotion and discovering the pony in Archie’s room, his mother was not.

The lives of the prankster boys were adventurous, and in the cases of Kermit and Quentin, tragic.

Archie Roosevelt was severely wounded in World War I and was awarded two Silver Stars and the French Croix de Guerre. When the U.S. entered World War II, Archie again volunteered for service. In August 1943 he was badly wounded in combat on New Guinea, in the same leg that had been wounded in France 25 years earlier. For his service he was awarded another Silver Star. He went on to a successful career as a businessman and died at age 85.

In 1913-14 Kermit Roosevelt accompanied his father on the River of Doubt expedition in the Amazon, which nearly killed them both. Like his brothers, Kermit served in World War I. After the war he became a successful businessman. When World War II broke out Kermit volunteered for the British army and was commissioned an officer. After a bout with malaria, complicated by overdrinking, he was discharged for health reasons. When the U.S. entered the war, Kermit was commissioned as an officer and stationed in Alaska. There, struggling with alcoholism and depression, he died of suicide in June 1943, at age 53.

Quentin Roosevelt became a pilot and died heroically during World War I, at age 20, making him the only child of a U.S. president to be killed in combat.

Kermit and Quentin Roosevelt snuck their brother Archie’s pony Algonquin into the White House on February 28, 1903, one hundred twenty years ago today.

The photo is of Archie and Algonquin, taken on June 17, 1902.