The Post Oddity of the Week: What Do White House Brats Get Up To?
Created | Updated Aug 27, 2012
This week's Oddity answers the question. . .
What Do White House Brats Get Up To?
The little boy on the left, the one wearing the cowboy hat, is the son of a US President. His friend, the handsome chap smelling the flower, is the son of a White House steward. They are deceptively innocent-looking, these fellows: they're part of a gang. It's called the White House Gang, and it includes President Theodore Roosevelt as an honorary member.
He marked out a baseball diamond on the White House lawn without permission. He threw snowballs at the Secret Service, and spitballs at official portraits. Once, he brought Algonquin, his pony, upstairs in the White House lift, just to cheer up his sick brother. His mom said he was a 'fine bad little boy'. His name was Quentin Roosevelt.
Quentin had a quick wit. The family tried to keep him away from reporters (we suspect other presidential families know the feeling). Once, he told a journalist who asked about his father, 'I see him occasionally, but I know nothing of his family life.'
Quentin was three when his dad became President. He was the official White House Brat. He must have been a delight for the photographers – the Library of Congress has lots of pictures of Quentin playing with his big brothers and sisters, Quentin at the family home, catching June bugs, picking strawberries. . . being Quentin. This photograph was taken by Francis Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952).
As he grew up, most people agreed that Quentin had most of his brilliant father's good qualities, and none of his bad ones. The Vanderbilts weren't thrilled at first when he started dating one of their debutantes, but they settled down.
Tragedy struck in 1918, when Lt Roosevelt was shot down in aerial combat over France. His loss was deeply felt – by his parents, his siblings, his fiancée, his comrades, and a country that was deprived of his promise. Roswell lived for a long time, though: he worked for the US State Department from 1917 until he retired in 1960.
There is Quentin, though, in the picture, a little boy again, with his buddy Roswell. Don't they make you want to laugh?
