Book Review: ‘The Old Lion: A Novel of Theodore Roosevelt’

Book Review: ‘The Old Lion: A Novel of Theodore Roosevelt’
The bust of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (third from the left) among other presidential greats at Mount Rushmore National Monument near Keystone, S.D. Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images
Jeff Minick
Updated:

In the mid-1990s, Mrs. Irene Harrison (1890–1999) several times stayed in the bed-and-breakfast my wife and I operated in Waynesville, North Carolina. Daughter of famed tire entrepreneur Frank Seiberling, this centenarian was a gracious lady with a distinctly conservative take on politics. Once when she and her son were discussing politics in the living room, I paused on some errand to ask, “Mrs. Harrison, who was the greatest president of your lifetime?”

“Roosevelt!” she exclaimed.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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