Kermit Roosevelt: Family

Figure 1.--Here we see Kermit Roosevelt and some of his family in 1929, an aviator friend is giving them an aeril view of Oyster Bay. For some reason their oldest boy, Dirck, is not with them. Instead, Willard seems to have brought along a friend. The press caption read, "Scene when Mr. and Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt and their children were guests of Clarence Chamberlain, who took them on an aerial tour of Long Island, over Oyster Bay and Sagamore Hill, home of the late President Roosevelt. Left to right are: Chamberlain, Willard Roosevelt, Pierre du Saint Thaller, Medora Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosvelt, Mr. Roosevelt, and Kermit Jr." I thought Medora might be Belle, but she is not the rightbage. She must be a Roosevelt cousin. (Medora was the town in North Dakota where Roosevelt lived as a young man to hunt buffalo.) Clarence Duncan Chamberlin was an American pioneer of aviation, being the second man to pilot a fixed-wing aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to the European mainland, while carrying the first transatlantic passenger.

We do not know much about Kermit Roosevelt's own family life. Kermit after the disaterous Amazon expedition with his father married Belle Wyatt Willard (1892-1968) in a civil ceremony in Madrid, Spain (1914). She was the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to Spain. At the time Kermit was assistant manager for National City Bank in Buenos Aires (1914-16). They had four children: Kermit ('Kim') Roosevelt (1916- ); Joseph Willard (1918- ); Belle ('Clochette') (1919-85); and Dirck (1925-53). Kermit Jr. became an American intellgence agent and played an important role in American Iranian operations. Joseph served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and became an accomplished pianist and composer. The boys must have admired his adventuresime life. Kermit shared his father's politics abd view of world affairs as well as his need for adventure. Working as a bank executive apprently did not suit his temperment and he enlisted in the British Army to fight the Germans. During the inter-War era he engaged in some major expeditons with his brother. meaning that he was away from his family for extended periods. We are not sure how this affected his family life. His akcoholism must have affected his family life. We are not sure given his family and accomplishments why he turned to drink. Presumably the virtually impossible effort to live up to his father's acomplishments must hve been part of the problem. It was not as big of a problem when the children were younger. He had a mistress in his final years when he was drinking heavily, scandalizing the family.