What's in a Nickname? by Cindy Regnier

 Perhaps most of you know that the Teddy Bear (both the term and the stuffed pet itself) came about because of President Theodore Roosevelt. But did you know it was a controversial item as well as a beloved toy? As the story goes, Theodore Roosevelt, well known for his big game hunting skills, was on a bear hunting trip in Mississippi in November of 1902. Andrew Longino, the governor of Mississippi had invited him, but even though the other hunters in the group had been successful in nabbing a bear, the president had not.

Some of Roosevelt's assistants, most notably Holt Collier, a former slave and Confederate cavalryman, cornered and tied a black bear to a willow tree. 

Holt Collier

I suppose they thought the president needed a catch as well, but I’d sure like to know how they managed to tie a bear to a tree without first shooting it themselves. Once the bear was captured, they showed it to Roosevelt and suggested he shoot it. Roosevelt surprised them by refusing, saying that would be unsportsmanlike. The retelling of this event spread through newspaper articles across the country, recounting the story of big game hunter, President Theodore Roosevelt, who refused to shoot a bear.

Clifford Berryman, a political cartoonist of the era, read the article and decided to satirize the event with a cartoon, which then appeared in the Washington Post.

Morris Michtom, a Brooklyn candy shop owner, saw the cartoon and came up with an idea. He and his wife Rose, who had made many stuffed animals, created a stuffed toy bear and dedicated it to the president who refused to shoot a bear. They displayed the plush bear in their shop window to honor the President. Michtom sought and received Roosevelt’s permission to use his name and so, needless to say, the loveable stuffed toy became known as a 'Teddy's Bear'.

Morris Michtom

To the delight of the Michtoms, everyone that saw the display wanted a Teddy Bear of their own, so of course he began mass producing the bears. They became wildly popular across the country, inspiring Michtom to establish the Ideal Toy Company.
Roosevelt’s children were some of the first to play with the Teddy Bear. It is widely believed that Michtom gifted a teddy bear to Kermit Roosevelt, who was thirteen at the time. A year later, Roosevelt, who generally disliked the nickname “Teddy,” nevertheless decided to use his lovable namesake as a mascot in his re-election campaign, prominently displaying a Michtom bear at the White House. That helped propel the animal to further fame. In 1906, one Manhattan store sold more than 60,000.

 And then the controversy…. It seems some of the social commentators at the time (or perhaps Roosevelt’s opposition) saw teddy bears as ominous: They claimed that girls’ preference for soft animals over humanlike dolls would become all-consuming, replacing the female urge to nurture babies—and eventually lead to childless marriages. (Really?) In 1907, the Rev. Michael G. Esper of Michigan warned his congregation that “the fad for supplanting the good old dolls of our childhood with the horrible monstrosity known as the teddy bear” would lead to falling birthrates. As you might guess, most people did not share Esper’s opinion and a few days after his tirade, Nevada’s Reno Evening Gazette ran a piece with the headline “Teddy Bears Rule Supreme,” in which a local woman rebuts Esper: “The teddy bear is only a fad, and I do not believe that it is at all harmful for children to play with them.” The nation seemed to agree, and the next few decades saw the teddy bears become a source of comfort when needed—even for those long past childhood. Soldiers even carried their own teddy bears, tucked into knapsacks, during both world wars. The bears soon occupied a spot in literature and pop culture. In 1921, English author A.A. Milne created the beloved Winnie-the-Pooh series and in 1957, when Elvis Presley performed “Let Me Be You Teddy Bear” in the film Loving You, fans expressed their delight by sending him thousands of stuffed bears.

To mark the bear’s 60th birthday in 1963, the Michtoms’ son, Benjamin, presented an original bear to Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit. Though Kermit intended to donate the plush animal to the Smithsonian, his children had other plans. “They didn’t want to part with it yet,” his wife, Mary Roosevelt, confessed. About a year later the children relented and the historic toy finally made it to the Natural Museum of American History where it remains, a reminder of a president’s sportsmanship.

Any of you still have a few (or a lot) of teddy bears around? I’d like to think I’m not the only pushover for a pair of button eyes with squeezable built-in comfort attached.

 Scribbling in notebooks has been a habit of Cindy Regnier since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Born and raised in Kansas, she writes stories of historical Kansas, especially the Flint Hills area where she spent much of her childhood. Her experiences with the Flint Hills setting, her natural love for history, farming and animals, along with her interest in genealogical research give her the background and passion to write heart-fluttering historical romance.

The Making—and Controversy—of Mt. Rushmore

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Most everyone is aware of Mt. Rushmore, the South Dakota monument memorializing four American presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt—on the face of a granite mountainside. But do you know the history—and controversy—of this monument?

 

Doane Robinson

It was in August of 1924 when a historian from South Dakota, Doane Robinson, came up with the concept of a large stone monument to bring attention of tourists to his state. His initial concept was to memorialize western heroes such as Red Cloud, Lewis & Clark, and Buffalo Bill Cody. To accomplish this monumental goal, he contacted Gutzon Borglum, who had been working on carving the face of Robert E. Lee at Stone Mountain, Georgia, at the time. Borglum came to South Dakota twice to discuss the project, first in 1924, when he initially agreed to the project, and again in 1925, when he searched out which mountain he would carve. Upon finding Mt. Rushmore, he convinced Robinson that the faces of western heroes were too limiting—if he hoped to draw national attention, he needed to memorialize national figures. American Presidents.

The son of Danish immigrants, Borglum had little formal training in his early life, but eventually was placed in a private school in Kansas where he received some initial exposure to art. As an adult, he went to Paris where he studied at the Julien Academy and other prestigious schools. He lived for several years in various European countries and gained small amounts of success. But it was after he returned to the United States that his career truly began to take off. His artwork appeared on the Gettysburg Battlefield, in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the Cathedral of St. John the Devine in New York among other places. But it was his large bust of President Abraham Lincoln, carved from a block of marble and put on display in a New York shop window, that ultimately led to his work on Stone Mountain, and later Mt. Rushmore.

 

Gutzon Borglum

Construction on the famed Mt. Rushmore began on October 4, 1927. The first face to be carved was George Washington’s, and Borglum roughed in a simple egg shape to begin with, eventually adding his detailed features later. Washington’s face was completed in 1934, seven years after it was begun. During that time, work was also begun on Thomas Jefferson’s face, situated to the right of Washington, but two years into the process, his visage was badly cracked, so the rock face had to be blown off with dynamite and started again to the left of Washington. His sculpture was completed in 1936. One year later in 1937, Lincoln’s portion was completed, and the final face—Teddy Roosevelt’s—was finished in 1939. Borglum had intended to add a carving of the early history of the United States to the monument, but he died on March 6, 1941, leaving his son Lincoln to assume the remainder of the project. But as World War 2 was ramping up, the United States decided the money allotted for Mt. Rushmore’s completion was better spent elsewhere, so the project was deemed complete on October 31, 1941.

 

During all the years of carving, nearly four hundred men and women worked on the Mt. Rushmore project in capacities from the blacksmiths who created the tools used in the process, to winch operators who lowered workers down the rock face, to the skilled men who blasted the rock face with dynamite. Nearly ninety percent of the project was completed by blasting with explosives, which got the rough features of each president within three to five inches of the finished carving. The rest was done with small jackhammers in “honeycomb fashion”—where small holes were drilled into the rock, often close enough together that the pieces of rock would just fall away, and the faces could be buffed smooth. All told, over 800 million pounds of rock were removed to create the faces of the memorial, and according to the National Park Service website and the Smithsonian, there were no known fatalities of any work crew members during the monument’s fourteen-year creation.

The final work crew to work on Mt. Rushmore in 1941, with the monument in the background.

 

THE CONTROVERSY

 

Of course, in any venture, you can’t please all the people all the time, and Mt. Rushmore is no different. From the start, environmentalists opposed the idea of blasting away the natural beauty of a mountain to memorialize men. Ultimately, Robinson and Borglum won out, and the project went forward, despite this criticism.

 

Worse, the Native Americans took great issue with the project. The United States government had given The Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux as part of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, but in the 1870s, gold was found in this area, and settlers flooded the area in search of wealth. War ensued, and by the later 1870s, the government took back what had been willingly given only a decade before. So to not only lose their ancestral land, but then to have four white men’s faces blasted into the rock face was a great afront. In the 1930s, during the carving of the monument, Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear contacted Borglum by letter, requesting that the face of Crazy Horse be added among the American Presidents, but Borglum never responded. Chief Standing Bear later contacted another artist to create a separate monument, which I’ll discuss next month.

 

To counter the largely white perspective of Mt. Rushmore, the first Native American superintendent, Gerard Baker, who served between 2004 and 2010, encouraged park rangers to include the Lakota point of view in their tours, presentations, and in answering visitor’s questions. 

 

It’s Your Turn: Have you ever visited Mt. Rushmore? If yes, tell us what you enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) about the memorial. If no, would you like to—why or why not? 

 

Award-winning, best-selling novelist Jennifer Uhlarik has loved the western genre since she read her first Louis L’Amour novel. She penned her first western while earning a writing degree from University of Tampa. Jennifer lives near Tampa with her husband, son, and furbabies. www.jenniferuhlarik.com

 

Love’s Fortress by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

A Friendship From the Past Brings Closure to Dani’s Fractured Family

 

When Dani Sango’s art forger father passes away, Dani inherits his home. There, she finds a book of Native American drawings, which leads her to seek museum curator Brad Osgood’s help to decipher the ledger art. Why would her father have this book? Is it another forgery?

 

Brad Osgood longs to provide his four-year-old niece, Brynn, the safe home she desperately deserves. The last thing he needs is more drama, especially from a forger’s daughter. But when the two meet “accidentally” at St. Augustine’s 350-year-old Spanish fort, he can’t refuse the intriguing woman.

 

Broken Bow is among seventy-three Plains Indians transported to Florida in 1875 for incarceration at ancient Fort Marion. Sally Jo Harris and Luke Worthing dream of serving on a foreign mission field, but when the Indians reach St. Augustine, God changes their plans. However, when Sally Jo’s friendship with Broken Bow leads to false accusations, it could cost them their lives.

 

Can Dani discover how Broken Bow and Sally Jo’s story ends and how it impacted her father’s life?

Happy October Birthday to Five Former Presidents & A First Lady

Five former U.S. presidents celebrated their birthdays in October. 

And so did one remarkable First Lady.

These accomplished individuals have multiple books written about them. 

This post shares only a few basics.

Happy 288^th Birthday to John Adams ~ 2^nd U.S. President

• October 30, 1735 ~ born in Braintree, Massachusetts
• 1776 ~ helped to draft the Declaration of Independence
• 1789 ~ elected first Vice-President of the U.S.
• 1796-1801 ~ presidential term
• July 4, 1826 ~ died at the age of 90 (the same day as Thomas Jefferson, our 3^rd president; James Madison, our 5^th president, died on July 4, 1831).

Adams “was an Enlightenment political theorist and abolitionist who vehemently opposed slavery. Born as the son of a farmer and cobbler, Adams rose from his humble beginnings to become a qualified lawyer after receiving education from a prestigious college [Harvard]” (FP-Adams).

Happy 201^st Birthday to Rutherford B. Hayes ~ 19^th U.S. President

• October 4, 1822 ~ born in Delaware, Ohio
• Major General in the Civil War
• 1877-1881 ~ presidential terms
• January 17, 1893 ~ died at the age of 70

Hayes “soon gained prominence as a criminal defense attorney, and as a strict abolitionist, he also defended slaves who had escaped and were accused under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850” (FP-Hayes).

Happy 194^th Birthday to Chester A. Arthur ~ 21^st U.S. President 

• October 5, 1829 ~ born in Fairfield, Vermont
• 1881-1885 ~ became president after James Garfield was assassinated 
• November 18, 1886 ~ died at the age of 57

In 1854, Arthur won a discrimination case on behalf of Elizabeth Jennings Graham, an African-American teacher, which led to the desegregation of New York City’s streetcar lines.

Happy 165^th Birthday to Theodore Roosevelt ~ 26^th U.S. President 

• October 27, 1858 ~ born in New York City, New York
• 1901-1909 ~ became president after William McKinley was assassinated; elected to second term
• 1906 ~ received the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to end the Russian-Japanese War
• October 14, 1912 ~ survived an assassination attempt
• January 6, 1919 ~ died at the age of 60
• 2001 ~ posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor 

The assassin’s bullet penetrated Roosevelt’s steel eyeglass case and passed through his fifty-page speech before lodging in his chest. 

“As an experienced hunter and anatomist, Roosevelt correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung” (W-TR). 

He gave his speech, talking for ninety minutes, then sought medical attention.

Happy 133^rd Birthday to Dwight D. Eisenhower ~ 34^th U.S. President

• October 14, 1890 ~ born in Denison, Texas
• Five-star general of the US Army and Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces during WWII
• 1953-1961 ~ presidential terms
• 1956 ~ signed the bill authorizing the Interstate Highway System
• March 28, 1969 ~ died at the age of 78

“In 1945, Eisenhower anticipated that someday an attempt would be made to recharacterize Nazi crimes as propaganda (Holocaust denial) and took steps against it by demanding extensive still and movie photographic documentation of Nazi death camps” (Hobbs). 

Happy 139^th Birthday to Eleanor Roosevelt ~ our Longest-Serving First Lady

• October 11, 1884 ~ born in New York City, New York
• March 17, 1905 ~ married Franklin Roosevelt, her father’s fifth cousin; Theodore Roosevelt signed the marriage certificate as a witness
• 1933-1945 ~ FDR's presidential terms
• November 7, 1962 ~ died at the age of 78

“Her role as the chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women from 1961 to 1962 made her rank in the top ten of the ‘Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century’” (FP-Eleanor).

Your Turn ~ Which of these individuals would you most like to meet. What tidbit of information did you find most interesting? 

Johnnie writes award-winning stories in multiple genres. A fan of classic movies, stacks of books, and road trips, she shares a life of quiet adventure with Griff, her happy-go-lucky collie, and Rugby, her raccoon-treeing papillon. Visit her at johnnie-alexander.com.

Photos ~ all photos are in the public domain.

John & Abigail Adams ~ portraits by American painter Benjamin Blyth.

Chester Arthur ~ portrait by Ole Peter Hansen Balling (1881).

Dwight D. Eisenhower ~ official White House portrait (c. 1960).

Mamie Eisenhower ~ portrait painted by Thomas E. Stephens (1953). 

Rutherford B. Hayes ~ official White House portrait by Daniel Huntington (1884).

Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt with their first two children, Anna & baby James (1908).

Theodore Roosevelt ~ “Theodore Roosevelt as the Badlands Hunter”; photographed by George Grantham Baine (1885 in New York City).

Sources ~ all websites accessed on October 6, 2023.

John Adams, TheFamousPeople.com-Adams.  

Chester A. Arthur, TheFamousPeople.com-Arthur.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, TheFamousPeople.com-DDE.

Rutherford B. Hayes, TheFamousPeople.com-Hayes.

Hobbs, Joseph Patrick (1999). Dear General: Eisenhower’s Wartime Letters to Marshall. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801862191. Pg 223.

Eleanor Roosevelt, TheFamousPeople.com-ER. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/eleanor-roosevelt-270.php

Teddy Roosevelt, TheFamousPeople.com-TR; Wikipedia.

The 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry—A.K.A. “The Rough Riders”

Last month, I told you about Buckey O’Neill, who served in many capacities of law enforcement and political positions in his brief thirty-eight years. One of the ways he served his country was as a captain in Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. The Rough Riders have always been of some interest to me because they stayed in the Old Tampa Bay Hotel, a beautiful historic building in downtown Tampa, Florida, which is now the main building of my alma mater, University of Tampa. (Read more about the school's historic roots here). So, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the Rough Riders. Here’s what I learned.

25th President of the United States,
William McKinley

The 1^st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry was formed in 1898 by President William McKinley as the Spanish-American War broke out. McKinley knew that the American military was much smaller than it had been during the Civil War just thirty years prior, so he asked for 1250 volunteers to form this cavalry regiment. They sought men mainly from the Southwestern states, as the hot climate was similar to Cuba’s, where they would be fighting. Men from Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico applied for the 1250 positions. In fact, so many men asked to be a part that they had to turn many away. It became a joke that the difficulty wasn’t in selecting the men, but rather rejecting them from the huge pool of very qualified choices. The men who were chosen were cowboys, prospectors, law enforcement officers, gamblers, Native Americans, and even some college students. All were good with a gun and had excellent horsemanship skills. Those men who had served in either the Civil War or Western Indian Wars were typically made the ranking officers within the unit.

 The regiment’s original commander was Colonel Leonard Wood, and his second in command was the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy (none other than one Theodore Roosevelt). Under Woods’ leaders, the troops of the 1^st US Volunteer Cavalry were nicknamed “Wood’s Weary Walkers.” That’s a bit of a strange name—walkers—for a cavalry (mounted) regiment, right? Well, yes, but the crazy thing was—this cavalry unit didn’t have horses. They fought as an infantry unit under Colonel Woods. Read on to find out why!

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt,
leader of the "Rough Riders"

The men trained every moment they could on horseback, and when they were unable to practice their formations due to traveling via train or ship, or due to other constraints, they read books with detailing their many tactics. They were quite prepared to see action, both in their fighting formations and with the weapons they used. The weapons ranged from Springfield bolt-action rifles for the soldiers and non-commissioned officers to Winchester rifles for the commissioned officers. They also all carried Colt .45 pistols and Bowie knives. A last-minute donation of a Colt-Browning machine gun completed their firepower.

By late May 1898, the 1^st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry and their horses and mules traveled by rail to Tampa, Florida. There, they stayed in the Old Tampa Bay Hotel while they awaited their orders to leave for Cuba. Due to a desire to deploy the men quickly, the orders came through, but only eight of the twelve companies and a fraction of their horses and mules were green-lighted to head to Cuba. This shocking oversight caused a huge loss of morale among the remaining volunteer cavalry soldiers. Not a great way to start the fighting.

They traveled to Cuba on the steamship Yucatan and arrived on June 23, 1898. There, they offloaded the supplies they’d been allowed to bring, but had to quickly adapt to being an infantry unit, carrying a few days’ supplies on their backs rather than packing everything on a mule train, or marching long days through hot, humid, jungle landscapes when they’d trained themselves to ride under such conditions.

Their first battle—the Battle of Guasimas—came just a few days after their arrival. The on-foot cavalry soldiers set out to look around the jungle and soon discovered a Spanish outpost, Las Guasimas. By that afternoon, they were told to go in and take the outpost. The Americans slept overnight and prepared to secure the area early the next morning. However, because the men were without their livestock, the physical exertion proved to be far more taxing on the soldiers than expected. Many either dropped their packs or fell out of the ranks while marching up a steep hill, leaving fewer than 500 men to fight. To make matters worse, the Spaniards had the advantage because they knew the dense jungle terrain and had hidden quite well. However, the 1^st Volunteer Cavalry marched up to the outpost alongside the regular cavalry, found their opposition, and took them out. The Volunteers lost eight men, with another thirty-one wounded. For six days after the battle, they held their position at the Spanish outpost. During that time, the commander of the regulars died of illness, and Colonel Wood was moved into his position, leaving Teddy Roosevelt to command the Volunteer force. He changed the nickname from Woods’ Weary Walkers to Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.

On the sixth day, the cavalry (volunteer and regular) was told to march eight miles along the road to Santiago. The movement was a distraction technique while the Spaniards were barraged with artillery and battery strikes from afar. The Rough Riders made it to the base of San Juan Hill but quickly found themselves in the line of fire, both from snipers on the Spanish side and the artillery strikes from their own. They moved out of the way to await orders, which finally came—accompany the regulars as they took San Juan Hill. Even with the orders, things were rather unorganized until Roosevelt took charge, rallied the men, and barged up the hill in a series of short runs. With the help of several men firing thousands of rounds from Gatling guns, they captured the hill in twenty minutes. Unfortunately, casualties were heavy during this battle.

Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders atop San Juan Hill

From the victory on San Juan Hill, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders helped capture the town of Santiago, which was important because of a fleet of Spanish cruisers that waited in the nearby port. The U.S. forces were able to drive the cruisers out of the port within two days, and within a few months, they put enough pressure on the Spaniards that on August 12, 1898, Spain surrendered. As terms of the armistice between the two countries, Spain left Cuba, and the United States gained the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

The Rough Riders returned to America, heading to Long Island, New York, where they spent a month convalescing from injuries and illness such as malaria, yellow fever, and dysentery. After most had recuperated enough to enjoy it, they held a celebration of their victories in Cuba. The Rough Riders were officially disbanded in September 1898.

It’s your turn. Have you heard of the Rough Riders before today? What do you find most impressive about them?

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won five writing competitions and finaled in two other competitions. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and four fur children.

PRE-ORDER NOW: COMING MAY 1, 2017

The Secret Admirers Romance Collection

Shy Expressions of Love Lead to Nine Historical Romances

Declaring one's love can be hard--even risky--especially when faced with some of life's greatest challenges. Separated by class, time, distance, and more, some loves must remain secret until the time is right. Instead, notes of affection, acts of kindness, gifts of admiration, and lots of prayer are circulated. From New England mansions to homestead hovels, love is quietly being nourished and waiting for the right time to be revealed. But when love can finally be boldly expressed, will it be received with love in return?

About The Outcast's Redemption by Jennifer Uhlarik

When a reformed rustler is framed for stealing cattle, his secret crush--the daughter of the disgraced lawman who arrested him--come to his aid. But who really saves who?

When Theodore Roosevelt Was Shot--and a Giveaway

Perhaps we don’t hear about the assassination attempt on Theodore Roosevelt as much as we do some others, because he wasn’t actually president when it occurred.

Roosevelt in 1904

Theodore Roosevelt was known as a robust and active man. He refused to let his health hold him back. As a child, he was somewhat weak, and his father told him to “make his body.” For the rest of his life he insisted in engaging in strenuous exercise. People who worked with him had trouble keeping up with him.

On October 14, 1912 he made his way to the Milwaukee Auditorium to give a speech. He got into an open-air car outside the Gilpatrick Hotel and was waving his hat to the crowd when a man fired at him from only a few feet away with a Colt revolver.

Roosevelt was campaigning for a third term as President. He had served from 1901 to 1909, and sat out the next four years. In the 1912 campaign, he lost the Republican nomination to incumbent president William Howard Taft, and so decided to run as a Progressive Party candidate. Heading out to make his speech, he had folded the fifty or so pages of his planned address in half and stuck into the inner pocket of his heavy coat. That speech, along with a case holding his eyeglasses, may have saved his life.

John Schrank

The shooter, John Schrank, 36, was an unemployed saloonkeeper. He said later that “any man looking for a third term ought to be shot.” 

But he also seemed to think he’d seen the ghost of William McKinley, whose assassination in 1901 catapulted Roosevelt to the presidency. Schrank felt he was following McKinley’s wishes in stalking Roosevelt for weeks and trying to kill him. According to Schrank, McKinley told him in a dream that Roosevelt was his murderer and to avenge his death. The man spent the rest of his life in a Wisconsin asylum.

Schrank's letter "to the people of the United States" describing his alleged dream of McKinley.

Roosevelt could tell the wound was minor and insisted on going ahead with his speech, in spite of what the doctor traveling with him advised. He declared, “He pinked me,” a fencing term which meant the wound was not serious but drew blood. Roosevelt avidly studied and practiced fencing and single stick fighting.

He went to the auditorium to deliver his address. He declared to the crowd, "I have just been shot…Fortunately, I had my manuscript. . .and there is where the bullet went through.” He displayed the two holes through each page of his folded speech. 

His party had been nicknamed the Bull Moose Party, for Roosevelt’s energy and determination. He told the crowd as he displayed the blood-stained manuscript, “You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose.” He spoke for more than an hour. Only at its conclusion did he let his attendants get him to a hospital.

X-rays showed that the bullet lodged against his fourth right rib. If the items in his pockets hadn’t deflected it, probably it would have struck his heart. The doctors decided it was safest to leave the bullet where it was, rather than to operate, and he carried it for the rest of his life.

Even though the assassination attempt brought Roosevelt a lot of sympathy, he lost the election, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson took office.

Giveaway: Leave a comment with your contact information to enter a drawing for a copy of my book River Rest, set in 1918 Maine.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than sixty published novels. She’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. Her newest books include Echo Canyon, Seven Brides for Seven Texans, The Saboteur, River Rest, and Tearoom for Two. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and also a winner of the Carol Award and a finalist in the WILLA Literary Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .