The First Child
Grover Cleveland has the distinction of being the parent of the first child born to a sitting President. On September 9, 1893, some 117 years ago today, Esther Cleveland was born in the White House. She was the second child born to Cleveland and his wife, the former Frances Folsom. Their oldest child, Ruth, was born two years earlier, when Cleveland was out of the white house in between his first and second terms.
Esther has some health problems in her youth. She contracted measles when it spread through the White House in 1896, leading to a quarantine. Five years later, she contracted diphtheria.
In 1918 Esther married Captain William Sidney Bence Bosanquet of the Coldstream Guards of the British Army. Her husband (also born in 1893) died on 5 March 1966. Her daughter is the British philosopher Philippa Foot. Esther Cleveland died in New Hampshire on June 25, 1980 at the age of 86.
Esther has some health problems in her youth. She contracted measles when it spread through the White House in 1896, leading to a quarantine. Five years later, she contracted diphtheria.
In 1918 Esther married Captain William Sidney Bence Bosanquet of the Coldstream Guards of the British Army. Her husband (also born in 1893) died on 5 March 1966. Her daughter is the British philosopher Philippa Foot. Esther Cleveland died in New Hampshire on June 25, 1980 at the age of 86.