Basic Facts:
Birth: March 18, 1837 at Caldwell, New Jersey as Stephen Grover Cleveland
Death: June 24, 1908 at Princeton, New Jersey
Married: Frances Folsom (1864-1947) married June 2, 1886 at the White House
Children: 5: Ruth, Esther, Marion, Richard, Francis
President: Two non-consecutive terms beginning March 4, 1885 and March 4, 1893
Family
A long-time close friend of Oscar Folsom, Grover Cleveland met his future wife when she was an infant and he was twenty-seven years old. He was fond of her, buying her a baby carriage and doting on her as she grew up. When her father died in a carriage accident on July 23, 1875, without having written a will, the court appointed Cleveland administrator of his estate.
Cleveland proposed marriage to Frances in the spring of 1885 when she visited Washington D.C. with her mother. They were married on June 2, 1886 in the Blue Room of the White House. Cleveland was aged forty-nine, Frances, twenty-one. She remains the youngest wife of a sitting president.
He was the only president married in the White House.
The only president’s child born in the White House was Cleveland’s daughter Esther.
The five children born to Grover and Frances are:
- Ruth (1891–1904) She died of diphtheria at age 12. According to the Curtiss Candy Company (and now Nestle ®), the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Cleveland’s baby daughter, Ruth. Others believe the candy was named after Babe Ruth.
- Esther (1893–1980) The only president’s child born in the White House was Cleveland’s daughter Esther. She also contracted diphtheria in 1904. She married Captain William Sidney Bence Bosanquet in 1918. She was the mother of British philosopher Philippa Foot
- Marion (1895–1977), married William Francis Dell and then Col. John Harlan Amen, a lawyer and United States Army Intelligence officer, who served as Nuremberg Prison Chief Interrogator during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.
- Richard (1897–1974) He was born nearly eight months after the end of his father’s second term. He left college to join the military to serve in WW I. He resumed his studies at the end of the war and was a lawyer.
- Francis (1903–1995). was an American stage actor, director and producer.
From Wikipedia: Frances stirred up controversy within the National Security League with claims that large sections of the population were unassimilated and in a sense prevented the country from working together properly. After causing outrage among the rank and file of the organization by wanting to psychologically indoctrinate school children to be in favor of war, she resigned on December 8, 1919. She also campaigned against women’s suffrage, contending that “women weren’t yet intelligent enough to vote”. In May 1913 she was elected as vice president of the “New Jersey Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage” and served as the president for the Princeton chapter.
Frances would be the first president’s wife to remarry. On February 10, 1913, at the age of forty-eight, she married Thomas J. Preston Jr., a professor of archaeology.
Other
He was born Stephen Grover Cleveland.
While sheriff of Erie County, New York, Cleveland was also the public executioner and personally hanged two murderers.
Since Cleveland was the sole supporter of his family during the Civil War, he paid a substitute to take his place.
Cleveland is the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
He wasn’t called Big Steve, as one of his political nicknames, for nothing. At 275 pounds, he was the second-heaviest President after William Howard Taft. Fitness Magazine named him as the least-healthiest President, because of his penchant for beer drinking and cigar smoking.
Cleveland discovered a cancerous growth on the roof of his mouth in the middle of the economic crisis of 1893. So that his illness would not cause a greater panic, he and several doctors snuck aboard a pleasure boat and removed the growth. The public thought he was on a fishing trip and never knew the truth until 1917.
Cleveland was the first executive movie star. In 1895, Alexander Black came to Washington and asked Cleveland to appear in “A Capital Courtship”, his photoplay. He agreed to be filmed while signing a bill into law. “A Capital Courtship” was a big hit on the Lyceum Circuit.
Cleveland answered the White House phone, personally.
Cleveland vetoed 414 bills in his first term, more than double the 204 vetoes cast by all previous presidents. Cleveland used his veto powers 584 times during his two terms. This is the highest total of any president except tiny U.S. flag Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served three terms.
“Death and Destruction” was the name that Grover Cleveland gave to his favorite hunting rifle.
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Sources:
Internet Public Library
Cleveland Presidential Library
Westland, Home of President Cleveland
Thought Co.com
Constitution Center.org
You Tube.com – Grover Cleveland | 60-Second Presidents | PBS
You Tube.com – Grover Cleveland | Presidential Minute/Freedom Project
Greenman, Barbara. The Timeline History of U. S. Presidents and First Ladies. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California, 2009.