James Roosevelt Roosevelt

James Roosevelt "Rosy" Roosevelt (April 27, 1854 – May 7, 1927) was an American diplomat, heir, and the older half-brother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States. He was the son of James Roosevelt I (1828–1900) and his first wife, Rebecca Brien Howland (1831–1876), who were second cousins. When his father died in 1900, the family's estate was split between Rosy and his half-brother, Franklin.

Career Roosevelt graduated with honors from Columbia College in 1877. President Grover Cleveland, who counted Rosy's father as a friend and supporter, appointed him first secretary of the United States legation in Vienna, Austria, and as first secretary of the embassy in London, England.

Roosevelt was a trustee of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and a close friend of Cardinal Patrick Joseph Hayes. He donated more than $250,000 to St. Francis Hospital in New York and also gave substantial funds to the parish of St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, New York. Together, Roosevelt and Helen had two children: James Roosevelt "Tadd" Roosevelt Jr. (1879–1958), who married Sadie Messinger (c. 1880–1940) Helen Rebecca Roosevelt (1881–1962), who in 1904 married Theodore Douglas Robinson (1883–1934), the eldest nephew of President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

After his first wife's death in 1893, Roosevelt married Elizabeth Riley on August 7, 1914.