Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [466]
102 Since none of their James Amos, “The Beloved Boss”; Amos, TR: Hero to His Valet. Amos had left the Roosevelts amicably in the fall of 1913, after more than ten years in their service. He continued, however, to serve them off and on, since TR often hired him as a valet-cum-bodyguard on long railroad trips.
103 When Amos arrived Amos, “The Beloved Boss.”
104 two or three letters See, e.g., TR to Edward N. Buxton, 5 Jan. 1919 [in EKR’s handwriting] (ERDP); Cutright, TR, 265; TR, Letters, 8.1422.
105 correcting the typescript Henry J. Whigham interviewed by Hermann Hagedorn, 12 Jan. 1949 (HH). This may have been the last manuscript TR actually touched. After his death a scribbled memo of uncertain date was found on his bedside table: Hays—see him; he must go to Washington for 10 days; see Senate & House; prevent split on domestic policies. (Reproduced in Lorant, Life and Times of TR, 624.) By publishing the memo at the end of TR, Letters, 8, the editors infuse it with a valedictory quality it may not deserve. It is unlikely TR wrote it any time in 1919, in view of the acute rheumatism that attacked his right hand on New Year’s Day.
106 could not help kissing him ERD to Richard Derby, 8 Jan. 1919 (ERDP).
107 “As it got dusk” EKR to TR.Jr., 12 Jan. 1919 (TRJP).
108 They were still together EKR to KR, 6 Jan. 1919 (KRP); ERD to Richard Derby, 8 Jan. 1919 (ERDP).
109 Leaving the nurse EKR to KR, 25 Mar. 1923 (KRP); ERD to Richard Derby, 8 Jan. 1919 (ERDP). The Orientalist William Sturgis Bigelow, a licensed physician, had recommended morphine to EKR after witnessing TR’s agonies with ptomaine poisoning earlier in the year. See above, 720. “I want you particularly to tell Dr. Bigelow,” she wrote Henry Cabot Lodge, “that I did not forget the talk he and I had about the use of morphine, and after he [TR] had had 2 or 3 sleepless nights in succession, we gave him morphine the night before he died so that he was able to go to sleep and forget his pain.” Murakata, “TR and William Sturgis Bigelow.”
110 Faller assented ERD to Richard Derby, 8 Jan. 1919 (ERDP).
111 “James, don’t you” Amos, TR: Hero to His Valet, 156.
112 He had to be George Syran to Mr. and Mrs. Osbourne, 11 Jan. 1919, privately owned. This letter, written only five days after TR’s death and reflecting conversations between Syran, Amos, and “downstairs” staff at Sagamore Hill, preconfirms almost all the details that Amos published eight years later in TR: Hero to His Valet.
113 “James, will you” Amos, TR: Hero to His Valet, 156.
114 A small lamp Ibid., 156; EKR to KR, 6 Jan. 1919 (KRP).
115 “roughling” The word is so spelled by Syran, quoting Amos later that morning.
116 Each time he started Interviewed later that day, Amos said he counted five seconds between each of TR’s breaths. New York Evening Post, 6 Jan. 1919.
117 At four o’clock Amos, TR: Hero to His Valet, 157; EKR to KR, 6 Jan. 1919 (KRP).
EPILOGUE: IN MEMORIAM T.R.
1 Theodore Roosevelt’s death certificate Copy in TRC.
2 two consulting physicians John H. Richards and John A. Hartwell, of the Roosevelt Hospital in New York.
3 They revealed New York Evening Post, 6 Jan., The New York Times, 7 Jan. 1919.
4 other observers New York Evening Post, 6 Jan. 1919, e.g. Altogether, TR had five narrow escapes from death: his streetcar accident in Sept. 1902, the assassination attempt of Oct. 1912, the septicemia crises of Apr. 1914 and Feb. 1918, and his first embolism attack in Dec. 1918.
5 “the cause of death” Speculative report on TR’s final illness, compiled by Drs. Paul and Andrew Marks, 19 Jan. 2010 (AC). The authors of this document are, respectively, president emeritus of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and cardiologist/professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
6 a broken heart John H. Richards quoted in New York Evening Post, 6 Jan. 1919; ERD to KR, 6 Jan. 1919 (ERDP). “Mother and I felt that part of his illness was due to his grief