I know someone who is researching their local library out on Long Island who in the process came across this interesting Roosevelt document. It is a $20 pledge from Ted Roosevelt toward the creation of the Freeport Long Island Memorial Library. The library opened in 1924 and is one of the few libraries that served–and serves–as a Great War memorial. Note that the letterhead is addressed Albany, where Roosevelt was serving in the New York State Assembly when he signed this in August 1920. His signature is quite similar to his father’s. One can only speculate to what extend that might have been intentional.

It was a busy time for the thirty-three year old Great War veteran. Ted had returned from France in March 1919 and immediately helped get the nascent American Legion off the ground. That year he also began his political career, winning the assembly chair from Nassau County that fall. In 1920 he was running for re-election and spent much of the summer criss-crossing the county. Ted and wife Eleanor were not just thinking of his re-election. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle notes in its October 2, 1920 edition that Eleanor Butler Alexander-Roosevelt turned out in Freeport for the Nassau launch of the Warren G. Harding-Calvin Coolidge presidential campaign.

(image/Freeport Memorial Public Library)