The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey

A last minute visit to B. Altman’s on Fifth Avenue and 34^th Street and Kate Roosevelt’s shopping for Christmas 1915 was all wrapped-up. As she noted in her diary, “the tree was dressed” and the “men had come to install the gas-light decorations.”

B. Altman’s

Once again, Mrs. Roosevelt had impressed me. Between Christmas shopping and her holiday chutzpah she still managed to make time for civic, cultural and spiritual pursuits.

Princess Theater

In the weeks leading up to the big day, Kate Roosevelt went to the Princess Theater on West 39^th Street, just off of Sixth Avenue to see a production put on by the Comedy Club. “Composed of 1,800 members, the amateur acting group was a collaboration of “people of means who are interested in the stage,” was how the New York Evening World described the club, who’s president in December, 1915 was Kate Roosevelt’s nephew-in-law, Theodore Steinway. Membership for the year was $80.00. In addition to making pianos, Steinway also made many appearances on the stage.

Christmas Trees for Sale

The performance Kate attended was called Gods of Mountains, featuring mythical men turning to stone. Since the small theater had only fourteen rows of seats and some choice boxes, attendance was limited to members and a few select guests and I was thinking, after reading “Aunt Kate’s” diary entry that the Steinways might have given her ticket to someone less critical. Not to worry, by then I was sure everyone knew her standards when it came to the stage. “Interesting, but rather dull,” were her curt words.

Elisabeth Marbury and Friend

Even family members were not immune to her sometimes hurtful reviews. Her friend and fellow Colony Club member, theater and booking agent, Elisabeth Marbury, would not have been happy to hear such clipped criticism of a play she championed in hopes it would be purchased by a big-name producer.

The day after the theatrical disappointment, Mrs. Roosevelt left New York City to visit the Shippen side of the family in Philadelphia and I was hoping they received a better review upon her departure.

A blizzard of activity herself, she was met in the city of “Brotherly-Love” by a winter storm. Her weather report said, “Snow drifting badly. We were supposed to have lunched at Shippen Willings’ in Bryn Mawr, but we could not get through. So we lunched at home. Then off to visit Emma Paul (who was on Philadelphia’s social register and listed as a major contributor to Hahnemann Medical Center) then to “Order transfer of my valises back to New York.” I was wondering if she was referring to her sturdy black leather Mark Cross traveling bags.

Ritz Carlton

Before heading back to the big city, Kate Roosevelt still had some charity work to do. She dropped of a handbag to be sold at a fundraiser for York Hospital at Philadelphia’s Ritz Carlton on Rittenhouse Square. Then “To roll bandages at the British Rooms.” I wasn’t sure if she was talking about a tea room or social club, but doing some research, I located a room called the British Gallery at Independence Hall. It was a meeting place set aside for visiting British officials coming to America at the end of the Revolutionary War.

British Gallery at Independence Hall

On the same day, Mrs. Roosevelt attended a lecture on French war orphans. “There are 200,000 children made fatherless by the war in France.” This was the first of many times from here on that Kate Roosevelt would make mention of the rumblings of war overseas.

President Wilson and his bride, Edith Galt

She also wrote about the man who would shortly be making the war in Europe more than just fodder for lectures and meetings of rich dowagers rolling bandages. Her diary read, “President Wilson and Mrs. Galt are to be married this evening at her home in Washington.”