CLEVELAND, 22nd & 24th, 1885-89, 93-97

Grover Cleveland was not physically attractive. He weighed 260 pounds and was bull-necked. He was the second-heaviest President after Taft.

Cleveland liked cigars and developed oral-cancer. He treated it in secrecy on a friend's yacht. The hole on the roof of his mouth left by surgery was filled with a removable rubber plug. Cleveland did more lying in the period just before his surgery and the period immediately thereafter, to keep it secret, than in the remainder of his life.

Cleveland had the reputation for being ugly-honest. Charged with seduction and bastardy, Cleveland said, "It is true. Tell the truth!"  To the surprise and dismay of mentors and opponents alike, he remained incorruptible. His stubbornness earned him the title "His Obstinacy."

He happened to be in a saloon drinking a glass of beer when a number of Democratic politicians looking for a candidate for mayor in a joking manner said, "Let us nominate Grover." In less than four years he was inaugurated President of the United States. Cleveland did few things badly.

When considering whether to run in 1892, Cleveland wrote, "I do not want the office. It involves a responsibility beyond human strength to a man who brings conscience to the discharge of his duties."

He taught for a while in a school for the blind in New York City.

When the draft came, Cleveland borrowed $300 to hire a man to go in his stead.

Cleveland was the first and only President to be married in the White House. His bride was Francis Folsom, the daughter of his law partner and closest friend. When her father was suddenly killed, thrown from a buggy, Cleveland acted as executor of the estate and looked after the widow and her eleven-year-old daughter. No one suspected that he had more than a paternal interest in Francis, who, at twenty-one, became the youngest First Lady in the history of the US.

Cleveland's final illness was discussed at a meeting: the Secretary of Commerce & Labor announced, "Cleveland is very ill, in fact he has pretty much lost his mind." The Secretary of State remarked, "when a man had been exerting great mental force and then suddenly stopped, it was sure to happen"; the Secretary of Agriculture added, "more surely kill him."

d. June 24, 1908 (Princeton, New Jersey) at 71 possibly of Alzheimer's.