People of Brookline


Prev - Large - Next
Isabelle ("Bella") Lee, 1882
1869 - 1954; married, 1895, George Saltonstall Mumford; parents: George Cabot Lee, Caroline Watts Haskell; lived on Essex Rd. in Chestnut Hill, Newton

Her next-door neighbors and cousins were the Saltonstalls. Richard Saltonstall was the Harvard classmate of future president Teddy Roosevelt's. Her older sister, Alice Hathaway Lee, was introduced to Roosevelt when she was 17 and he 19. After what was described as a tumultuous courtship, they were married on October 27, 1880 - Roosevelt's 22nd birthday - in the First Parish Church in Brookline. Alice Roosevelt died a little over three years later, on February 14, 1884 from Bright's Disease and complications from childbirth. Roosevelt was devastated and was said to rarely speak about Alice thereafter.