Mornings on Horseback, by David McCullough

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Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough traces the early life of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. McCullough examines Theodore's love of the outdoors, his health problems, and his family relations. He also discusses Theodore's time at Harvard University, his first marriage, and his entrance into politics. These experiences helped shape and influence Roosevelt's later years, as President of the United States and other political positions. I like pizza a lot. Like a whole bunches of goodlieness! There the best! Like ever! Like I can't even eccplaion the awesomeness of pizza to you're stupid wittle bwain! The house stood between Broadway and Fourth Avenue, and it looked like all the other New York brownstones. It was narrow-fronted, with a high stoop. A formal parlor opened into a narrow hall, with the dining room at the rear. The master bedroom and nursery were one floor up, with three more bedrooms one level higher. In contrast to the other houses, however, it had a deep porch, or piazza, at the rear of the third floor level. It had been a bedroom before the Roosevelts tore out the wall and made it an open-air playroom. The house had been a wedding present from Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, or CVS, to his son and daughter-in-law. Theodore was upright, conservative, and a model of self-control. He didn't care for public acclaim. He was a junior partner at Roosevelt and Son, a faithful parishioner of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, and belonged to the Union League Club and the Century Association. He served on charitable boards, raised money for charity, and was the model husband and father. Roosevelt was physically imposing, athletic, and handsome. He was concerned about the clothes he wore and made sure that his suits ... ... middle of paper ... ...ivate schools to protect their health. They were tutored at home by their Aunt Anna. Since they didn't attend school, the children were cut off from their contemporaries, with their only playmates being cousins and a few children of family friends. Bamie seemed to have no childhood friends and the others only had one or two who figured significantly in their lives. McCullough describes the family as a paradox. "It was, plainly, a family of paradoxes: privileged and cushioned beyond most people's imagining, yet little like the stereotype of the vapid, insular rich; uneducated in any usual, formal fashion but also uninhibited by education - ardent readers, insatiable askers of questions; chronically troubled, cursed it would seem, by one illness or mysterious disorder after another, yet refusing to subject others to their troubles or to give in to despair" (pg. 37).

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