CONIE
Corinne “Conie” Roosevelt Robinson was Theodore Roosevelt’s younger sister and beloved confidante. She was her often impulsive brother’s emotional outlet and he turned to Conie for loving reassurance. Conie was also one of Theodore Roosevelt’s biggest boosters, slipping stories of his heroics in Cuba and rambunctious family life in the White House to the media, playing the role of unofficial press secretary long before the role existed. She secretly sat in on political meetings and afterward dispensed advice to her brother. She was also an accomplished writer, poet, and, after TR’s death, became the first woman in history to address one of the two major party conventions in 1920.
“Haven’t we had fun being governor of New York?” Theodore Roosevelt asked Conie, who often dispensed advice or simply lent a sympathetic ear to her famous brother.
Eleanor Roosevelt said family members, including the future First Lady, went to Bamie for advice and went to Conie for empathy.
“Where’s your platform, Grandmother?” asked one of Conie’s grandchildren. After Theodore’s death in 1919, Conie wrote books, lectured, and told stories on the radio. The New York Times commented: “Her gestures, her mannerisms, the intonation of her sentences” stirred the memory of her late brother. Breaking with her family and crossing party lines, Conie supported Franklin D. Roosevelt for governor of New York in 1928 and his run for the presidency in 1932. “Some people have minds, others have warm hearts, but you have both,” said FDR’s mother of Conie.