dying man was promptly cared for, and his close friend and companion, Mr. Grover Cleveland, immediately took upon himself thought and care for the widow and child.[1] The little girl—Frances—was born in the year 1864, on the 21st of July, and her childhood had been passed in a simple, light-hearted fashion, the friends of those days learning to love her for the same simple sincerity of character that has made her since her entrance into the life of the nation so charming a mistress of the White House. Her education began in Mrs. Brecker's French kindergarten. After her father's death she became a pupil of the high school in Medina, where for a few years she and her mother resided, passing their summers at Folsomdale in the large old-fashioned country-house of her grandfather. Returning to Buffalo, the young girl entered the Central School, and quickly gained promotion in her classes. Finding that her Christian name "Frank" occasioned her being constantly entered on the lists of the boys in the school, she determined to alter it to "Frances," the final result of which is the more womanly name by which she now desires to be known. The babyish sobriquet of "Frankie" has not been used since she left the nursery, except in the public prints, and is extremely distasteful to her.
From Buffalo Miss Folsom's Central School certificates admitted her to the Sophomore class at Wells College, where she readily won many friends. As one of her school-mates has remarked, from first to last Frances Folsom "had the allegiance of the school," graduating in June, 1885, with the approbation and affection of teachers and pupils alike. Mr. Cleveland's guardianship of the young girl was well known. During the second year of her college life hampers of flowers came regularly from the conservatories of the Executive mansion in Albany, and on the day of her valedictory a superb stand of white flowers near her was the tribute of the President, sent directly from the famous plants in the White House at Washington.
The honors of the White House were at that time done by Miss Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, the sister of the President, who invited Mrs. and Miss Folsom to visit the Executive mansion in the winter of 1886. Miss Cleveland presented the charming young lady who assisted her at certain receptions as "my little school-girl," but it was a family secret, wisely kept as such in order to avoid publicity, that the President and Miss Folsom were engaged. So carefully was this guarded
- ↑ It has frequently been stated that Mr. Cleveland supported the family of his friend; but this is entirely untrue, Mrs. Folsom's means being adequate for all the requirements of her family, while her father-in-law, Colonel John Folsom, was a man of property sufficient to have assisted her in the education of her children had there been the slightest need of it.
