Your TR Source
John Mason introduces Dr. Edward G. Rowland to Theodore Roosevelt, hoping to connect him with a government position. Rowland expands on his employment issues to Roosevelt, explaining that he was widowed and is caring for his children alone.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-16
James Hoge Tyler thanks Theodore Roosevelt for appointing Lulu Otey Hoge as postmistress after her husband’s death and asks him to help her keep the job so she can continue supporting her family.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-11
Alma Curtin thanks President Roosevelt for his kind letter upon her husband’s death a few weeks prior. She mentions various works of his that are still unpublished and requests that Roosevelt look over the dedication of her husband’s book The Monguls.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-23
Mrs. Chartier congratulates President Roosevelt on his victory and explains it took her twenty years of research to find him again. She discusses memories of their acquaintance, which began after Roosevelt became a widower in 1885, and explains her current situation as a widow and grandmother. Chartier says she has never forgotten Roosevelt’s kind words. An English translation of the letter written in French is included.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-10
President Roosevelt thanks Annie M. Smith, who described herself as “a little lady of sixty-three, a widow of a civil war veteran,” for the letter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-02
President Roosevelt sends Ethel Chase Sprague Donaldson $100 and has written to Commissioner of Pensions Vespasian Warner about her application. He wonders whether Donaldson can fill some role in federal employment.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-26
An act making appropriations for the diplomatic and consular service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907. The act stipulates funding for salaries of ambassadors and ministers, salaries of secretaries of embassies and legations, contingent expenses, foreign missions, and a number of international bureaus and commissions among other things.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-08-28
President Roosevelt was pleased to help the widow of a comrade-in-arms.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-02-13
President Roosevelt encloses a letter from Mrs. Turner to Jacob Riis. Roosevelt asks Alford Warriner Cooley to look into the case and communicate with Riis.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-08-27
At Senator Lodge’s suggestion, President Roosevelt would like Secretary of the Treasury Shaw to help Robert Shaw’s widow return from abroad.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-07-02
Della L. Peltzel was a widow and received a pension. She remarried Frank E. Peltzel, whom she thought was honorable, but he spent her savings in “drunken debauchery” and left her. Peltzel is in poor health and has no one to care for her. Not wanting to go to a poor house, she asks Theodore Roosevelt for help getting her pension back.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-01-12
Delia Elizabeth Finch Perkins has long admired Theodore Roosevelt and followed his career. Shortly before her husband, Thomas S. Perkins, died, he told her about an institution that loans money to widows with housing payments. She thinks that Roosevelt’s name was mentioned as approving the program. As she is now a widow with four children, Perkins asks Roosevelt for any help he can provide.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-27
Nina Salokike asks Theodore Roosevelt’s opinion about whether she is able to sell some timber. Her husband recently died and she and her children have had to stay with her parents because of their lack of income, and she is looking for ways to earn money. She asks him to write back, or ask an indian agent to write and advise her.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-25
Melva Gartin Funk, on behalf of the Ways and Means Committee of the Chicago Children’s Day Association, requests Theodore Roosevelt’s presence and participation in their benefit for pensions for widowed mothers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-05-10
Augusta Saint-Gaudens thanks President Roosevelt for his condolences over the passing of her husband Augustus Saint-Gaudens and apologizes for the lateness of her reply.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-10-27
Former First Lady Harrison was deeply moved by President Roosevelt’s visit to her late husband Benjamin Harrison’s grave. She hopes to have Roosevelt stay with her in Indianapolis when they unveil a statue of Harrison.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-13
Laura d’Oremieulx Roosevelt writes to Secretary of the President Loeb on behalf of Marie Sidonie Thieriot, the widow of her late cousin Jacob H. Thieriot, in the hope that she may speak with President Theodore Roosevelt about the matter. Thieriot is in delicate health and almost penniless, and Roosevelt would like to do what she can to help her.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-09-10
The article discusses how Minnesota’s public school in Owatonna houses and provides for children from poverty-stricken families or those lacking sufficient support. While it is a necessary institution, it is frequently overcrowded and has a waiting list. Cyrus Townsend Brady recently commented on the benefits of the state providing pensions for widows with dependents instead of removing their children to an institution. Such a program would not cost more than the school’s current expenditures. Additionally, forming a state commission to investigate poverty would aid the initiative.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-04-09
President Roosevelt asks Representative Loudenslager, Chairman of the Committee on Pensions, if it is possible to pass a bill granting a pension to President Grover Cleveland’s widow, Frances Folsom Cleveland. He notes that the widows of Presidents James A. Garfield and William McKinley are granted pensions. Although Garfield and McKinley both served in the army, their widows received pensions because of their husbands’ service as Presidents.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-04
Eugene F. Ware encloses a letter from Jennie Johnson, thanking him for ensuring that she is receiving her deceased husband’s pension benefits.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-30