“Where the Tree Falls, There Let It Lie”

Quentin Roosevelt's Death and Burial in France

Quentin Roosevelt—youngest son of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt—was the darling of the family. The family called him “Quenty-Quee,” and he’s one of the cutest babies I’ve ever seen. See this photograph at age six months for proof!

In honor of Quentin’s 125th birthday on November 19, I wanted to dedicate this issue of Missing Pieces to him. As some of you might know, Quentin has been my favorite Roosevelt child for a long time, and if I ever have a son, there’s a good chance he’ll be named Quentin. Fortunately, my husband Cole is on board!

Last year for Quentin’s birthday, I wrote about his birth and childhood for the Theodore Roosevelt Center blog. This year, I’m going to focus on his death and burial in France and how the Roosevelts’ decision to let the tree lie where it fell influenced American response to war dead that continues to this day.

Quentin Roosevelt had only been in combat for nine days when he was shot down in his Nieuport 28 on July 14, 1918—Bastille Day—near Chamery, France.

Map of Quentin Roosevelt’s gravesite. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.

The Germans realized they had killed the son of a former American president and buried him the next day with military honors where he had been shot down. They fashioned a primitive cross made from tree boughs with the words, “Lieutenant Roosevelt, buried by the Germans.”

The New York Times, September 15, 1918/Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Shortly thereafter, the Americans retook Chamery. Under the direction of Colonel Frank McCoy, who had known Quentin when he was a boy, and Father Francis Duffy, Americans later added a proper cross and erected a basic fence around Quentin’s gravesite made from trees.

The New York Times, September 15, 1918/Courtesy of the Library of Congress

In his memoirs, Duffy noted the significance of the German and American burials:

“It is fitting that enemy and friend alike should pay tribute to his heroism.”

Photograph print of Quentin Roosevelt’s grave. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.

Later, Quentin’s grave received a proper fence, a headstone, and floral arrangements that appears in the iconic Underwood and Underwood photograph of a soldier paying his respects to Quentin. Some visitors to Quentin’s grave even sent dried flowers back to the Roosevelt family—even as late as 1921.

Dried flowers from grave of Quentin Roosevelt. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.

For several days after Quentin’s death, though, the Roosevelt family—and all other interested Americans—didn’t know what had happened to Quentin. They knew he was reported missing, but they didn’t know if he had been taken prisoner or if he had been killed.

A friend of Quentin’s, Frederick Trubee Davison, his father, and the Japanese delegation visited Sagamore Hill, the Roosevelt family home, sometime around the time of Quentin’s crash, and they received a royal welcome. In an oral history years later, Davison remembers asking TR near the end of his visit, “What hope have you for Quentin?”

Although TR had not given any indication of receiving bad news during the visit, he showed Davison the telegram that had arrived from President Woodrow Wilson announcing Quentin’s death twenty minutes before Davison and his party did. As Davison notes, “It was one of the most extraordinary exhibitions of control and courage that I have ever seen.”

After receiving the news of Quentin’s death, the Roosevelts began to think about burial. In an October 25, 1918, letter to General P. C. March, Theodore communicated that he and Edith wished for Quentin’s body to remain in France:

My dear General March:

The enclosed clipping states that all the American dead will be taken home after the war according to orders received by the army chaplains. . . . Mrs. Roosevelt and I wish to enter a most respectful but most emphatic protest against the proposed course so far as our son Quentin is concerned. We have always believed that “Where the tree falls, There let it lie.”

We know that many good persons feel entirely different, but to us it is painful and harrowing long after death to move the poor body from which the soul has fled. We greatly prefer that Quentin shall continue to lie on the spot where he fell in battle and where the foeman buried him.

After the war is over Mrs. Roosevelt and I intend to visit the grave and then to have a small stone put up saying it is put up by us, but not disturbing what has already been erected to his memory by his friends and American comrades in arms. . . .

Very faithfully yours,

Theodore Roosevelt

Within four days, the Roosevelts received a reply from General March stating that Quentin’s body and “the body of any other soldier whose relatives or proper legal representatives” desired such a course would remain overseas.

Based on the Roosevelts’ decision to keep Quentin’s body overseas, other Gold Star families decided to keep their husbands and sons buried in France as well. Surveys were sent to family members that allowed them to request the return of their loved one’s body or choose to keep him buried overseas.

For five years, the Army’s Grave Registration Services oversaw the burials of over 32,000 graves in eight permanent cemeteries until 1923 when the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was created to manage these overseas cemeteries.

Pencil drawing of Lady Liberty at Quentin Roosevelt Memorial. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.

Even though their husbands and sons were buried overseas, family members still wanted the opportunity to visit. Again, the Roosevelts’ response seems to have guided other Americans’ actions.

In February 1919, Edith, a Gold Star mother, and her eldest son, Ted, traveled to France to pay their respects at Quentin’s grave—TR had died a month earlier on January 6, 1919. Edith decorated the grave with flowers and knelt as she said the Lord’s Prayer at Quentin’s grave.

Those who were wealthier like Edith could afford private pilgrimages, but by the late 1920s, Gold Star Mothers lobbied Congress to fund pilgrimages for those who weren’t as well-to-do. Almost 7,000 mothers and widows (if not remarried) were given the opportunity to visit the graves of their loved ones, which became known as the Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of 1930-1933.

Even Black Gold Star mothers and widows were invited on the pilgrimages, however, their accommodations were significantly worse than those for white Gold Star mothers and widows. For example, they traveled on cargo ships and stayed at second-class hotels. Moreover, Black Gold Star mothers boarded segregated ships overseas to France—and for this reason, some didn’t participate.

Doshia Stevens of Youngstown, Ohio, turned down the opportunity to see her husband John Stevens’s grave in July 1930 letter after initially agreeing to go due to the unjust arrangements:

“Dear Sir, I am sorry to say but I am canceling my reservation because of discrimination.”

The shortest life. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.

Today the ABMC continues to take care of military cemeteries primarily overseas. As for Quentin, his body stayed where the tree fell until 1955 when it was exhumed and moved to Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial where he was laid to rest beside his brother, Ted.

If you’re interested in reading more about Quentin, the ABMC, and the Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages, I’d recommend Remembering Theodore Roosevelt: Reminiscences of His Contemporaries by Michael Patrick Cullinane—a collection of oral history interviews from where the story about TR receiving the telegram announcing Quentin’s death came—War and Remembrance: The Story of the American Battle Monuments Commission by Thomas Conner, and The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s by John W. Graham from where the anecdote about Edith saying the Lord’s Prayer came.