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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Twenty Five
July 5-12, 1917 July 5, 1917, the day after celebrating a patriotic July Fourth visiting troops stationed at Camp Dix in Wrightstown bound for warfare in the trenches of France and doing a drive-by to...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Twenty-Seven
July 19-26, 1917 It was the middle of July 1917 and Kate Roosevelt was all over the map, figuratively and logistically. Since her diary entries from July 19 through July 26, 1917 span the globe, I...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Thirty-Eight
October 18-25, 1917 “Emlen Roosevelt here about possible sale of house.” That was Kate Roosevelt’s diary entry for October 19, 1917 and it made perfect sense to me. Just the other day she had...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Forty
If CNN, today’s premier cable news channel, had been around one hundred years ago, I am sure Kate Roosevelt would have been one of the most outspoken members on its panel of political pundits. Reading...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Forty-Six
December 14-21, 1917 Christmas was just around the corner for Kate Roosevelt and her New York City social circle, but utmost on their minds during the holiday season of 1917 was what was going on in...
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The Dowager’s Diary: Week One Hundred and Forty-Eight
December 27-31, 1917 “Dined with the Emlen Roosevelts.” That was how Kate Roosevelt celebrated the evening December 27, 1917. Emlen was the first cousin of Theodore and Hilborne Roosevelt. He was the...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Fifty-Four
February 7-14, 1918 It seems that during the first week of February, 1918, Kate Roosevelt was leaving her luxurious apartment on Lexington Avenue and moving to 35 East 30th Street to an apartment...
View ArticleCatch Up with WAT-CAST
Since we launched our podcast, WAT-CAST, on January 8, we have had the pleasure of interviewing 12 people for 10 episodes. This week, we’ve hit the pause button to allow you to catch up and listen to...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Thirty-Four
“To the Zoological Park for tea. Beautiful place, charming afternoon. Took the subway.” Years later, both the zoo and the subway would become landmarks, but in 1913, both were relatively new...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Thirty-Five
It was the middle of May, 1913, the valises had been shipped down and the servants settled in for the summer at Kate Roosevelt’s farm in Hightstown, New Jersey mysteriously named “Merdlemouth.” For the...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Thirty-Eight
It was August, 1913 and Kate Roosevelt had been dealing with her grandson, Langdon Roosevelt Geer, Jr.’s illness since his parents, Dorothy and Langdon, Sr. had sailed off on vacation in the middle of...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty
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...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty-Two
Thanksgiving Day, 1915, “Went to services at the Church of the Incarnation and on the way home saw the ragamuffins.” By now I knew that Mrs. Kate Roosevelt was a staunch Episcopalian and an active...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty-Three
It was just a few weeks before Christmas, 1915 and Kate Roosevelt’s diary described a sad day in the city. “Langston, Jr. and I stopped to watch the steam shovel as it dug up the foundation of the...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty-Four
It was December 9th, 1915 and the Shippen sisters were on the loose in Lord & Taylor with Christmas lists and cash in hand. Kate Shippen and her side-kick sister, Ettie Shippen were on their...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty-Five
“To Woolworth’s Five and Ten Cent Store.” The month of December, 1915 found Kate Roosevelt in an all-consuming constant round of Christmas shopping and in her quest went from classy Lord & Taylor...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty-Six
A last minute visit to B. Altman’s on Fifth Avenue and 34th 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...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty-Seven
Our heroine ended the year 1915 and began 1916 with a heavy heart. “This has been one of the most terrible years the world has ever seen, both for trouble around the world with disaster and for...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Forty-Nine
January 10-17, 1916 As Kate Roosevelt cruised into January, 1916 I could see her life changing course and veering toward slightly more substantive issues. Of course she was not giving up her role as...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Fifty
January 18-30, 1916 At the end of the nineteenth century the ladies who lunched at the Colony Club might have been referred to as members of the “Mauve Decade” but they began showing their true colors...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Fifty-One
JANUARY 23-30, 1916 The last week of January, 1916 found Kate Roosevelt, once again, acting more like a responsible mother, than a gad-about grandmother when she wrote in her diary, “Took Little...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Fifty-Two
February 1-7, 1916 Pouring rain was the weather report noted by the ever-faithful amateur meteorologist, Kate Roosevelt on the first day of February, 1916. She began many of her diary entries in this...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Fifty-Four
February 15-22, 1916 Last week the woes of the world weighed heavily on Kate Roosevelt, but this week her agenda included some lighter fare, the theater and society doings. On February 15, 1916, she...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Fifty-Five
February 23-29, 1916 Before I can begin sharing Kate Roosevelt’s diary entry for the last week of February, 1916, I must first re-visit the year 1891 and escort readers to a “Charming Wedding,” as...
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The Dowager’s Diary – New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Fifty-Six
February 23-29 And March 1, 1916 1916 was a leap year and so Kate Roosevelt was able to add an extra day to the month of February. Evoking a scene from the Sixth Season of PBS’ series, Downton Abbey...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Fifty-Eight
March 7-15 Residents of New Orleans call it Fat Tuesday and celebrate with a raucous Mardi Gras, and on March 7, 1916, Kate Roosevelt and her reserved fellow Episcopalians called the day before Ash...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Sixty
The Last Week of March, 1916 Music, a matinee and great mourning were on Kate Roosevelt’s agenda for the last days of March, 1916. David Mannes Her week began by going to see, “A recital of Negro music...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Sixty-One
April 1-8, 1916 “To Franklin Simon’s to buy a dress,” and for the first time it was “off the rack” for a Roosevelt. Up until now, the only mention Kate Roosevelt made of fashion was when she traveled...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Sixty-Six
May 9-16, 1916 The second week of May, 1916 found the four Shippen Spinsters safely ensconced in Rumson, New Jersey getting their cottage known as “The Anchorage” ready for the summer season. With...
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Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Sixty-Seven
May 16-23, 1916 During the middle of May, 1916 Kate Roosevelt’s younger sister, Caroline Shippen, had minor surgery. She didn’t go into details about the operation, but Caroline’s recuperation required...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Sixty-Seven
May 25-30, 1916 “To Lusitania Memorial Meeting at Carnegie Hall. Rather a flat affair.” On May 19, 1916 Kate Roosevelt was among an audience that the week before had been denied the right to congregate...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Sixty-Eight
June, 1916 June, 1916 found Kate Shippen Roosevelt at her summertime retreat known as Merdlemouth, nestled among the shady evergreen trees and winding brooks of Hightstown, New Jersey. Her small farm...
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Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Seventy
The roots of the Roosevelt family tree run deep and wide and thanks to Kate Roosevelt’s diary entry for June 18, 1916. Another branch on the tree sprouted when she mentioned that Fred Roosevelt had...
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The Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Seventy-Five
July 20, 1916. When Dr. Reuel Kimball met a passenger who survived the sinking of the Titantic back in 1912, the New York Sun reported, on a pregnant passenger, “The nervous condition which has caused...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Eighty
August 24-30, 1916 With summer swiftly slipping away, Kate Roosevelt wasn’t letting any grass grow under her feet. After spending a few days at her home at 301 Lexington Avenue in New York City, she...
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The Dowager’s Diary: Week Eighty-Three
September 14-21, 1916 “Dorothy, Anna and I to lunch with Bessie Alexander in Princeton.” The four women mentioned in Kate’s diary entry for September 14, 1916 were her daughter, Dorothy Roosevelt Geer;...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Eighty-Four
September 21-28, 1916 From the hallowed halls of Princeton University to the bright lights of Broadway, Kate Roosevelt was never far from places and events that were important in 1916. Booth Theater...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Eighty-Five
September 28-30, 1916 “These Catholic affairs are horrible. To my mind they are utterly meaningless. There is no help or confirmation in them!” From Kate Shippen Roosevelt’s pen to the ears of...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Eighty-Seven
October 12-19, 1916 “Dorothy and Eva McAdoo arrived in Princeton Junction by the 4:04 train from New York City. Had chauffeur pick them up and drive them here to Hightstown. I gathered all of the...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Eighty-Nine
October 25-31, 1916 “Florence Rhett lunched with me at the Cosmo Club, shopping, taxi to Penn Station. Bella and Maud, the maids, were with me.” By the year 1916, Florence Rhett was long-retired from...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Ninety-One
November 8-15, 1916 “I sent Anna Roosevelt’s Christmas check to Paris. $16.50 went out at 10:50 a.m.” Anna Roosevelt was President Theodore Roosevelt’s older sister and first cousin of Kate Shippen...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Ninety-Two
November 16-23, 1916 On November 16, 1916, Kate Shippen Roosevelt was securing the shutters on her shingled farmhouse, packing trunks with freshly-aired linens and polished silver, stacking wooden...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week Ninety-Three
November 23-30, 1916 Thanksgiving, 1916 found Kate Roosevelt breaking-in a kitchen maid. “New waitress, Ida Anderson, came. She has cleaned the silver and I sent the Roosevelt Family “flat silver” and...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Four
February 8-15, 1917 “To Colonial Dames meeting to arrange for war work. A lot of talk and nothing accomplished. Put up a flag in case of German-American war.” That was Kate Roosevelt’s comment on...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Five
February 15-22, 1917 Throughout Kate Shippen Roosevelt’s diary she many times mentioned taking her grandsons, Langdon, Jr. and Shippen Geer to parks, museums, exhibits, school and dentist...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Eleven
March 27-31, 1917 “In the evening to see Lilac Time at the Theater Republic at 207 West 42nd Street.” That was what was on the agenda for the last week of March, 1917 for Kate Shippen Roosevelt. The...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred Twenty One
June 7-14, 1917 The jolly month of June, 1917 found Kate Shippen Roosevelt in many places. From her small country farm in Hightstown, New Jersey to her ancestral home, “The Anchorage” located on the...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Twenty-Two
June 14-21, 1917 “Shopping at Altman’s.” That’s what Kate Roosevelt was doing on June 14, 1917. Altman’s was an exclusive department store located on Fifth Avenue just across the street from the...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Seventy-Seven
July 19-26, 1918 The jolly month of July, 1918 was just that for Kate Shippen Roosevelt. She was doing some sightseeing and hotel hopping. Her morning excursion entailed visiting the Mohawk Trail. She...
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The Dowager’s Diary – Week One Hundred and Eighty-Two
September 1-8, 1918 The first week of September, 1918 found Kate Roosevelt once again ranting about the Roman Catholics and their long-winded rituals. But before she did so, she took advantage of...
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