Mrs. Roosevelt Visits Son's Grave in France, 1919

From The Wilson Times, Tuesday, March 4, 1919

Mrs. Roosevelt Visits Son’s Grave

By the Associated Press

Feb. 28—Pride and sorrow fought a silent battle in the heart of a black-garbed woman as she stood the other day in the midst of war’s havoc on one of the bloodiest battlefields I France, beholding the grave of her fallen soldier son, a simple grave, but well-cared for by the reverent hands of comrades.

On an awkward cross, half of wood, half of pieces of airplane’s propeller, written by a German hand, was inscribed the name:

“Quentin Roosevelt”

The woman was his mother, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt. All was silence in this barren plain where but a few months ago raged the roar of death-belching cannon. With Mrs. Roosevelt was a small party of friends and military officers.

The woman who had heartily agreed with her husband that their son should remain where he fell, on France’s soil, and who had come thousands of miles across the sea, though still bent under a fresh grief, battled courageously against her emotions.

Tenderly, as if in a last farewell caress for the boy who sleeps his last sleep underneath, she placed flowers on the grave, then stood for several minutes, apparently visualizing the tragic but glorious end of the young aviator.

Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was with his mother.

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Harvard Trainees at Hazlehurst Field—Tower Scrapbook

Sitting—Roderick Tower, J.R. Richards, J.H. Baker; Standing, Quenten Roosevelt, H.P. Trainer T.J.D. Fuller Jr., all  Harvard ’15. Photo by American Press Association. Photo online at https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/tower-scrapbook-nam-38602-d-negjpg Credit National Air and Space Museum Archives.