Anna Rebecca Hall Roosevelt (March 17, 1863 – December 7, 1892) was an American socialite. She was the mother of First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, and was described as a celebrated beauty.
Early life
Anna Rebecca Hall was born on March 17, 1863. She was the eldest of seven children born to Valentine Gill Hall Jr. and Mary Livingston Ludlow of the Livingston family. Their marriage "...united a member of a prominent New York mercantile family with Hudson River gentry". Anna was born in New York City and was a granddaughter of Edward Hunter Ludlow.
Her brothers, Valentine III and Edward, were both tennis champions and, later, alcoholics who spent beyond their means and inheritances. Anna's four sisters were Elizabeth, Mary, Edith, and Maude. Her father died without leaving a will when Anna was 17, and she was forced to take control of the family and help manage the finances.
Anna was one of the leading debutantes of the 1881 season. in Calvary Church at Gramercy Park in New York City. The couple moved into a brownstone house in the fashionable East Thirties.
- Elliott Roosevelt Jr. (1889–1893)
Anna Roosevelt was responsible for numerous social events and charity balls. Her brother-in-law Theodore considered her frivolous. At the time of their marriage on December 1, 1883, Elliott was already known as a heavy drinker addicted to laudanum.
In the spring of 1887, the family sailed to Europe aboard the ocean liner . One day out of port, their ship was rammed by the , the bow of which pierced a full into the side of the Britannic, killing several passengers and injuring numerous others. The Roosevelt party was evacuated to lifeboats before continuing their voyage aboard another ocean liner. Upon their return, Elliott commenced construction of his Long Island country residence, Half Way Nirvana. Parties at their estate included polo and riding-to-hounds.
In 1889, after the birth of their second child, Elliott's drinking only increased, and the family traveled to Austria in search of treatment. After three months, they moved to Paris, where Anna's third child, a son, (Gracie) Hall, was born. from a seizure after a suicide attempt and the cumulative effects of alcoholism. The remains of both Anna and Elliott are interred in the Hall family vault at the cemetery of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Tivoli.
Anna's daughter, Eleanor, would go on to become First Lady of the United States, and her husband Elliott's fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became President of the United States in March 1933.
See also
- Bibliography of Eleanor Roosevelt
- Livingston family
- Roosevelt family