White House Valentines
Combining President’s Day and Valentine’s Day, an essay on presidential marriages
GUESTWORK | Tom Emery
For more than 200 years, the White House has been a center of American politics. In some administrations, it is also a haven of romance.
All but one president was a married man, and in three instances the chief executive was a groom during his term. The most famous example was Grover Cleveland, who married Frances Folsom in the Blue Room of the White House on June 2, 1886.
The only president to serve nonconsecutive terms, Cleveland’s wedding during his first administration captured the imagination of the nation. Today, however, some may find the union a bit distasteful. Cleveland, then 49 and a lifelong bachelor, was 28 years older than his wife, the daughter of a close friend. The future president actually had bought baby gifts for Frances during her infancy, and she became his ward upon her father’s death in 1875.
Sometime during her college years, the pair became romantically involved, and Cleveland proposed by letter in August 1885. However, the couple did not announce their plans until five days before the wedding, which was attended by family, friends and cabinet members.
The ceremony marked the only time a president has been married in the White House, and Frances became the darling of both the American public and press. “It was a huge deal,” said Dr. William Bushong, historian of the White House Historical Association in Washington. “The president was a bachelor who married a beautiful young woman, and it created a sensation.”
Twice presidents lost spouses during their term, only to remarry before they left office. One was John Tyler, whose first wife, Letitia, was an invalid who left her upstairs quarters of the White House only once. She died on Sept. 10, 1842, 17 months into her husband’s term.
Tyler then married Julia Gardner, a New York woman 30 years his junior, in a Long Island ceremony on June 26, 1844. Because of his wife’s young age, Tyler was able to continue his large family, and 14 of his children lived to adulthood. He fathered his last child at age 70.
Some of Tyler’s sons also fathered children at a late age and, incredibly, some
