The timeline doesn't match up here. We're told that historian Stefan Lorant was doing his research in the 1950s. Then we're told that he checked with Teddy Roosevelt's wife and got her confirmation that one of the children in the window was Teddy Roosevelt.<p>Roosevelt was married twice, and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, died in 1884, so it's not her. But his second wife, Edith Carow, died in 1948, at age 87. So unless Lorant interviewed her posthumously, via seance, it can't be her, either.<p>Our best hope of rescuing this anecdote is to assume that Lorant's research happened earlier (1940s?) while Edith Carow Roosevelt was still alive. But she would have been just three years old at the time of Lincoln's funeral, and while her family and the Roosevelt's family socialized together, even her quoted reminiscence is less than definitive about whether that's actually TR.<p>Possible? Sure. Probable? Maybe. 100% verified? No way.<p>From what's presented to us, this sounds like a cool legend
The blog article links Stefan Lorant's own recollection of the event, but the link is broken (fair enough, the blog entry is from 2010). Fortunately though, the link is archived on the Wayback Machine [0], where we can see it is an article from American Heritage, June 1955.<p>In the linked article Lorent does not specify when exactly he interviewed Edith Carrow Roosevelt, but I think it is fair to assume that the reference to <i>"in the 1950s"</i> is an assumption made by the author of the blog based on when the article was published, and does not cast any doubt on the timeline.<p>[0] <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060507100625/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1955/4/1955_4_24.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20060507100625/http://www.americ...</a>
Here's the link mentioned in the article:<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090107061334/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1955/4/1955_4_24.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20090107061334/http://www.americ...</a><p>Apparently she was 4 at the time and lived next door:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Roosevelt#Childhood" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Roosevelt#Childhood</a>
This came up in a Reddit discussion a while back. Snopes has an article about it, in which they quote a source which says that the actual interview happened in 1948.<p><a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/roosevelt-lincoln-funeral/" rel="nofollow">https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/roosevelt-lincoln-funeral/</a>
> But she would have been just three years old at the time of Lincoln's funeral, and while her family and the Roosevelt's family socialized together, even her quoted reminiscence is less than definitive about whether that's actually TR.<p>While she might not have direct memory of the event, it would not be unheard of for older relatives to explain the picture to her when she was older. Just because she doesn't remember it directly does not automatically make the story of the picture untrue.
Who is she referring to as "that horrible man"?
The past is so much closer than you think. We are only three human lifetimes away from the American Revolution. The last living <i>children</i> of American slaves were around into the 2010s. Back to Teddy, the last living person who could have met him was still around in the 2000s as well, meaning in your lifetime you could have talked to someone who knew someone who saw Abe Lincoln alive.
When I hear the name Lincoln now, I can't help but think of the fake Letterboxd review of Melania: "the worst experience I've had at a theatre." By Abraham Lincoln.
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Tl;dr a picture in which a historian spotted 7-year old Teddy Roosevelt watching Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession from the window of his grandfather's house in New York. Very cool story!