Frances Clara Folsom Cleveland Preston (July 21, 1864 – October 29, 1947) was the wife of the President of the United States Grover Cleveland and the 27th first lady of the United States from 1886 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897. Becoming first lady at age 21, she remains the youngest first lady to this day. She was a younger maternal cousin of Peter Pitchlynn, former chief of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Frances Clara Folsom was born in B...
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Frances Clara Folsom Cleveland Preston (July 21, 1864 – October 29, 1947) was the wife of the President of the United States Grover Cleveland and the 27th first lady of the United States from 1886 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897. Becoming first lady at age 21, she remains the youngest first lady to this day. She was a younger maternal cousin of Peter Pitchlynn, former chief of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Frances Clara Folsom was born in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, a lawyer and descendant of the earliest settlers of Exeter, New Hampshire, and Emma Harmon.
All of Frances Cleveland's ancestors were from England and settled in what would become Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, eventually migrating to western New York. She was their only child to survive infancy (a sister, Nellie Augusta, died before her first birthday). She originally had the first name Frank (named for an uncle), but later decided to adopt the feminine variant Frances. A...
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