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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey – Week Twenty-Four
Apparently, the Roosevelts did not have a corner on concern for the less fortunate in New York City. The other day, in the Dowager’s Diary, Kate Roosevelt mentioned going to a fundraising meeting at...
View ArticleThe Dowager’s Diary: New York City’s Downton Abbey-Week Thirty-Two
Kate Roosevelt rarely missed an opening night on Broadway or a mid-day matinee along the Great White Way. As most of my readers know by now Kate was quite the thespian and acted in many amateur...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe 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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