Paulina Longworth
Encyclopedia
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....
, and the granddaughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
.
Her legal father was Alice Roosevelt's husband, Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth
Nicholas Longworth
Nicholas Longworth IV was a prominent American politician in the Republican Party during the first few decades of the 20th century...
; her biological father, however, was Senator William Borah, as biographers Carol Felsenthal and Betty Boyd Caroli, and TIME journalist Rebecca Winters Keegan all report. In fact, Alice proposed the name Deborah for her daughter but her husband would not agree, thinking it looked too much like "de Borah", so Alice reluctantly chose Paulina for her daughter's name.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1207827,00.html Nicholas Longworth died when Paulina was six, and she had a distant, strained relationship with her mother. Paulina made her social debut in Cincinnati, her father’s hometown. She briefly attended Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
.
Carol Felsenthal's biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....
portrayed Paulina as an awkward, unattractive child who grew into an "immensely shy woman with a severe stutter." Historians agree that Paulina was ignored, stifled, and belittled by her overbearing mother, who desired for Paulina to become an extroverted society woman like herself. Instead, in her adult years, Paulina suffered from depression and alcoholism, and endured institutionalizations and shock therapy treatments following several suicide attempts.
Despite family tensions, Paulina was often invited to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
by Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
to play with her cousins. Sisty
Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves , librarian, educator, historian, editor is a granddaughter of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her parents are Anna Roosevelt Dall and her first husband Curtis Bean Dall...
and Buzzie
Curtis Roosevelt
Curtis Roosevelt is the second eldest child of Anna Roosevelt and her first husband, Curtis Bean Dall. He is the eldest grandson of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. He is the younger brother of Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves...
Dall were near Paulina's age and they played often. Eleanor Roosevelt often looked after Paulina at the White House when her mother, Alice was out of town and Eleanor Roosevelt also made sure to include Paulina in dinner party invitations to the White House.
In 1944, while helping her mother campaign against their distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Paulina met Alexander McCormick Sturm
Alexander McCormick Sturm
Alexander McCormick "Sandy" Sturm was an American artist and writer who was a co-founder of Sturm, Ruger, a firearms manufacturer...
, known as "Sandy," an artist and recent Yale graduate from a prominent family. They married on August 26, 1944, when Paulina was nineteen. Paulina's marriage to Sturm further strained the mother-daughter relationship. Alice Longworth desired for Paulina to complete her college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
before marrying, something she herself had missed out on.
The Sturms had a daughter, Joanna Mercedes Alessandra Sturm
Joanna Sturm
Joanna Mercedes Alessandra Sturm , philanthropist, historian is a great-granddaughter of 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the granddaughter of Alice Roosevelt Longworth...
, (born July 1946). By most accounts, Paulina, unlike her own mother, was a doting and attentive mother to Joanna. Sandy Sturm died of hepatitis in 1951. Widowhood plunged Paulina deeper into depression and drug dependency, and she sought spiritual guidance, converting to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
. In 1952, she joined Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
's Chrystie Street hospitality house on New York's Lower East Side. She also volunteered at several Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
hospitals.
In early 1957, Paulina died of an overdose of sleeping pills. Though the autopsy noted her death as accidental, the Washington Post reported that Paulina committed suicide (at her mother's request the newspaper later printed a retraction). Though she had attempted suicide before, Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....
did not agree with the suicide view, citing Paulina's subsequent conversion to Catholicism, which forbids suicide and her Catholic burial, indicating that the Church did not consider her death a suicide. Vice President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
was a pallbearer at her funeral.
In Paulina's will, her mother Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....
was left custody of Joanna, whom she raised and with whom she was very close. Upon Paulina's death, her mother’s cousin Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
sent condolences and the two women mended their broken relationship.
Paulina Longworth Sturm is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery
Rock Creek Cemetery
Rock Creek Cemetery — also Rock Creek Church Yard and Cemetery — is an cemetery with a natural rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE in Washington, D.C.'s Michigan Park neighborhood, near Washington's Petworth neighborhood...
in Washington.
See also
- Alice Roosevelt LongworthAlice Roosevelt LongworthAlice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee....
, mother - Nicholas LongworthNicholas LongworthNicholas Longworth IV was a prominent American politician in the Republican Party during the first few decades of the 20th century...
, legal father - Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, grandfather - Eleanor RooseveltEleanor RooseveltAnna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
, cousin - William Borah, biological father per Alice Roosevelt Longworth's diaries
- Alexander McCormick SturmAlexander McCormick SturmAlexander McCormick "Sandy" Sturm was an American artist and writer who was a co-founder of Sturm, Ruger, a firearms manufacturer...
, husband - Joanna SturmJoanna SturmJoanna Mercedes Alessandra Sturm , philanthropist, historian is a great-granddaughter of 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the granddaughter of Alice Roosevelt Longworth...
, daughter