The Roosevelts

Two members of the Roosevelt family were to become president of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was the 26th president from 1901 to 1909 and his distant cousin Franklin Delano (1882-1945) was the 32nd president from 1933 until his death. Theodore was also the uncle of Franklin’s wife Anne Eleanor (1884-1962), who was also a Roosevelt.

The year Theodore was elected interest arose in the Netherlands regarding the Dutch heritage of the American Roosevelts. The Roosevelts themselves were also curious about their origin, Franklin even researched the matter when he was a student. In January 1937, when Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in as president for the second time, there was a special broadcast on the radio from the municipality building of Vossemeer, which was broadcast on all American stations. In June 1950, Eleanor Roosevelt – who was the US ambassador to the United Nations at the time – visited the Netherlands in the company of her eldest son and his two children.