Roger Di Silvestro recounted the three years Theodore Roosevelt lived and worked as a rancher in the Badlands of Dakota Territory. Following the death of Roosevelt's wife and mother on the same day, February 12, 1884, the young, New York politician, moved to a ranch he had purchased in the Badlands. The author reported that the future president's time on the ranch would shape his thinking on the American West and wildlife conservation. Roger Di Silvestro spoke at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.