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| Ethel after moving into the White House |
Unlike her more flamboyant and attention seeking older
sister Alice, Ethel preferred not to be the center of attention. None the less she
was a “take charge” person from
childhood, While her brothers would refer to her as “bossy,” her father once
remarked: "she had a way of doing everything and managing everybody."
In some aspects, this would be a lifetime role she assumed within her family.
In spite of her age, Ethel often filled in for her mother at
the White House, be it care for her siblings, ordering meals or assigning tasks
to the staff. In his Letters to My Children, President Roosevelt makes note of
Ethel’s role within the family.
1904 to Kermit, Mother went off for three days to New York
and Mame and Quentin took instant advantage of her absence to fall sick.
Quentin's sickness was surely due to a riot in candy and ice-cream with
chocolate sauce. He was a very sad bunny next morning and spent a couple of
days in bed. Ethel, as always, was as good as gold both to him and to Archie,
and largely relieved me of my duties as vice-mother.
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| Ethel is on the far right standing behind her mother. |
I few months later he
writes to Ethel, I think you are a little trump and I love your letter, and the
way you take care of the children and keep down the expenses and cook bread and
are just your own blessed busy cunning self.
A day later he sends
a “Picture Letter” to Darling Ethel:
Here goes for the picture letter! [These are letter that he
illustrates.]
Ethel administers necessary discipline to Archie and
Quentin.
Ethel gives sick Yagenka a bottle of medicine.
Father playing tennis with Mr. Cooley. (Father's shape and
spectacles are reproduced with photographic fidelity; also notice Mr. Cooley's
smile.)
Leo chases a squirrel, which fortunately he can't catch.
A nice policeman feeding a squirrel with bread; I fed two
with bread this afternoon.
There! My invention has given out. Mother and Aunt Emily
have been on a picnic down the river with General Crozier; we have been sitting
on the portico in the moonlight. Sister is very good. Your loving father.
In 1906, the President letters are addressed to Blessed
Ethel or Darling Ethel, and on June 24, he has a question for her, Has the
lordly Ted turned up yet? Is his loving sister able, unassisted, to reduce the
size of his head, or does she need any assistance from her male parent? Your
affectionate father, The Tyrant.
The President wrote to his children as equals and felt he
could confide in Ethel, who was about 14 when he wrote to her while she was at
Sagamore Hill. He said of a party of boys that Quentin had at the White House: "They
played hard, and it made me realize how old I had grown and how very busy I had
been the last few years to find that they had grown so that I was not needed in
the play. Do you recollect how we all of us used to play hide and go seek in
the White House, and have obstacle races down the hall when you brought in your
friends?"
Cavendish was Ethel’s summer home as an adult. She would tell stories at
the Library about what it was like growing up in the White House. Phyllis Bont
related two of the stories Ethel told. Prior to state dinners, Ethel and her
siblings would hide under the tables, easily concealed by the floor length
table cloths. Once the women were seated, the women would slip off their shoes
and the Roosevelt children would get to work mixing them up. Another time, the
children placed a donkey in an elevator and pressed the button so when the
elevator arrived at his designated floor, a snooty statesman they didn’t care
for would be greeted by the donkey.
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| Ethel and Dick Derby |
Ethel’s nursing background was instrumental in her abilities
to help her family heal from numerous tragedies. Her brother Quentin, a pilot,
was killed in WWI in 1918. Six months later her father would die. In 1922, her
oldest son died of blood poisoning at eight years of age. The trauma of losing
a child plunged Dick Derby into a deep depression that lasted for several
years. It would fall to Ethel to maintain the household, the finances and the
rest of the family.
Out of her four brothers, three would die at war-Quentin in
WWI and Ted and Kermit during WWII. Ted died of a heart attack several days
after D Day, where he lead troops Sadly Kermit took his own life while serving
in Alaska.
By 1928, with her husband doing much better and working at
the Glen Cove Hospital, Ethel began what turned into six decades of
volunteering with the Oyster Bay Red Cross. She played a major role in
preserving Sagamore Hill, her father's estate at Oyster Bay and having it
placed on the National Trust for Historical Preservation. She was a member of
the board of directors of the Museum of Natural History in New York. Like her
first cousin Eleanor, whom she was thought to resemble, she was concerned with
civil rights. However, her focus was local first. In Oyster Bay, where she
thought blacks were being discriminated against, Ethel formed a committee to
bring low income housing to the community.
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| When asked to pose for her portrait, she opted for her | Red Cross uniform |
She gave the seconding speech for the nomination of Richard
Nixon at the Republican National Convention in 1960. Her last visit to the
White House was in 1977 when she visited the Carters.
"If there was any local activity of any kind, she
either started it or was in it," said Leonard Hall, a former chairman of
the Republican National Committee and a congressman whose district was made up
of part of Nassau County. "'No' was not in her vocabulary."
Ethel was certainly involved in Cavendish activities, when she was in town.
Phyllis Bont describes how Ethel was one of the first people to stop by and welcome
them to Cavendish, when they moved here in 1957, when Dr. Gene Bont became the physician for the Black River Health Center . Ethel brought wine, bread and “something else” Phyllis
recalled. It’s very possible that the third item was salt and she would have
recited the lines from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” -bread so you never know
hunger, salt that you may always have flavor and wine for joy and prosperity. Phyllis had no idea who she was, and thought
she was a farmer’s wife. However, it wouldn’t be long before she understood who
Ethel was.
Mary Davis, the realtor, invited Phyllis to come and play
bridge with a number of other women in town. Ethel showed up and announced that
while she didn’t play bridge, she wanted the women to know there was a new
clinic -the Black River Health Center. The doctors were excellent and she
suggested that the women change doctors immediately. Phyllis was mortified and
said the bridge playing was tense at best. She noted that while that may have
worked in Oyster Bay in didn’t work in a small rural Vermont town, where people
felt a loyalty to their physician and weren’t about to change regardless of who
the new provider was or who told them to make such a change.
Over the years, Ethel was to give Phyllis a copy of her
father’s book, “Letters to My Children.” In the winter, Ethel would host a
sledding party, inviting people to enjoy the amazing hill on their property off the South Reading Rd. Ethel
helped to found the Cavendish Historical Society, served on the board and even
donated to the first exhibit held at the Museum.
RESOURCES
• Roosevelt-Derby-Williams Papers 1863-1977 Papers
concerning three generations of the Theodore Roosevelt family. Chiefly contains
correspondence, of Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, her daughter, Ethel Roosevelt
Derby, and Ethel's daughter, Edith Roosevelt Derby Williams. Includes sizable
correspondence of Emily Tyler Carow, Theodore Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, and
Richard Derby, as well, and numerous photographs.
Mrs Derby used to come to my Grandparents farm, Walter and Julia Murray in Weathersfield and climb the Little Ascutney MT in the backyard. She would have a cup of tea with my Grandmother. She was very unassuming but my Grandmother was very flattered, she came maybe once a summer in the late 50's or early '60's as I remember. I never met her but have read much about her, I guess she left her mark wherever she was. I am so sorry that I missed your program, Dr Bont was my Grandparents Doctor .
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