Photo: Library of Congress
Years after Cleveland’s gift for Frances, tragedy struck her family.
Two days after her 11th birthday, Frances’ father was killed in a carriage accident and Cleveland took over the financial affairs of Frances and her mother, Emma.
As the years unfolded, Cleveland — whom Frances came to know as kindly “Uncle Cleve” — became governor of New York and then president of the United States.
While he was still a New York politician, and with Emma’s permission, Cleveland began courting Frances, despite their 27-year age difference. He wrote her frequent letters and showered “Frank” (her nickname) with freshly cut roses during her years at Wells College in New York.
“There was a special rail that he had laid so he could take a train to go to Wells to travel to visit her,” says Annette Dunlap, author ofFrank: The Story of Frances Folsom Cleveland, America’s Youngest First Lady.
Dunlap says Cleveland’s letters show “he was romantically interested in her from the time she really started to mature.”
On June 2, 1886, Cleveland married Frances in a ceremony at the White House. He is the first and only sitting commander-in-chief to marry at the presidential mansion. He was 49. She was 21.
The union produced five children and lasted until Cleveland’s death at the age of 71 in 1908.
About Their Lifelong Relationship & Age Difference
Last week, in the wake of the confirmation that New Jersey senator andpresidential candidateCory Bookeris dating Rosario Dawson— raising the possibility of another White House wedding, should Booker be elected — CNN’s Jake Tapper brought up Cleveland’s history for his two million-plus Twitter followers.
Tapper did not mince wordson his opinion about them, describing the relationship as “very sick” and “really quite disturbing” because of their association since Frances’ birth.
But Tapper incorrectly described Cleveland as Frances’ “legal guardian,” according to Dunlap, Frances’ biographer.
The National First Ladies’ Librarynotes thatCleveland was the executor of Frances’ father’s estate after his death but “he did not become the legal guardian of his future wife Frances Folsom Cleveland as has been widely believed.”
“There are other aspects where you can say that it’s a little bit kinky because he knew her from the time that she was born,” Dunlap acknowledges.
But, she says, “The only evidence of anybody who really suggested that this was a little bit not right was [Frances’] Wells College roommate, who pretty much said that she thought Frank could do better.”
Mark Summers, a professor at the University of Kentucky and author of the Cleveland biographyRum, Romanism, & Rebellion, tells PEOPLE that Cleveland’s “dealings, as far as one can judge, were Victorian and eminently proper. We have no reason to think otherwise.”
Dunlap says that in talks she’s given about Frances, some audience members have expressed sentiments similar to Tapper’s. “He’s not the only one,” she says.
Still, Dunlap says, it was not strange in those times for younger women to marry older men. In the wake of the Civil War — which ravaged the country, killing hundreds of thousands of young men — women “had to have protectors and a source of income,” Dunlap says. “An age disparity was not so uncommon.”
Even among presidents, the age difference between Cleveland and Frances is not unusual, Summers says: John Tyler, who was president in the mid-19th century, was 30 years older than second wife Julia.
From left: President Grover Cleveland and his wife, Frances.Library of Congress
All About the Wedding
Family members of both Cleveland and Frances supported the courtship, says Dunlap.
Frances, however, was not initially so keen on Cleveland. While in high school, she was interested in marrying a seminary student. “I think her mother and probably Grover and some others talked her out of that,” says Dunlap.
The end of that romance led in part to “pretty serious depression,” Dunlap says.
While he courted Frances, Cleveland was elected to the presidency in 1884 and the pair became engaged “fairly soon after he got into the White House” in 1885, Dunlap says.
But the engagement was kept secret, only announced while Frances and her mother were returning from a European trip.
“At that point, there was a lot of speculation about who he was going to marry, that he was dating somebody,” says Dunlap. “There was a lot of hype in the papers.”
In fact, says Dunlap, “They really thought he was going to marry [Frances’] mother.”
Indeed, Emma “was not initially pleased with the engagement, believing that it was she and not her daughter to whom Cleveland might have proposed marriage,” according to the First Ladies’ Library.
Close family and friends were in attendance with members of Cleveland’s cabinet. “The groom was self-possessed and happy and the bride as charming in her look of love and confidence as the most exacting person could have hoped,”The New York Timesreported soon after.
Frances wore a corded ivory satin dress adorned with orange blossoms and buds, with a 15-foot train trailing behind — “nearly as long as the room itself,” according to theTimes.
After Cleveland placed a ring on Frances’s finger, no kisses were exchanged as the couple was pronounced man and wife.
source: people.com
