Cleveland Administrations - Family Life

Family Life

When 21-year-old Frances Folsom married 49-year-old Grover Cleveland on June 2, 1886, she became the youngest first lady in the history of the United States. Cleveland, who also set a record by becoming the only president ever to be married in the White House, had known his wife since she was an infant and had been good friends with her father, Oscar Folsom. Cleveland served as her guardian when her father died without having prepared a will. Cleveland held traditional views on women and the family. At one point not long before his marriage he observed, "A good wife is a woman who loves her husband and her country with no desire to run either" (Boller, p. 167).

Young though she was, Frances Cleveland proved to be a gracious and mature first lady. She arranged numerous formal dinners and receptions cheerfully. Biographer Rexford Tugwell said she "carried herself gallantly" always in good humor. "She met the...

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