March 8-15, 1917
This week’s diary entries included some more nonchalant name-dropping by Mrs. Kate Shippen Roosevelt.
As if it wasn’t enough to be reminded that her late-husband’s uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. had founded the Museum of Natural History in York City or that one of its architects, J. Cleaveland Cady had been a guest at her wedding in 1883 along with President Theodore Roosevelt’s first wife, Alice Lee and his brother, Elliott Roosevelt or that she had tea at the home of President Grover Cleveland’s widow in Princeton or that she was a girl-hood chum of Bessie Alexander who married the world famous painter, John White Alexander or that she often went back-stage to visit with Broadway Stars, Ethel Barrymore and Minnie Fisk; that the First Lady, Edith Roosevelt was a frequent caller or even that her daughter, Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt had made her debut in 1902 along with other Roosevelt “Royalty,” Alice, Eleanor, Elfrida, Helen and Christine; on March 8, 1917 Kate Roosevelt dropped another famous name onto the pages of her diary, “To a lecture at Mrs. J.P. Morgan’s home on Madison Avenue.”
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J.P. Morgan Home
I was sure that she had made the acquaintance of Mrs. Morgan many times because another of her girl-hood chums was employed by the fantastically rich, J.P. Morgan as a traveling companion/governess to his three daughters, Juliet, Anne, and Louisa. Kate Roosevelt called her friend Florence, “Flossy” but the Morgan Family called her Miss Rhett and when J.P. Morgan died in 1913, he referred to Florence Rhett as a faithful and loyal member of his household and left her a fortune.
Kate Roosevelt did not say if “Flossy” had accompanied her on this afternoon visit and did not say much more than that she had attended a lecture at the Morgan mansion at 219 Madison Avenue, just a few blocks away from her own home at 301 Lexington Avenue.
J.P. Morgan
Frances Tracy Morgan and Kate Shippen Roosevelt had more in common that just their friendship with Florence Rhett. Both women loved the opera. According to the book, Morgan, American Financier by Jeanne Strouse, “In New York for his twenty-eighth birthday on April 17, Pierpont wrote out a promise, to allow Frances to attend the opera at least once in three weeks during the opera season and I further agree to accompany her thither provided she prefers said escort to any other.” J. P. Morgan wrote those words shortly before the two were married on March, 17, 1861.
Also, both women’s husbands had dealings with Thomas Edison as investors, business partners and friends. When Thomas Edison opened his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Hilborne Roosevelt presented the inventor with a “house-warming” gift of sorts, an organ of his own design, that kept the laboratory staff stimulated and entertained. J.P. Morgan oversaw the merger of Edison Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric into General Electric.
J.P. Morgan was on the board of trustees at the Museum of Natural History along with many of the Roosevelt relatives and he was active in the Episcopal Church. Kate Roosevelt was an avowed Episcopalian. And like her cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan had lost his first wife at a young age. When he visited his wife, Memie Sturgis Morgan’s grave on the first anniversary of their wedding day the grieving widower copied a poem:
Fading
Once a lovely flower grew near me
And entwined around my heart
But it withered and in sadness
I was doomed from it to part.
When Theodore Roosevelt’s wife, Alice Lee died he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.” Both men choose their second wives without wearing the robe of romanticism, but instead realism.
Frances Tracy Morgan
“Fanny Tracy was taller and larger-boned than Memie Sturgis Morgan with a slight under-bite and wide-set blue eyes that seemed to take the world in with timid trust. Though not as imaginative or high-spirited as her predecessor in J. Pierpont’s affections, she had a sober, appealing sweetness.”
Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt had similar characteristics, some even said of the President’s reserved and reclusive second wife, “She could make even those who should feel comfortable feel uncomfortable.”
Unlike Kate Roosevelt, Mrs. Morgan preferred intimate evenings at home with friends, family and quiet conversation. The opera was her only outside indulgence as opposed to Kate’s revolving door of theater, lectures, luncheons, concerts and visits. One of the Morgan daughters, Anne Tracy Morgan was a founder of the Colony Club where Kate often enjoyed the camaraderie of a “clique” of New York City socialites.
Morgan Library
On March 8, 1917, it wasn’t just any home that Kate Roosevelt was attending a lecture at. By 1902 plans were being made to expand the mansion and surrounding property. According to Morgan, American Financier, “In late March, 1902, Morgan telephoned Charles Follen McKim, the leading proponent of Italian Renaissance architecture and asked him to stop by at 219 Madison Avenue.” The J.P. Morgan home was one of three identical three-story brownstones that lined up from 36th to 37th Street along Madison Avenue. “McKim lived nearby at 9 East 35th Street. When he arrived at Morgan’s for breakfast his host said that he had bought most of the land on the north side of 36th Street between his own home and Park Avenue and wanted to build a private library in the middle and a house for his daughter’s family, the Satterlees at the far end. The library should be a simple, classical structure set in a garden with ample space for his growing collections and a study in which he could meet with business colleagues, art dealers and friends.” He asked the McKim if he would design both buildings.
“Morgan chose McKim, who he had only recently met over his partner, Stanford White, although White had designed two previous “Morgan” projects, Madison Square Garden and the Metropolitan Club. White’s failing health and his extravagant lifestyle may have influenced Morgan’s decision. The diligent, sober, McKim had designed the Harvard Club, the University Club and the new Columbia University campus on Morningside Heights. In 1902 he contracted to design a monumental Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal on Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street and to restore the White House for the Theodore Roosevelts (who changed its name from the Executive Mansion to the term most Americans already used).”
Outside Morgan Library
The Morgan Library would house a collection of thousands of rare volumes and be designed to resemble an art gallery. Morgan conferred regularly with his architect over breakfast at 219 Madison Avenue to discuss progress and price. An antique wooden ceiling, Roman marble floors, lapis columns, bronze bookcases and a pair of sixteenth-century Paduan andirons were just a fraction of the extravagances purchased to decorate the library. When complete in 1906, the total cost came to $1.2 million.
It was at this very library that I did my research on Kate’s friend, Florence Rhett to make sure she was one and the same governess often referred to as “companion” to the three Morgan sisters. Sure enough folded into a vertical, blue, cardboard archival box I found a stack of letters written on translucent-blue stationary by Florence Rhett to the eldest daughter, Louisa, along with Louisa’s replies.
And by the way, the next entry in Kate’s diary simply said, “I did not go to a meeting of the Thursday Evening Club at the Satterlees.” Maybe she had had enough of the millionaires for one week and I wondered. Was this meeting held at the home of Louisa and her husband, Herbert Satterlee that was built for them by Louisa’s fabulously rich father or did he stipulate before he died in 1913 that the library, which was connected to her home on Madison Avenue be at her disposal to entertain friends like Kate Shippen Roosevelt.
Sharon Hazard’s Dowager’s Diary appears on Thursday.
Photo One:
Morgan Library
Morgan Library.org
Photo Two:
J.P. Morgan Home
219 Madison Avenue, New York City
Library of Congress
Photo Three:
J.P. Morgan
wiki
Photo Four:
Frances Tracy Morgan
public domain
Photo Five:
Morgan Library
Library of Congress
Photo Six:
Outside Morgan Library
J.P. Morgan Funeral
1913
Public Domain
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