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Frances Folsom Cleveland
1864-1947
[Grover Cleveland]
Biography: I detest him so much that I don't even think his wife
is beautiful." So spoke one of President Grover Cleveland's political
foes--the only
person, it seems, to deny the loveliness of this notable First Lady,
first bride of a President to be married in the White House.
She was born in Buffalo, New York, only child of Emma C. Harmon and
Oscar Folsom-who became a law partner of Cleveland's. As a devoted
family friend Cleveland bought "Frank" her first baby carriage. As
administrator of the Folsom estate after his partner's death, though
never her legal guardian, he guided her education with sound advice.
When she entered Wells College, he asked Mrs. Folsom's permission to
correspond with her, and he kept her room bright with flowers.
Though Frank and her mother missed his inauguration in 1885, they visited
him at the White House that spring. There affection turned into
romance-despite 27 years' difference in age-and there the wedding took
place on June 2, 1886.
Cleveland's scholarly sister Rose Elizabeth Cleveland: her
bachelor brother's hostess in 15 months of his first term of office.
Rose gladly gave up the duties of hostess for her own career in education;
and with a bride as First Lady, state entertainments took on a new
interest. Mrs. Cleveland's unaffected charm won her immediate
popularity. She held two receptions a week-one on Saturday afternoons,
when women with jobs were free to come.
After the President's defeat in 1888, the Clevelands lived in New
York
City, where baby Ruth was born. With his unprecedented re-election, the
First Lady returned to the White House as if she had been gone but a
day. Through the political storms of this term she always kept her place
in public favor. People took keen interest in the birth of Esther at the
mansion in 1893, and of Marion in 1895. When the family left the
White House, Mrs. Cleveland had become one of the most popular women
ever
to serve as hostess for the nation.
She bore two sons while the Clevelands lived in Princeton,
New
Jersey, and was at her husband's side when he died at their home,
"Westland," in 1908. In 1913 she married Thomas J. Preston, Jr., a
professor of archeology, and remained a figure of note in the Princeton
community until she died. She had reached her 84th year-nearly the age
at which the venerable Mrs. Polk had welcomed her and her husband on a
Presidential visit to the South, and chatted of changes in White House
life from bygone days.
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