Kate, the relentless and restless Mrs. Roosevelt was on the move yet again. It was the first of August and she had already been in three states in less than twenty four hours. “Arrived in New York from Long Pond in Plymouth, Massachusetts at 7:00 a.m. Lewis met us at the pier. Had breakfast at 301 Lexington Avenue and left New York in motor for Hightstown, New Jersey at 9:45. Arrived at Merdlemouth just after noon time.” Good thing she left early because according to her diary and her diligent and often-detailed weather reporting, at 6:00 p.m. there was a violent storm. She wrote, “Lightning struck pole near the entrance to the lane. Put telephone out of commission and interfered with the batteries of the water engine.”
Dorothy and Langdon Geer
Possibly life on the farm in Hightstown didn’t provide enough action for the antsy Kate Roosevelt, so on August 5th, she motored down to her mother’s seaside cottage, known as the “Anchorage” on the shores of Sea Bright, New Jersey.
By August 10th she was back at Merdlemouth in time to experience, “Intense heat and rumbling thunder” and to welcome her niece Ruth Steinway and her piano manufacturer husband, Theodore who arrived in their grey motor from Sea Bright after passing the night at the “Anchorage.” They arrived just in time for dinner.
Lovett’s Nursery Catalogue
So much for a leisurely visit at the country farm, by the next morning she was raring to get back to New York City and hitched a ride with the Steinways.
By late afternoon Mrs. Roosevelt was back in Hightstown, New Jersey by way of a train that took her as far as Princeton Junction where her ever-faithful chauffeur met her.
Van Fleet Order Form Listing Lovett’s Nursery and Roses named: Bessie and Alida
Lewis Bourke had been in her service for many years and ran a dependable shuttle service exclusively for her between New Jersey and New York City. He was one of the few who remained in her employ for an extended time. According to her diary, she had a revolving door of domestic help. One of her farmhands at Merdlemouth, John Vetter, announced he was taking a job out west and Mary Taylor, one of two baby nurses employed to take care of her grandson, Langdon Roosevelt Geer, Jr. was “not working out.”
W. Altee Burpee
Was it not working out or just being plain tired out trying to keep up with Kate Roosevelt’s schedule that caused the steady turnover of domestic help?
August 14th and she was on the road again, this time back to New York City with her maid Jane in tow. Jane remained at 301 Lexington Avenue for the rest of the summer and was most likely happy to have some down time while Kate Roosevelt was scurrying from place to place.
Burpee Catalog Cover
August 15th, “Ran down to Merdlemouth with the Geers.” I couldn’t help but notice the term “ran down” was how she nonchalantly described the more than three hour one-way trip. Her daughter Dorothy and husband Langdon Geer were her companions on this exhausting excursion.
Back and forth between the quiet farm, the big city and the family’s seaside cottage, that was the summer schedule. Like mother like daughter, sure enough the next day, Dorothy headed east to Sea Bright to “lunch” at the Anchorage with her grandmother, Mrs. William Shippen and spinster aunts, Ettie, Sophie, Georgie and Caroline.
Lillie Plummer Bliss
An advertisement for the Seldin
Never letting any grass grow under her feet, Kate joined the family in Sea Bright the next day. While there she and Dorothy “motored over” to nearby Little Silver, New Jersey, a short drive west on scenic Rumson Road to Lovett’s Nursery to pick up some evergreens to place around Dorothy’s greenhouse at Merdlemouth and purchase some strawberries.
In 1913, Lovett’s Nursery was a nationally-recognized retailer, selling the finest plants, flowers and fruit trees. Thomas Lovett was a lifetime member of the Polomological Society. Founded by Marshall P. Wilder in 1848 the society is the oldest fruit organization dedicated to fostering the science and practice of fruit production and variety development in the country. Lovett was known as the “Small Fruit Prince.”
Cornelius Newton Bliss
On his 250 acre farm, Lovett also cultivated rare varieties of roses using cuttings developed by the renowned scientist, Dr. Walter Van Fleet. Two were named for Lovett’s daughters, the Alida and the Bessie. The Lovett sisters used one of the cottages on the nursery as their arts and crafts studio. Free spirits and a bit ahead of their time, they never married and were employed by Yale University as freelance medical illustrators.
Lovett’s Nursery produced beautiful catalogs, most likely illustrated by his talented daughters, distributed nationally every growing season.
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
After stocking up on Lovett’s rare specimens and strawberries, Kate, Dorothy and Sophie Shippen headed back east to spend the day at the Anchorage. On their way home Kate wrote, “Picked up a strange man. We were in an accident, just this side of the lily pond, run into by an automobile. Mr. Burpee, the seed man was in the auto.” The strange man mentioned was none other than W. Altee Burpee, perhaps the most celebrated vegetable and flower seed producer in the world. Most likely he had been to see Thomas Lovett about re-stocking Burpee Seeds at his nursery.
“Geer’s car, the Seldin was badly damaged. Telephoned Lewis, he came and got us in the Ford.” I could only imagine the scene, a Ford and a Seldin on the same road at the same time. Apparently it was a contentious relationship with lawsuits filed by both parties. George Baldwin Seldin, a patent attorney invented the automobile he named after himself while working with the inventor, Henry Ford. Ford wanted the car named in his honor. Sounds like some early day “road rage.”
Mary Quinn Sullivan
“Sophie got a lift back to Sea Bright from Miss Bliss, who just happened by.” I liked the sound of her name and wanted to see who this Good Samaritan was and sure enough she was more than a kindly neighbor. She was Lillie Plummer Bliss the daughter of former Secretary of the Interior, Cornelius N. Bliss. The family resided in New York City and maintained a summer home in Rumson, New Jersey, not far from the Shippen cottage just across the river in Sea Bright. Lillie’s father was a wealthy textile merchant who did more than dabble in politics and was most likely an acquaintance of Kate Roosevelt’s. In 1900, President McKinley asked Bliss to be his vice presidential running mate. Bliss declined, Roosevelt accepted and the rest is history. Several years later Bliss accepted another plum position as Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign manager in his successful presidential election of 1904. I wonder if Lillie Bliss knew that her passenger, Sophie Shippen, was the sister of Kate Roosevelt, Theodore’s cousin by marriage and outspoken critic of his Progressive Politics.
According to her biography, Lillie Bliss, like the Shippen sisters was a spinster. An only daughter, she stayed home to care for her invalid mother while her father pursued his political and personal interests.
The Bather by Paul Cezanne
Never being married did not mar Lillie’s life in any way. Artistically inclined, she met many famous people through her well-connected parents. The actress, Ethel Barrymore, who often cavorted with President Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice, was a friend as were many of the emerging artists of the early twentieth century. Lillie’s father, as president of the Union League Club of New York City from 1902-1906, regularly exhibited works of living artists, then known as “modern artists” there.
Ironically, her mother, Mary Elizabeth Bliss disdained modern art and would not allow it to be hung in her home. Lillie, while living with her mother in an apartment on East 37th Street locked her treasures in an upstairs storeroom. When visitors came to see these masterpieces, a servant brought them down by elevator, one by one and propped them up on an easel for viewing.
The pieces acquired by Lillie Bliss were signed by such artists as Arthur B. Davies, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas. With her financial backing the controversial Armory Show was introduced to shocked New Yorkers, one of them was Mrs. Kate Roosevelt who called it “A complete nuisance perpetuated on the long-suffering public.”
Rumson Road, Rumson, New Jersey
Obviously Lillie Plummer Bliss “saw the bigger picture” and was not offended easily and offered the ever opinionated Kate Roosevelt’s sister a lift home in August, 1913.
When the Metropolitan Museum of Art declined to accept her donation of modern art Lillie Bliss rallied her friends Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Louisine Havemeyer and Mary Quinn Sullivan and established the Museum of Modern Art in 1929 in a rented space at 730 East Fifth Avenue. It is now located on West 53 Street in New York City.
Sharon Hazard’s The Dowager’s Diary appears every Thursday.
Photo One:
Kate Roosevelt at her farm, Merdlemouth
courtesy: Sam Chapin
Photo Two:
Dorothy and Langdon Geer
Courtesy: Noel Seifert
Photo Three:
Lovett’s Nursery Catalogue
Smithsonian
Photo Four:
Van Fleet Order Form Listing Lovett’s Nursery and Roses named: Bessie and Alida
wiki
Photo Five:
W. Altee Burpee
Wiki
Photo Six:
Burpee Catalog Cover
wiki
Photo Seven:
Lillie Plummer Bliss
Museum of Modern Art
Photo Seven-A
An advertisement for the Seldin
wiki
Photo Eight:
Cornelius Newton Bliss
wiki
Photo Nine:
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
wiki
Photo Ten:
Mary Quinn Sullivan
Museum of Modern Art
Photo Eleven:
The Bather by Paul Cezanne
The Museum of Modern Art
Lillie P. Bliss Collection
Photo Twelve:
Rumson Road, Rumson, New Jersey
author’s collection
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