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Rose Cleveland’s facility with the classics prove useful to her during the long hours she was required to stand while shaking hands with endless lines of guests at White House receptions. Finding this especially dull, she later revealed that she was conjugating Greek and Latin verbs in her mind during this process. While she largely remained disinterested in politics, she didn't hesitate to express her anti-Catholicism to the President in her warnings to him not to appoint too many "papists" to federal positions. When war broke out in Europe later that year, the new couple returned to the U.S. and in 1915 involved themselves in the patriotic, non-partisan National Security League.
Its design reflects the Colonial Revival style, which was coming into popularity at the end of the 19th century, and it was the work of local architects Benjamin R. Bushey and Guy Kirkham. When I called the Sangamon County History I was told that the new Abraham Lincoln Library contained boxes of records and photos from The Home for the Friendless. So, possibly, I might be able to get copies of some old photos of the children. As it is now, my family and I have zero information about my Dad until he married my mom. I believe my grandfather may have been placed in the home on July 7, 1874 and was placed in the custody of a Mrs. George Rohrer that same day.
Ellen Wilson
In those days you could buy Penny Bangers and Fred, Eric and Bill did. Little beggars would set them off at any time making us all hop around as the bangers jumped after us. I remember Mr and Mrs Skinner from Tennyson Avenue who were kind enough to bring a big box of fireworks and put on a display in the back yard for us.
But the day had a terrible dark secret and we returned home to find that my brother had gone. My father, who had recently returned from Singapore had been and collected him whilst I laughed in the sunshine. On that day a little light went out in my heart and my former confidence gradually faded. My mum had gone, my parents had gone, my wonderful grandparents were far away, and now my annoying, horrible, simply wonderful, constant companion and best brother was gone.
Responses to Home for the Friendless
The Home for Friendless Girls included a central intake office, known as “The Lodge” at the corner of Park Boulevard and McKinley Avenue . Its front room still contains a built-in desk from its days as an office, and beautiful architectural details are preserved throughout the house. It was built by George W. Flick, who also built several of the cottages. It was built for $5,158, furnished for $1,387, and dedicated December 6, 1902.
The guest list was limited to family, close friends, plus cabinet officers and their wives. Journalists were barred from the wedding , and participants refused interviews. After the ceremony had ended, the entire city erupted with church bells pealing, ships blowing their horns and some well-wishers ringing hand bells. I have very few memories of my early years, but I do remember the day I went to live at Park Lodge. Friday, 9 September 1955 was a hot and sunny day and Fred and I were very excited because we were going to stay in a big house with lots of other children. We had been staying in a boarding house in Valley Road with some lovely people, whilst my father waited for his papers for a posting to Singapore.
Mae Cottage
What right has anyone to steal it and leave any child with nothing but hate and fear in their hearts? I spent my childhood bewildered and afraid of my own shadow, but that was nothing to do with Mum and I can’t begin to imagine how much worse it could have been. Upon her death in 1930, Eve Simpson Whipple was buried next to Rose Cleveland as stipulated in her will.
He died when I was just a year old and all my relative who lived during that time are gone. I would love to know if he passed through the door of the Home for the Friendless. Whatever their motives, once the Home was authorized by the General Assembly, prominent Springfieldians responded with donations – of money and property, but much more. Poor Mum must have been worn out by the time Christmas Day was over. There was usually a goose or turkey to cook and all the trimmings and I can still taste her bread sauce and stuffing which were legendary. Apparently on one particular day she had been so frazzled that she had forgotten to light the oven and only realised it when a visiting dignitary had asked to see what we would be having for lunch!
The management change occurred due to consistent overcrowding and insufficient funding, as well as the emergence of foster care as the preferred solution to care for orphaned children. Numerous additions to the home attempted to meet increasing demand, and the asylum remained at the same location throughout its existence. The home received funds from both private donations and county governments, particularly Marion County. A Board of Women Managers directed the daily activities, and a male Board of Directors managed the home’s finances.
Health and Safety hadn’t been invented in the fifties, but someone had considered the threat of fire in such a large house. The building itself had two wings, each with its own staircase and a long corridor that linked the two halves. The back wing was only two stories and there was an alternative escape route from a bathroom window and over the coal shed roof, but the front wing was three storeys high. The answer came in the form of a rope and sling pulley which was fixed to the wall up in the top bedroom.
Initial Cottage, despite the name, was not the first cottage built; it was where orphans new to the system were “initially” placed until the cottage to which they were best suited could be determined. It was designed by George W. Flick, built for $4,350, and dedicated in 1902. Although the Home for the Friendless housed far more children than indigent women – to the extent, Humphrey wrote, “that peace and quiet were impossible” – one blind woman, Susan Moore, lived there from 1864 until her death in 1907. With the president adamant that “a woman should not bother her head about political parties and public questions,” Frances made no attempt to influence policy as first lady. But she was hardly a figurehead, as she supported the Washington Home for Friendless Colored Girls and joined the Wells College board of trustees. She used her position to help women in the male-dominated field of professional music, notably sponsoring a promising violinist who went on to earn a prestigious German scholarship.
On one occasion, in the midst of his 188 re-election campaign, she did make a highly heralded trip to the Capitol and preside from the visitors' gallery over a special session of Congress that the President had called to enact his proposal for a lower tariff. The Democratic National Committee, with the President's permission, also drew on her popularity for its own purposes. They inserted a pamphlet called, "Bride of the White House" into the literature it distributed to the party faithful as well as the politically undecided. Remarkably, her two grandmothers were alive at the time she became First Lady, upon marrying President Cleveland on June 2, 1886. It is not clear whether her maternal grandmother Ruth Rogers Harmon attended the Folsom-Cleveland wedding in the White House.
After returning to their respective homes, the two women exchanged what can only be described as a series of increasingly erotic letters. Frances Cleveland Preston served on the Campfire Girls Board of Directors, appointed in 1925 while also served as that organization's president until 1939. Frances Cleveland had also endowed a chair at the college to which Preston was appointed. He also became her second husband when they married on 10 February, 1913. She and her husband were feted before their wedding with a White House dinner hosted by First Lady Nellie Taft. In April of 1914 the former First Lady and her new husband moved to London to live for nearly a year.
There were quite a few ladies at that time who had lost the love of their lives during the war years, and these were two more, drawn together by their loss. After I had cleaned, they would invite me in for tea and biscuits and I listened as they told me stories from their lives. I was always welcomed by Mrs Thomlinson if I was walking the clifftop at Osgodby, and Heather Allan whose husband was a GP and they had a wonderful walled garden in their house in Snainton. I can still smell the roses and hear the bees humming in the sunshine as we took tea outside. On the day of the wedding, crowds gathered outside the mansion and could hear the strains of music played by John Philip Sousa who led the Marine Band. The entire house was festooned in flowers and the bride even wore a train trailed in orange blossoms.
The air smelt sickly sweet of hot dogs, popcorn and candyfloss and the bright lights were marvellous against the sky. I wanted to see and ask about everything but kept being dragged along by the others in their excitement. You had to watch where you walked as big cables ran across the ground from noisy generators to power the rides. We went on the dodgems, great, but it ended just as I was getting used to it and I wanted to win a goldfish but the hoopla fell far short.
Frances was visiting the new president in the White House in March 1885 when he expressed his desire to marry her. The news came as a shock to Emma Folsom, who believed that she would be the one to marry the bachelor president, but she did not stand in the way. After graduating from Wells College that year, Frances was sent with her mother on a tour of Europe to learn about aristocratic customs and protocol. She returned to the United States with the public eager to learn more about the young first lady-to-be, and was married to Cleveland on June 2, 1886, in the Blue Room of the White House. Frances Clara Folsom was born in Buffalo, New York, to Emma Harmon and Oscar Folsom. The gregarious Folsom patriarch had formed a law partnership with the quiet, meticulous Grover Cleveland, and as such the future president knew “Frank” since she was born.
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