00:00:30,270	Hi, I'm Beth Stroup-Menge. Test A member of the Minishoshe Test Mandan chapter of the daughters of the American Revolution. Test Or DAR. Test DAR is a nonprofit, nonpolitical volunteer women's service organization founded in 1890 and dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America's future through better education for our children.

00:00:59,730	DAR are members volunteer millions of service hours annually in their local communities, including supporting active duty military personnel and assisting veterans, awarding financial aid to students and financially supporting schools for underserved children.

00:01:27,800	As one of the most inclusive genealogical societies in the country, DAR is open to any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution. I'm Connie Sprynczynatyk, also a member of the local DAR chapter. As our nation celebrates 250 years since the founding of America, North Dakota's America 250 Commission has generously provided a grant to our chapter for this series, The Presidents' Kitchen Cabinet.

00:01:52,700	We are also partnered with Dakota Media Access and with Rick Collin, a presidential historian who has taught classes about America's presidents at the college and university levels, as well as for the North Dakota Humanities Council. Rick is a grandfather. I'll start with that first. Also an author, a publisher.

00:02:16,300	During the episodes, we will also be joined by local DAR chapter members in colonial attire, offering etiquette advice from the bygone days. Our goal in this mini series is to bring presidential history alive with Rick, and then Beth and I will talk about White House life as we cook favorite presidential foods.

00:02:37,370	This series is part discussion of culture in America along with history you can taste, what we call History on a Fork. Our first cooking segment featured recipes from two founding fathers plus Abraham Lincoln. Today, we'll talk about Theodore Roosevelt and several other presidents who have perhaps surprising ties to our state.

00:03:01,330	Beth, we talked cookbooks in our first episode. Remind us of some of your favorites. Absolutely. I think any cook probably has a number of favorite cookbooks. And when you start talking about history, there are a number of cookbooks available.

00:03:21,270	In the first episode we talked about, one of my favorites was a KFYR cookbook that was produced in the 1970s. I did pull out several of my vintage cookbooks that have been handed down from family members that are favorites. Of course, we have the joy of cooking and the Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

00:03:44,100	So any cook that's starting out that wants, recipes from sort of the good old days or an introduction to cooking. These are fabulous cookbooks. When we start talking about history, I pulled in another oldie. It's called An American Sampler Cookbook, and this cookbook has recipes from various members of Congress. And through the years, a number of cookbooks have been produced.

00:04:07,670	You know, with the various congressional folks as well as presidents. So if you're thinking of wanting to cook some type of meal with history, there's fabulous cookbooks, but there's also the internet.

00:04:27,900	So in doing research for some of the recipes that we're going to be doing today, I also turn to the internet because not only does it include recipes from the various presidential libraries, but also, as you know, some of the family favorites and some of the history behind those recipes. So it's always fun to be able to put together history, particularly in this year of America 250 with some of the meals of our forefathers. It really is a walk through history.

00:04:52,900	But whenever you open up a cookbook, really it can be a brand new one. Later, I'll show you a copy of a cookbook that's new, but it's only focused in the past. It's a- it's a fun. It's a fun way to celebrate America's 250.

00:05:12,630	This American sampler cookbook is one I have not seen, but later I think I want to dive into it. Absolutely. We are going to turn from cookbooks. We'll come back to that. We're going to turn to our presidential historian, Rick Collin. I know you talked in our first episode about your your early interest in presidential history.

00:05:36,270	You grew up in several parts of the country, but spent a fair amount of time on the East Coast before coming west. You're going to, help us walk through some presidents today who may have some surprising ties to North Dakota.

00:05:59,630	We're going to talk about Hayes, Harrison, FDR, and of course, we couldn't do this episode without talking about Teddy, the one and only. So will you start with Hayes. How was he tied to North Dakota? Well, Hayes was, He's a very interesting man. He is one of the only. Well, he's one of five presidents who fought in the Civil War. He's the only one who was actually wounded in battle.

00:06:17,330	He was a brigadier general, in this in the civil War. He's the first incumbent president to visit what is now North Dakota. When he visited, it was Dakota Territory. He had been on a train trip west, and he came back going east. He stopped in Fargo, and he had his wife with him.

00:06:38,430	And he also Lucy and three of their seven sons were along on the trip. And so we attended a breakfast in Fargo. This would have been September of 1878. And then he wanted to visit the great Bonanza farm, that, Oliver Dalrymple, whose great great grandson, Jack Dalrymple, was our governor from 2010 to 2016.

00:07:06,530	And so he visited Dalrymple Farm, Bonanza Farm, and that those bonanza farms are legendary late 19th century, early 20th century. And, Oliver Dalrymple had the largest, bonanza farm at the time. It was some 100,000 acres. And they had, you know, several hundred men and horses, thousands of horses, and had to, be out there a lot of machinery to, handle the farm.

00:07:31,600	And so, Hayes, spent time, at the, Bonanza Farm and had a great visit with, Oliver Dalrymple. Jack Dalrymple came out with a book not too long ago, documenting his great grandfather's, Bonanza farm. And, it's a good read. And, it's it's an interesting book. And there's a photo in there of Oliver Dalrymple standing next to President Hayes.

00:07:56,800	Very proud about, showing off his bonanza farm. And did you And you were the publisher of that book. Yes. My wife and I have a, publishing company, called Smoky Water Press, and we worked with Jack. It had been a, a thesis, a history thesis. He had written back in 1970 when he was attending Yale University.

00:08:16,370	And then he had written it and was quite good, but he didn't do anything with it. And then he decided a few years ago he wanted to get it out in book form. So my wife Andrea, and I worked with him to kind of edit it up a little bit and put it in book form.

00:08:31,900	And we helped him publish it about a year ago. And it's a it's a wonderful book. And he spoke about that book at Statehood Day, at Statehood Day. in the kickoff of the, North Dakota 250 commission Statehood Day, which was very appropriate last November 2nd. So Hayes is interesting in that connection.

00:08:49,800	He's the first of 15 of our last 26 presidents have actually visited North Dakota, and he's was the first incumbent president to do that. He also, owned a piece of farmland, here, north of Bismarck. A 930 acre, farm, in Hay Creek Township.

00:09:13,800	And that was given to him by the Northern Pacific Railroad right after he was elected president. Now, today, that would be a conflict of interest. Maybe, you know, the ethics question going on, but back then it wasn't an issue. And so he, he received the farm. He never actually attended or came an saw it. He had a good friend take care of it for him.

00:09:34,100	But they sold it or he sold it in 1885 for about $21,000, but it was a, well, well maintained, farm. In Hay Creek Township. Wonder who owns it today. Will have to. We'll have to look that up. Tell us about his wife. She was interesting. Lucy Hayes was a very interesting, first lady.

00:09:57,900	They're all interesting first ladies, right? Just as they're all interesting presidents. There's not a dullard in the bunch. She was a, a woman who was a was really involved in the Temperance Movement. And she didn't like alcohol.

00:10:22,730	And so one of the things she did when, she became first lady was she banned all the alcohol, being served at the White House. It was a popular with a lot of the temperance people, of course. And those that, didn't want to see alcohol served, but it was not popular with those that enjoyed a drink at the White House and socializing. Whatever she loved, she'd serve lemonade and punch. And so her nickname became Lemonade Lucy.

00:10:42,230	And that was, what she was known as, during her time in the White House. But she also, was a very gracious hostess. They put on a lot of, state dinners and entertained an awful lot of people.

00:11:04,270	And they also had the first telephone in the White House to Hayes, and they, because, Alexander Graham Bell, you remember in 1876 that actually invented the telephone. And, Hayes was in the White House from 1877 to ‘81, first telephone port in the White House about 1879. And their phone number was one, the White House phone number one Oh, and she was, educated. She was. Yes.

00:11:29,530	Yeah, she was she was the first first lady who received a- Who had a college degree. And she also, really loved art and artwork. And she worked hard to get, a portrait of Martha Washington put into the White House to be with the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. She thought George, needed Martha by his side.

00:11:55,970	So she worked to get, portrait of Martha Washington in the White House as well. Good job. Because of course, they were a team. Absolutely. The first family serves alongside the president. Yes. That's right. Tell us about Benjamin Harrison. That is not a president people would connect readily with North Dakota. Harrison. He's another very, interesting president.

00:12:23,330	He was born in Ohio, but he really had his professional career and political career in Indiana. He had an icy kind of an aloof demeanor. So his nickname was the Indiana Iceberg. He was but he was very he was a very effective, president in his own ways.

00:12:44,170	He was the grandson of the ninth president of the United States, William Henry Harrison, who only served about a month before he died at the age of 68, in 1841. And then he was the great grandson of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. And his father was a congressman from Ohio. So politics was very much in Benjamin Harrison's blood.

00:13:07,530	Probably the biggest connection, I think obviously the biggest connection he has to us here in North Dakota. He signed the statehood papers that brought us into the Union. Six states came into the union, during Harrison's presidency,Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, North Dakota and South Dakota.

00:13:34,170	And there was a lot of, controversy and a lot of politics involved in bringing North Dakota and South Dakota into the Union, separate states that had been this big Dakota Territory for a long time. Very interesting history, the Dakota Territory politics and all that. That's a whole nother story. But Harrison didn't want to be blamed for bringing one in over the other.

00:13:53,730	So he had a secretary of state, James Blaine, mix up the two papers. Two statehood papers for North Dakota and South Dakota had them shift them around so he didn't know what they were. Had them. He just he said, I just want to see the signature line. I want to see anything else on the paper.

00:14:11,700	So Harrison signed on the signature line, bringing in North Dakota and South Dakota. No one knows which one was first. So just alphabetically. North Dakota is the 39th state and South Dakota, sorry, is number 40.

00:14:36,370	What kind of firsts did he have in the White House? He was, one of the things he really pushed hard at was, well, he had electricity. That was one thing. And this was one of the first. He was the first president to get electricity in the White House. He and his wife, Caroline, were- They loved the idea of electricity, because you could flip a switch, right? And the lights would come on.

00:14:51,370	You don't have to have candles lit and all that. But he they were scared to death of being electrocuted. It was brand new. They didn't they didn't want to have a, you know, lose their life over trying to turn on an electric switch so they would always have white House staff

00:15:08,430	turn on the switch, turn it off, do whatever. But they they never themselves did the electrical switch thing. He also was a big proponent of modernizing the Navy. And one of the things one of his key contributions was, he built up the modern. He actually built up the Navy quite a bit.

00:15:32,530	There were three steel hulled ships when he came into the white House four years later, we had 22 steel hulled ships, including laying the groundwork for first battleships. So. And then another thing that was interesting about Harrison, we don't- we think about Teddy Roosevelt being the conservation president. And we'll talk a lot more about TR later.

00:15:52,630	But Harrison set aside,like TR did later, setting aside some 230 million acres of public land for all these parks and all the other blessings we have today, Harrison set aside 15 million acres of public land for some national forests all around the country, and he was the first president to really address conservation on that scale.

00:16:15,170	So that was another first Harrison had. He had an interesting family, including his wife, Caroline. And I think Beth has- I'm very excited. To tell about Caroline. So, Caroline Scott Harrison was the first lady in 1890.

00:16:41,230	And at that point in time, the sons of the American Revolution had set up an organization, but they voted to not allow women to join the organization. And there were four women that decided that they wanted their own organization to to celebrate the the country, to show their patriotism.

00:17:09,900	The four women, introduced the idea to Caroline of setting up the Daughters of the American Revolution, and she embraced it and became the first general president of the organization. She was also the first first lady to actually do a national speech, introducing the idea. She was the first sitting first lady to do a national speech. And it was regarding Daughters of the American Revolution.

00:17:36,070	So she really championed that women participate and be very active in our country and celebrate the women in the past, because women contributed a lot in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and really acknowledging that and celebrating that. Of course they did. Yes. And then she died shortly before his presidency ended, a couple of weeks before the 1892 presidential election. Yes. She died.

00:18:04,370	And, it was a great loss to Benjamin Harrison. He married her niece a few years later after leaving the White House. And they had I think they had one child, after they left the White House. But, she's an interesting one, too. She survived. And for like 48 years. She died in the. Was it the 40s? Yeah.

00:18:27,170	Like 1948, I think something like that. Yeah. So shall we talk the Roosevelts? Sure. Let's start with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Who people wouldn't automatically think if you said President Roosevelt. We all think of Teddy. We'll talk about Teddy. But start us out with Franklin and the impact some of his, administration programs had on North Dakota.

00:18:54,900	Boy, where do you start with FDR? I mean, he was, you know, only president to serve four terms, 12 years, 12 plus years in the White House. He actually served just three months of his fourth term. And then he died. Died in office.

00:19:14,900	But FDR, he's our he was the first president to name a woman to his cabinet, which I think is significant. Francis Perkins was the secretary of Labor, and she was the only cabinet member who served FDR throughout the entire time of his presidency. In fact, she served a little bit in the Harry Truman's. And then they, she left his administration shortly afterwards.

00:19:38,170	But, FDR visited North Dakota several times. He came here and let me think, 1934, on a, he visited, Devil's Lake on a- gave a speech like 35,000 people attended, wanted to hear him talk about, New Deal relief programs and so on 1936, he came out on a drought tour, and he stopped in, Bismarck and Mandan in 1936,

00:20:09,100	at that time, the dirty 30s, the farmers were really struggling with trying to make ends meet. A lot of farmers were going under because of the depression and, the lack of, good climate. And he stopped and visited with farmers in Mandan. And he also, visited actually the State Capitol grounds in Bismarck in his, fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt.

00:20:39,100	The Maltese cross cabin that FDR or TR had had at Medora. His his first lodge he had out there, in the late middle 1880s. They had moved it to the Capitol grounds and, eventually. And so he visited that also and paid tribute.

00:21:02,470	And I'll talk a little bit more about the Maltese Cross cabin when we talk about TR

00:21:06,330	he was his, New Deal programs were crucial to helping bring North Dakota and the country out of the depression. The Works Progress Administration, WPA, the Civilian Conservation Corps. They built a lot of, structure, here in North Dakota, Fort Lincoln State Park, you know, their visitor center and, the, fort, the town of the, the fort, Army fort.

00:21:38,370	The sections that are built out there, were built by the CCC, the Indian Earth lodge reconstructed out there, built by the CCC. The visitor center built by the CCC. And then also another program they had was called the works, civilian Administration, the, WCA or know the Work Recovery Administration. I think that's right.

00:22:05,900	Then, and that was just one,

00:22:11,600	less than a year, the first year of Roosevelt's administration in 1933. This, program came in. This is called the Civil Works Administration. That's what it was, the CWA, anyway, that was one of the things about Roosevelt alphabet soup. I mean, there was CCC, WPA, you know, you know, on and on.

00:22:39,800	And so this particular one in, they really focused on Grand Forks County and they put a lot of, money into helping Grand Forks County with infrastructure, rebuilding of roads, rebuilding of, houses and, and, other infrastructure. And they put like $230,000 into Grand Forks County alone. And today that'd be the equivalent of about 6 million.

00:23:05,100	And that particular, administration program only lasted from, like November of 33 through March of 34. So it was short lived. It was one of the longer ones like the WPA or the CCC, but it did good things for the country.

00:23:26,900	So I have read that that North Dakota, among all of the states, probably benefited the greatest from the policies, the programs that came out of his administration. Would that be your take on. I think that would be safe to say, North Dakota historians have said North Dakota suffered probably the if not the most certainly among the most, in terms of the the states that were hit hard by the economic catastrophe of the, of the Great Depression.

00:23:48,630	Sure. From, FDR, shall we turn to everybody's favorite favorite president in North Dakota? I think, his fifth cousin, FDR, his cousin Theodore, was president, turn of the century. Right. Do you want to talk about Teddy? Good old Teddy. I mean, he's one of a kind. He's just incredible.

00:24:21,430	His daughter Alice said he wanted to be the corpse at every funeral. The bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening. In other words, he loves the spotlight. And he, he always grabbed the spotlight wherever he went. He was just and truly an incredible, man in so many ways. He, born in 1858, in New York City.

00:24:47,170	I think most of us are familiar with the story. Terrible story of his mother and his wife dying on the same day. His mother, was only 48 years old, and this was on Valentine's Day of 1884, February 14th, 1884. His mother, died in the morning of. It was, typhoid fever.

00:25:12,270	And then his wife had given birth to the daughter Alice in, two days earlier, February 12th. And then she died in the afternoon. She was only 22 years old. She had Bright's disease, kidney failure. And Roosevelt kept a diary and he said, you just put a big black X for the entry for that particular day.

00:25:36,000	Says, the light has gone out of my life. And so that influenced his, departure from the East, didn't it? Is that why he came to North Dakota? Well, you know, interestingly enough, he had been out to North Dakota. He had been hunting, birds in the river valley. That was his first exposure in the fall of 1880.

00:26:00,500	His, his brother and him came ou and hunted birds and, around the Moorhead area. And they really liked it. Loved it. And then, Roosevelt came back out in the fall of 1883. This would have been five months before the death of his wife and mother to hunt bison.

00:26:21,230	He wanted to take on- He was he was concerned that the bison herds were dwindling as they were, and he wanted to come out and get his first bison before they all disappeared. And so he came out in the fall of 1883. And that's when he first was exposed to Medora. And he, he invested in this cross ranch cabin.

00:26:42,170	And that's where he first got to know people in Medora a little bit. And so when his wife and mother died in 1884, he was absolutely devastated. He wanted to just get out of there. And he thought, I'm going to go back to the West.

00:26:58,630	Where there, you know, the I love the outdoors and and the just the whole atmosphere and I need to get away. And so he gave his daughter Alice, a little baby to his sister, and she took care of Alice while he went off to Medora in the West. Well, speaking of Medora, of course, the newest presidential library will be hosted by Medora.

00:27:20,700	And if we can pause on Teddy for just a few minutes to talk about presidential libraries, there are but 16 of them around the country that are administered by the, by the archives administration. But I think there are more than that. Are there? There are plenty more than that. But they're all privately owned.

00:27:44,230	I mean, before, you know, Herbert Hoover was the first one to actually, be taken care of by the NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration and all the ones since Hoover are under that. For a while, Nixon was that Nixon was a privately owned foundation. That was after Watergate. Complicated story. But eventually Nixon's library got into the NARA.

00:28:05,370	And that's they're also part of it now. But there are many that, you know, and I'm thinking, like, James Knox Polk has a library that's private. Abraham Lincoln. There's an Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum. It's in Illinois. He has a lot of his papers and his documents, but that's also privately operated.

00:28:24,100	So there were many that George Washington, MountVernon has a lot of his records and other places have his records as well. So a lot of presidents had, their, before Hoover on, privately owned, but they're all over the country. Rick.

00:28:47,900	We didn't have a lot of time in the first episode to talk about books, but all three of us love to read about presidents and history in general. So tell us about Washington, Adams and, Lincoln books that you would recommend. So many books. So many books. Right. And not enough time to read all the books, but there are several books that, for each of those presidents that I highly recommend.

00:29:08,900	And we're just going to talk about maybe 1 or 2 at the most for each one. The first one, this is Ron Chernow's, book on George Washington, which is, just an outstanding read. Chernow has written also massive biographies of, like, Alexander Hamilton and Mark Twain's latest. I'm reading that now and enjoying that very much.

00:29:29,330	But this is such a comprehensive book, and it really captures Washington personally as well as professionally. So I really highly recommend this book. That's Ron Chernow. Love this book. It's a wonderful book. It's a great doorstop too, but. It's many pages, right? Another one, David McCullough. On John Adams.

00:29:54,600	This is another classic, came out, I think, about where it's been quite a while since this book came out. This was printed back in 2001, about 25 years ago. But it's a wonderful book. And of course, David McCullough has written all kinds of wonderful history books so that that's another highly recommended one.

00:30:14,170	And then I think you can have, a book about John Adams as also without also having one about Abigail Adams, because they were truly, dynamic duo, married like 54 years. And, she was a very strong, force behind her husband with her husband. And so this is a wonderful book by Joseph Ellis called First Family. Abigail and John Adams, another highly recommended one, then Abraham Lincoln. Oh my goodness.

00:30:42,570	Mmore books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than anyone else except Jesus Christ. Over 15,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln. So where do you start? Well, this is probably, considered by many people as the best single volume biography of Lincoln. David Herbert Donald came out about 30 years ago. I'll add this one to my list.

00:31:06,730	It's a wonderful, wonderful read again. There's so many outstanding Lincoln biographies, but another one I think is a must reading is Team of Rivals. This is a phenomenal book that Doris Kearns Goodwin came out with about, I think, about 20 years ago.

00:31:26,800	And it's all about how Lincoln brought his enemies under his tent to help him, govern the nationbecause he saw the great crisis we were undergoing as we divided into civil war. And so the rivals were those who had competed against him for the 1860 Republican nomination, including, William Seward, who became a secretary of state, and also, Salmon P. Chase, who became a secretary of the Treasury. And they served Lincoln.

00:31:51,300	Well, he can ended up appointing Salmon Chase, chief justice in 1864. They served Lincoln and the country very well. So that's another highly recommended book. We'll talk, a little bit later about. Well, while Beth and I will talk about books that you like from the today's episode presidents, but, I am now a doorstop. Yeah. Yes.

00:32:16,100	So, Rick, let's continue to talk a little bit more about Teddy, because he really did have a number of accomplishments from being the youngest president on.

00:32:28,370	Oh, he did, I think probably the greatest legacy he's got, as I mentioned earlier, conservation president, you know, he was he had come out here, like I mentioned earlier in the early mid 1880s and seen the the glory and the beauty of the badlands and all the hunting and all the wildlife that was out here.

00:32:52,370	The pristine nature of of so much of the environment and the landscape. And when he became president, he wanted to help preserve that, because he was afraid that it was going to be gobbled up by big corporations, rich money, people who would make it their own private preserves like he had seen in Europe.

00:33:11,730	A lot of that was going on in Europe, and he wanted to make sure that the general public had access to this. So he set aside some 230 million acres of public land and gave us all kinds of national forests, national parks, national monuments, national game, wildlife reserves game, refuges, that we enjoyed very much to this day.

00:33:39,800	And he was, also someone who, was very active in, consumer protection. I'm thinking of a couple of things. The Meat Inspection Act and the, Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

00:34:09,170	Upton Sinclair had written this, infamous book about the horrors of, of the meat industry and how he was absolutely, full of all kinds of disease and dangers to, the public. And so he pushed hard to get legislation through to, have the federal government be able to, monitor the meat industry in the, in the food industry. So there'd be it'd be much safer for, for the, public and, and the consumers.

00:34:36,170	He also was, big believer in, the Panama Canal, probably as one of the great achievements of Roosevelt, even if he did make a mess of things in, South America, the way he went about having it done, he defended Colombia completely and supported Panama in the revolt to to get the canal set.

00:34:57,370	And it created all kinds of hard, anti-American feelings that we see to this day, this Yankee imperialism that he had kind of, created to, put the Panama Canal into the Panama Canal. Having said that, it's a remarkable achievement.

00:35:21,800	It really, did wonders for trade and even, or Navy naval movements because it instead of going thousands of miles around the tip, southern tip of South America to get to the Pacific, you suddenly had a 50 mile canal that you could cut through from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And it saved all kinds of, travel and, and and difficult, issues that way. By having the Panama Canal, Roosevelt went down to visit the Panama Canal.

00:35:43,100	He took the, his, his wife with him, and she was, they went there, I think, in 1906, and he became the first president. This is when I first found out about this. I was pretty surprised about it, but, that's it.

00:36:06,600	That's the reality is that he was the first president to leave the United States, as an incumbent president when he went down in 1906. So from Washington 1789 to 1906, we never had a president leave the continental U.S. they didn't. None of them never traveled overseas or even to South America.

00:36:27,370	So, Roosevelt visited the Panama Canal, and there's a famous picture of him with a with a hat on and covering his eyes with the sun, and he's in it like a tractor, helping push the dirt to get the Panama Canal built. So should we bring him closer to home and talk Medora again? Medora? The library and the. Yes. And the cabin? Yes. The Maltese, cross cabin. Long story.

00:36:53,270	I'll make it real short. But he left. Any number of reasons. Cattle, was diminished. There were terrible blizzards that wiped out, like, 60% of Teddy Roosevelt's cattle. And then the even greater numbers for a lot of ranchers and cattlemen and, 1886, 87. And so Roosevelt just decided to eventually, give up his investments out there.

00:37:23,900	I think 1898 was the last of his investments in Medora that he he gave up. But the Cross Ranch cabin he had had built or he had purchased actually in like 1883, 84 when he was out there the first time. And the, they decided to move the cabin.

00:37:48,600	They wanted to show that the World's Fair in Saint Louis in 1904, and that was also the Lewis and Clark Centennial commemoration, which was a big deal. So they they brought the Maltese Cross cabin out to Saint Louis. The World's Fair people saw it and thought it was very interesting.

00:38:10,100	And then they brought it back and put it on the, grounds of the state capital in Bismarck in 1906. And they just kept it there, and it really just deteriorated. And the Daughters of the American Revolution, the local chapter, was quite concerned about that. And, they went to the state legislature. The legislature passed legislation putting them, basically in, control and care of the Maltese Cross Ranch.

00:38:35,630	And so the cabin, cross cabin. And so they, they, rehabilitated it, they repaired it and they opened it up to the public, during the summer from 1926 until 1959, so the public could come through and see the see the cabin and then in 1959, it was moved back to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and where it's located today,

00:39:00,700	real close to the South Unit Visitor Center. And FDR, like I mentioned earlier, visited it when he was here in 1936 on his drought tour. And then, Dwight Eisenhower, who We'll talk about our next segment. He stopped and also, wanted to see it when he was here in 1953 for the closure of the Garrison Dam.

00:39:23,900	So we're very proud of that that the, you know, Daughters of the American Revolution, that we're about preservation and, again, about history. And so we are really looking forward to the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Library in Medora. So it almost feels like it comes full circle. It does, it does. And that's exciting.

00:39:45,430	The whole TR library opening that's coming right up. It's about when I talk a little bit about that now, we want to hold off on that maybe. Or shall we, shall we retire to the kitchen. And you can talk about the library as we cook that. That would be great.

00:40:02,330	We are going to be, talking about one of Teddy Roosevelt's favorite recipes, favorite food. When he lived out on the prairie, it was hard work, and you needed to have a good, hearty meal. And one of his favorites was fried chicken with white gravy, where we're putting mashed potatoes with it.

00:40:24,070	And then a favorite is a clove cake, very, very flavorful cake.

00:40:39,800	Well, let's get cooking. We're going to be making Teddy's favorite fried chicken today. I am starting with four chicken thighs that I have been brining overnight in one cup of buttermilk and one beaten egg. When you mix up your brine, make sure that you put it in, either a glass container, porcelain container.

00:41:04,470	That's what they would have used back in the late 1800s early 1900s. In our day and age, for me, it's easier to just put it in a Ziploc bag and marinate it, but I marinated it overnight so it gets the flavors, but also it tenderize the chicken.

00:41:22,900	With that, we are going to dredge it in a flour mixture and that includes salt and pepper, garlic powder, Paprika and onion powder. We're going to mix this thoroughly and make a nice dredge for the chicken. So once that is mixed we'll take the chicken thighs out.

00:41:54,630	And if you want you can actually take these and put them on paper towel to get a little of the excess brine off of them. Today I'm just going to put them right in the dredge. So I'm going to put them in the- in the flour, mix it around, make sure that they're well coated.

00:42:14,100	And then I will place them on a rack to rest while I've brine the rest of them. The brining really gives a good flavor to the chicken, makes it interesting, and the dredging will help make it a crispy crust on our chicken.

00:42:31,630	So with that, we'll move it over a little bit messy, but that's okay. To me, cooking is kind of all about the mess. Sometimes that happens. So we have four thighs that we, have dredged in the flour.

00:42:51,800	And what I usually do, and what I usually recommend is that you let the chicken rest with the flour coating, because the longer you let it rest, the more it adheres to the chicken. And it will give you a crusty, crust on your chicken, it will be crispier.

00:43:12,900	So once that has rested and we're going to pretend that it rested for a period of time, I'm going to put it.

00:43:22,530	In frying pan today I'm using, iron skillets. That's what they would have used back in the late 1800s, early 1900s. But I like using it nowadays because again, it makes for great crispy chicken. So what we're going to do, it's rested.

00:43:48,100	I'm going to put about an inch of oil in my fry pan, warm it up and then I'll be putting my chicken thighs in and frying the chicken thighs. While I'm frying the chicken. We're going to get an etiquette lesson from one of our DAR members who is sharing etiquette From the first White House cookbook of 1887.

00:44:13,900	Ladies have frequently had an effective way of holding the knife. Halfway down its length, as if it were too big For their little hands. But this is awkward away, as it is weak. The knife should be grasped freely by the handle, only.

00:44:33,430	The forefinger being the only one to touch the blade, and that only along the back of the blade at its root, and no further down.

00:44:46,170	So, Connie, while I fry up our chicken thighs, could you please demonstrate for us the recipe for Teddy's favorite clove cake? Oh, sure. I think, when we talked earlier about food being part of culture, it's true. And recipes are something that kind of, I think ran around the country.

00:45:09,700	If I look at vintage cookbooks, I can recognize some of the some of the recipes from today, I'm going to try to minimize, the noise I make with, Mrs. Roosevelt's clove cake. And that's what the recipe is called. Mrs. Teddy Roosevelt's clove cake. So this would be Edith.

00:45:31,070	And, apparently it was quite the popular recipe, but it's also a very dense cake. And, quite flavorful, a little bit, perhaps on the dry side. So we're going to tell you how to fix that. The cake is interesting because as recipes moved around the country, of course there can be errors that get built in.

00:45:59,730	So this version from a woman who claims, that she is a California woman who's who is lawyer by day and vintage, recipe cook by night. Leslie at bakethiscake.com said the version that she saw was incorrectly listed from a method standpoint.

00:46:25,800	So it said to, beat the butter and the milk together and that of course, doesn't work if you've ever made a cake and failed at that join the club. So we're going to be, using a stick of butter and a cup of sugar.

00:46:45,070	And I've beaten this together just to save on noise and time and then the directions, and you'll hear a little noise, Sorry, but the directions say then to beat in the eggs.

00:47:04,800	And when it's fluffy and you feel like they're mixed well together, then we're going to add the two cups of flour. The it's a half teaspoon of cloves, half teaspoon of allspice, a half teaspoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon and a half of nutmeg. If that sounds excessive to you, it did to me.

00:47:27,970	I didn't cut it out. I'm making it the way it was listed. But I will tell you that, that the spices blend and it's not a nutmeg forward cake, but then the directions say that you're going to alternately beat in the flour

00:47:59,170	then milk. And then we'll add the rest of the

00:48:18,100	And our goal is just a nice smooth cake batter. Surprisingly, not surprisingly, there's molasses in this cake. The leavener is soda. But the instructions are to stir the molasses and soda together and then add them last just before you fold in the fruit. And I'll tell you about the fruit in a minute.

00:49:03,430	You may have noticed the the mixer began to gear down. It is quite a thick batter. We're going to stir the soda. It's a teaspoon of soda and half a cup of molasses. And molasses was a popular sweetener back in the day.

00:49:27,730	Refined sugar was not quite as common as it is today, so we just stir those together briefly and then put the whole container into the cake. Now it's going to make quite a dark and dense cake, and when you bake it, you will think, oh, this is like grandma's spice cake. That's what it reminds me of.

00:50:09,500	Again, we stop when it's smooth, and then the last step is to fold in. It calls for raisins that you can plump in hot water and then drain or dates. But in my case, I'm using both.

00:50:28,370	And if you think your family doesn't like dates, I will tell you that you do not bite into this cake and say, are there dates in the cake? They disappear. So now we're at a point where we're going to fold in. We're finished with the mixer, we're going to fold it in, and I'm going to talk briefly about pans. Beth and I were having a discussion about pans.

00:50:49,800	This is her tube pan. This is the pan that Teddy probably, would be used to seeing this shape. Some of you will think, oh, that looks just like my grandma's angel food cake pan. Yes it does. The- he would- you'll see is the finished product is going to be baked in a bundt pan.

00:51:12,000	But Teddy would not have had a pan available. They did not come out until 1950. I wasn't even born yet when the pans first came out. The Nordic Ware Baking Company a Saint Louis, Minnesota Baking Company, the Dalquist brothers had friends that asked for a pan in which they could bake Kugelhopf and,

00:51:39,600	that's a popular Eastern European yeasted cake. So I have heavily greased a bundt pan. By the way, when the pans first came out, they weren't all that popular. But about the time the brothers were deciding to get rid of the pan.

00:52:04,700	The Pillsbury Bake Off contest was already rolling, and the tunnel of fudge cake was one of the winners that year. I think it was 1966, and that's when bundt sales really took off So I don't own a tube pan, but Beth has generously provided one. So you can look at the difference. Now this is going to bake for 45 minutes at 350.

00:52:31,470	If it's not ready, do the toothpick test. You can you can touch the center of the cake. If it springs back, it's ready. One of the Great British Bake Off bakers said his grandma taught him to take the cake out and listen to it.

00:52:50,470	And if you could still hear that faint snap, crackle, pop then it wasn't ready. I have a convection oven. It was ready in 47 minutes. So this is going to go into the oven and we're going back to chicken. Thank you Connie.

00:53:12,600	So while I am going to dish up my chicken and get ready for gravy, Rick, tell us a little bit more about Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was the only person to receive both the Medal of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize. The Medal of Honor. He received for his charge up San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Yeah.

00:53:34,100	Especially the San Juan charge was was crucial in helping end that short war. Made Teddy Roosevelt a war hero and also helped, build up his political credentials because he was no longer just an Easterner. Dabbling in New York politics or being involved in New York politics. He was this war hero who had been in this, this charge up.

00:53:57,170	San Juan Hill and, of course, his cowboy ranching heritage that he had from Medora. And then he got the, Nobel Peace Prize for helping negotiate, He was the intermediary between Russia and Japan and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Roosevelt had a very rambunctious, set of children, six altogether.

00:54:22,730	His wife, Alice, of course, had died at the age of 22, had the daughter Alice. And then he had five additional children with Edith, his second wife. And during the White House years, they were, the kids were known as the White House gang, and they had all kinds of antics and animals.

00:54:41,570	They would they had a Shetland pony they'd, like, put it in White House elevator and put the pony up and down in the elevator. They would throw spitballs at the paintings on the walls of the White House, and Teddy Roosevelt would admonish them, you can't do that. These are presidential and First lady and other painting portraits.

00:55:04,170	He, they had a parrot, that, they trained to say hip, hip hooray for Teddy Roosevelt. They and they had- and they had a one legged rooster. I mean, you just name it. They had just all kinds of a menagerie at the White House. Roosevelt also visited, North Dakota only one time as president.

00:55:23,370	He came out here in 1903, had been out of here many times, of course, during his Medora years, and they'd gone back east during the winter months. But, only one time he came out here in 1903. It was a train trip. And he stopped in any number of places. Dickinson, Bismarck, Jamestown. And he, got to Medora and had a wonderful reunion with a lot of his old friends out in Medora.

00:55:46,800	And there's a very interesting photograph. All these people are packed in around Teddy having their picture taken, of his, trip to Medora. He had a great barbecue on the Capitol grounds in Bismarck. A wolf down a couple of, roast beef sandwiches and really enjoyed his time there.

00:56:07,070	Then he crossed the river and there were, like, 4 or 5 thousand people that met with him in Mandan. So he had a really marvelous, time here his one time as president. And then he came back four additional times after he left the White House. Last time was just three months before he died.

00:56:27,430	He visited, Fargo, I think, Dickinson and Jamestown or Dickinson and Bismarck spoke at a breakfast in October 1918. He blasted, the Nonpartisan League as being anti- or for being pro Bolsheviks because he thought that, that their politics he didn't agree with.

00:56:48,900	But he was out there also trying to sell war bonds to help fund the World War One effort, which was coming to a close by that time. So, and, you know, Roosevelt was he was everywhere. And then, of course, we'll talk a little bit about his travel down the Amazon. We talked about, books, River of Doubt.

00:57:08,700	You know, Rick, I read something interesting about his daughter Alice, that she was quite the, social presence in Washington for something like 60 years. Six decades. And she had a, she had some colorful things, but apparently she had a needlepoint pillow by her favorite, so on her favorite sofa that said, if you can't say somewhat something good about someone, sit by me. That's right, that's right.

00:57:34,730	And she knew she had met every president from Benjamin Harrison through Ronald Reagan. And she was the nickname was the second National Monument or second Washington Monument. And it for a long time, getting an invitation to one of her parties was a premier ticket in the Washington social scene.

00:57:59,270	And I've heard her referred to as, a female Teddy Roosevelt and she, she had his personality. She had his, charisma. She had his, his energy. And if she had been a man who knows where she might have gone in national politics, she was married to the speaker of the House for quite a while.

00:58:18,700	And she lived to the grand old age of 96, had a chance to meet Jimmy Carter as president elect. She said, I'm not interested. So she cut it off. And Ronald Reagan is the last president she did. Well, I'm going to jump back to cooking. So we are going to make gravy because Teddy loved gravy and he poured it all over his chicken and of course, potatoes.

00:58:39,870	So I took the chicken thighs out of the frying pan. I reduced some of the grease, but I do have some of the oil that I used for cooking the chicken, and there's going to be little bits of, coating still in the pan, which is great because those are little bits of flavor.

00:59:00,100	So I am going to add flour to the oil, and I'm going to mix it around. And this is making a roux. And what that is, is a thickener for our for our gravy. So we're going to mix it around.

00:59:22,270	It's going to take on a beautiful color, a beautiful tan color as it mixes in with the oil. And it will be somewhat thick. That's it looks like you have a, treasure of a cast iron pan. I do, yes, yes, I feel very strongly. And some of these were handed down to me from my mother, who was a fabulous cook. Thank you.

00:59:45,970	In fact, my mother was a home-ec teacher at one point in time. So, I learned a lot of how to cook from my mother. I was pretty fortunate. I'm adding to my roux now. Milk. And I'm going to stir it in.

01:00:06,730	I'm going to turn it down a little bit.

01:00:13,900	And this will just gradually thicken up and.

01:00:24,270	So once you get all of the milk incorporated, it will become a very thick gravy at that point you can add your salt and pepper or any other seasonings that you like included in your gravy. This I had already added the seasonings to the the flour so it's easy to incorporate it in.

01:00:49,430	Now here's something that's a little bit different that I have never done until I picked up Teddy's Gravy recipe. And that is, they added a little bit of apple cider vinegar. I have the vinegar for you. I think it's a surprising ingredient.

01:01:12,100	It's a very surprising ingredient and it gives the gravy just a little bit of a tang. Yes. To go with the buttermilk. Right. Yes. So it's- it's really an interesting combination and an interesting flavor. So our gravy is thickening.

01:01:41,530	And while I finish up the gravy I'm going to turn it over to our DAR, chapter members for another tip of etiquette from the 1800s. The cream cake and anything of similar nature would be eaten with a knife and fork, never bitten. Asparagus, which should always be served on bread so it can absorb excess moisture, may be taken from the finger and the thumb. If it is to be set before you, the whole of it may be eaten.

01:02:03,430	Pastry should be broken and eaten with a fork. Never cut with a knife. Raw oysters should be eaten with a fork. Also, fish, peas and beans as well known require the fork only. However, food that cannot be held with a fork should be eaten with a spoon.

01:02:23,900	Potatoes, if mashed should be mashed with the fork, green corn should be eaten from the cob, but it must be held with a single hand. So while we've been cooking, I have made mashed potatoes, so please feel free to use your own recipe for these are just basic mashed potatoes. But I'm going to plate up my chicken thighs and my gravy.

01:02:42,600	And while I do that, Rick, can you share with us some of the books that you would recommend on Teddy Roosevelt? Sure. They'll begin with, we talk first about Rutherford B Hayes, and this is, it's a thin book, but it's a very good book.

01:03:02,330	And it's from it's a series that I wanted to, introduce, to those of you who aren't familiar with. It's called the American Presidents Series and edited by Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr, who, a very prominent historian for many years, he he passed away a few years ago, and then it was taken over by Sean Wilentz, who was a historian at Princeton University.

01:03:26,330	But both of these books, Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford B Hayes, are from this American Presidents series. And what I really like about these books are written by scholars who have very, very serious, credentials as historians.

01:03:49,000	And they're just a really good, quick but, comprehensive reading in their own way about, all the presidents and every president is covered in this series from George Washington all the way up through George W Bush. They haven't had books come out on Obama or Biden yet, and obviously not Trump, but I know they're working on those. But it's a wonderful series called the American Presidents Series. This is considered by many people to be the best, probably a single biography of Teddy Roosevelt.

01:04:09,170	At least it was for many decades. It came out in 1961. Power and Responsibility The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt by William H. Harbaugh, a prominent, historian for many years for University of Virginia. And it came out a revised edition in the mid 70s.

01:04:28,100	And it just a really good solid read on TR in the white House, his early years in New York, his time in the Badlands, and, does a particularly good job covering the coal strike of 1902 and, his conservation efforts. Now, this is the third of a trilogy of books written by Edmund Morris.

01:04:50,000	This is Colonel Roosevelt, his post-presidential years. His other two, books, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt was the very first one, that won the Pulitzer Prize. And then his second book was Theodore Rex. And then this is the third volume of, the, trilogy of books that Edmund Morris wrote on, on, Teddy Roosevelt. Very, very good.

01:05:16,270	A trilogy, lots of reading. But again, lots of good information. This is, this is the Bible for his time in, Medora and in, North Dakota. It's called the Romance of My life. It came out in 1989 during North Dakota Centennial.

01:05:41,730	Theodore Roosevelt's speech is in Dakota, and it has every speech that he's delivered in North Dakota from the time he was in Medora all the way until his last visit in 1918, just a couple of months before his death. It's a wonderful read. Anyone interested in Teddy Roosevelt? This is an essential book. This one, the River of Doubt.

01:06:05,270	This is really a very gripping, read about after he left the white House, he went on this adventure on the Amazon River in 1913-14, with others that almost killed him. It was a very brutal journey, of 2 or 3 months, they were trying to get to this river, which had previously not been mapped. And there were 19 people in the expedition.

01:06:29,800	Three ended up dying, one drowned, one was murdered, and the murderer was disappeared into the jungle, never to be seen again. Roosevelt lost almost 60 pounds. It it got so bad that at one point he said, leave me behind. And you proceed forward to finish the mission. And his son Kermit was on the journey. Wouldn't do that. And they- they got out.

01:06:48,270	But it definitely, took a lot of, life out of Teddy Roosevelt. Only live five more years after this. But this was a phenomenal read about his travel down the Amazon. And the river. They discovered the River of Doubt in 1914 was named after Roosevelt. They renamed it called the, Roosevelt Rio.

01:07:10,870	The Roosevelt River is what it's known as today. And you can't, give recommendations on a Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt books without at least having one about his incredible daughter, Alice. And this is a wonderful read. Came out about 15 years ago by Stacy Cordery, all about Alice Roosevelt Longworth and incredible, incredible woman. Absolutely.

01:07:33,170	And then one, there's so many books about FDR. This is a really good read by Jean Edward Smith. FDR came out about 20 years ago. And it this is a does a really good job of his rise and covering his rise in New York politics, his run for the presidency, his time in the White House.

01:07:54,030	Again, a very, very good book. So again, this is just a few of the many, many books that are available, obviously, about, about these, presidents and Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Thanks, Rick. I'm going to finish plating this.

01:08:16,600	Connie, if you could please get your clove cake out of the oven and we'll get ready for Rick to do a taste test on what we've been able to prepare. In the meantime, we're going to hear from Barb Curran from our DAR chapter, who will discuss, membership information. For those curious about joining the DAR organization. Hello, my name is Barbara Curran, and I am a Daughter of the American Revolution.

01:08:39,230	The daughters of the American Revolution, or DAR, was founded by four women in 1890. Their mission was to serve others by focusing on historic preservation, education, and patriotism. In the 136 years since, more than 1 million women have joined the DAR to honor their heritage and make a difference in their community through volunteerism and service work.

01:09:02,270	Today, the DAR provides support for our military members as well as veterans, owns and maintains historic sites and properties across the country, and supports the education of students through schools and scholarships.

01:09:24,530	In addition to this, we have over 75 other committees such as flag of the United States of America, Genealogical Records, Records Preservation, Community Service, Awards, and conservation. With the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this summer, the DAR is leading the way with the America 250th Committee. We are the first heritage society to formally partner with the nationwide America 250 Commission.

01:09:47,000	The DAR is working to honor Revolutionary War patriots, engage you through contests and educational programing, and to support efforts to better tell the story of underrepresented and diverse patriots who helped to win the American War of Independence. If this sounds like an organization you'd like to be a part of, please go to www.dar.org and fill out a member interest form.

01:10:10,100	Membership is open to women aged 18 and older who can prove they are a direct descendant of someone who either fought in or supported the American Revolutionary War. If this sounds daunting, it isn't. There are people like me standing ready to help you discover your roots and honor your heritage. Connie, the cake turned out really well.

01:10:32,000	It's beautiful, and it looks like you've got the caramel sauce on top of it. The caramel sauce was a recommendation because this cake is quite dense and can feel a little dry.

01:10:50,800	So I put a little caramel sauce on top and I'm going to drizzle some more because life is better with caramel and it is simply it gets a little thick as you as it sets. So that's why I'm spooning it. But it's just a quarter cup butter and then it's a cup of brown sugar, a cup of cream, a teaspoon of vanilla. I just simmered it for five minutes and it's still loose enough, but a little bit lumpy. But Rick.

01:11:09,900	Okay. Well, and it looks fabulous. And of course, if individuals don't like caramel sauce, it's always great with whipped cream or ice cream. My husband's favorite. So okay, Rick. Do I get a chance to dig in here All right. Moment of truth here. We'll see what you think. I'll see what Teddy Roosevelt would have thought.

01:11:31,370	Let's give him a taste here. The taste test. All right. Given his hearty appetite, he probably would have eaten it no matter what. That's true. That's right. That's true, that's right.

01:11:50,270	But, Crispy. Good. Okay. But you know, that gravy got a little punch to it. It does, it does. I have to say, personally, in making the gravy, I would leave the vinegar out. But again, it's an acquired taste. And those were different times. So. Yeah. My grandma put vinegar in gravy. She loved it, but she liked vinegar. Okay.

01:12:16,100	You could definitely taste the vinegar. Yeah, yeah. In this. Yeah. Otherwise. Good. Well, don't forget to leave room for his favorite dessert. Absolutely delicious. Now, try some of this dessert. Yeah. Smothered in. Beautiful cake. Oh, yeah.

01:12:44,100	That's very good. That's very good. Kind of nice. Very nice. Very moist and, Delicious. Topping and I can see why Teddy Roosevelt love this too. So you said, did you tell me he had a sweet tooth? Oh, yes he did. It was notorious.

01:13:10,000	And one of the things that he loved to do, he put as much as seven lumps of sugar in a cup of coffee. Wow. Because he just loved his sweet taste. Yeah. And so he would he would do that. And so imagine having sweetened coffee with just. A little coffee with the. Sugar.

01:13:28,700	Yeah, that's that's a way to put a little coffee with his seven lumps of sugar. Yes. Yeah. But this is delicious. Right. Well, well, well, Rick enjoys, our cake. Thank you for joining us for the Presidents' Kitchen Cabinet and History on a Fork.

01:13:51,900	We encourage you to make this 250th birthday party your own, visit Medora And the newest presidential library, View exhibits at the North Dakota Heritage Center and local museums to learn more about our state. Line the parade route for Mandan's annual 4th of July Parade, or cozy up with a biography of your favorite president. Take your family camping and experiment with cooking over an open fire like our ancestors did.

01:14:16,200	Have fun celebrating America's special birthday this year. A Semiquincentennial comes along only once in a lifetime. Thanks for joining us.