\n<\/p>\n
After Teddy\u2019s announcement, Flora spent several nights at Sagamore. That fall, she confided to Quentin\u2019s sister Ethel that \u201cEverything just hurts nearly all of the whole time. There is no one I can talk to who half understands. It is all so lonely.\u201d Her parents knew that she suffered. Yet in the hundreds of condolence letters to Flora from friends and family and other correspondence from this time, there are none between Flora and her parents that mention Quentin or his family. Despite this, one of the more poignant bronzes her mother made at this time is of Flora, seated quietly in an armchair, the curve of her body and downcast expression manifesting her pensive mood.<\/p>\n
Flora and Teddy took solace in each other\u2019s company. Teddy wrote to Flora that fall reminding her that \u201cfor as long as I live, I shall love you as if you were my own daughter.\u201d During that time, Flora did some work for Teddy, who she called \u201cthe Colonel,\u201d taking dictation and typing letters and other documents. In January 1919, Roosevelt died of an embolism. His death plunged Flora further into grief.<\/p>\n
After that, Flora lived for a time with Quentin\u2019s half-sister, the fiercely independent Alice Roosevelt Longworth, in Washington, DC, volunteering at the Women\u2019s Republican Committee in the office of former congressman Ruth McCormick. In the summer of 1919, Flora\u2019s parents urged her to go to France with her aunt, Dorothy Whitney, who had lost her husband Willard Straight in the influenza pandemic.<\/p>\n