I was in Green-Wood Cemetery yesterday afternoon and came across the headstones of Anna Bulloch and James Gracie. I have seen these many times before. Anna was Theodore Roosevelt’s aunt, his mother’s sister; James was his uncle. James was part of the Gracie family that owned what we now call Gracie Mansion, the New York City mayor’s official residence.

Theodore Roosevelt’s mother Martha was from Roswell, Georgia and married Theodore Senior at a young age. Anna and Grandmamma moved to New York and lived at East 20th Street soon thereafter. Anna home schooled Theodore and many other neighborhood children, including Edith Carow. I have always suspected that they moved to help Martha as much with the in laws as with the kids.

In addition to her four children Martha had to contend with her in-laws living just a few blocks away on Union Square. What’s more, she had four brothers-in-law also in the neighborhood, including one next door. It did not help either that the Civil War was coming and the Bulloch were staunch Confederates living and/or married into a family of Lincoln supporters. She didn’t have the buffer as Seinfeld would say.

What has always intrigued me about these headstones is that Anna’s has her maiden name. I have never understood why hers says Bulloch and not Gracie. We know from the literature that theirs was a good and close marriage. James became very much a part of the Roosevelt extended clan and participated in the family’s charitable and other endeavors. It seems strange to me that she kept the Bulloch name.