Alice with granddaughter Joanna Strum arriving to the White House for a wedding, 1971.Library of Congress.
On February 1906, Alice married Nick Langworth, which was attended by more than a thousand guests. They had known each other for many years but there bond had solicited on the trip to Hawaii and Asia. During the 1912 election, Alice campaigned heavily for her father’s bull moose campaign. However, her husband Nick Langworth was politically aligned with William Taft, his opponent. This political split caused huge gaps in their marriage. Even after her father was no longer president, Alice remained a very prominent figure in Washington. She hosted famous poker games where you could find many prominent Washington figures. Alice was well known for winning and her sharp wit. She is rumored to have made ten thousand dollars in one night.
Alice had an ongoing affair with congressman William Borah of Idaho, their affair was an open secret on Washington. They would often write letters to each other in code and he would later be the biological father to her only daughter Paulina, born in February 1925.
After her father’s death in 1919 she took on preparing her young brother Theodore jr. for the presidential race. He eventually got a place as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1921 hoping to continue in his father’s footsteps he ran for The New York Assembly and won in 1920 and 1921. He was one of the few who opposed the expulsion of five socialist assemblymen in 1920. This lead to him being defeated multiple times in the race for New York governor. However Alice kept pushing his political career forward just as Theodore Roosevelt Sr.’s sister Anna had helped him do. She eventually helped him get a position as governor of Puerto Rico under President Herbert Hoover. After his work in Puerto Rico he was appointed to be the governor of the Philippines. However that was as far as he would go and he never reached the presidency.
Although Ted was out of the running for president his Hyde Park cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt challenged Herbert Hoover in the race of 1932. After he won Alice and the rest of the Oyster bay clan grew very bitter to the Hyde Park cousin whom they felt had taken this opportunity away from Ted. During the early part of FDR’s presidencies she had a newspaper column in which she constantly attacked FDR and his policies as well as personal vendetta. When she was invited to the White house for major dinner’s (as she was often) she made sure that everyone new that she was loathed FDR.Trying to get back at FDR Alice fought against the US joining in the league of nations (which FDR supported), and she succeeded.
Paulina Longworth married Alexander McCormick Sturm in 1944. And later had a daughter Joanna Sturm who was born on July, 9,1946. Paulina suffered from depression and died in 1957 after an overdose of sleeping pills. Alice and Joanna became very close and Alice became her guardian when Paulina died.
Through the rest of Alice’s lifetime she remained a prominent figure through Washington and become friends with the Kennedy family and especially close to Bobby Kennedy. She was also close to Richard Nixon and pushed him to run for President. Alice in return was invited to his first White House dinner and to his daughter's wedding. Alice remained a powerful figure on washington up until her death in 1980.
