Hall Roosevelt

Who was Hall Roosevelt?

Gracie Hall Roosevelt was the youngest brother of First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt and a nephew of President Theodore Roosevelt. He was usually called Hall.

He was named Gracie for his father's aunt, Anna Bulloch and her husband James Gracie, and Hall for his mother's family. When Hall was one year old, his mother, Anna Hall Roosevelt, died, and shortly after his third birthday his father, Elliott Roosevelt, died as well. He and Eleanor were then reared by their grandmother at her estate in Tivoli, New York.

Before his death, Eleanor's father had implored her to act as a mother towards her toddler brother, and it was a request she made good upon for the rest of Hall's life. While at Tivoli, Eleanor doted on Hall, and when he enrolled at Groton in 1907, Eleanor accompanied him as a chaperone. While he was attending Groton, she wrote her brother almost daily, but always felt a touch of guilt that Hall had not had a fuller childhood. She took pleasure in Hall's brilliant performance at school, and was proud of his many academic accomplishments, which included a Masters degree in engineering from Harvard.

At twenty-one years old, Hall married Margaret Richardson, a young woman he met at school, and together they had three children: