Frances Clara Folsom (1864-1947)

First Lady of United States, serving with her husband Grover Cleveland (1837) who was 22nd and 24th President of the U.S.

== Biography ==

=== Excerpt from Stephen Robar ===

rances was the daughter of Oscar Folsom and Emma (Cornelia Harmon) Folsom.

She was an only child but for a brief period after a sister, Nellie Augusta, was bom. Nellie, however, who was bom in 1870, eventually died in infancy.

She [Frances] was blessed with a strong family background, coming from a "long line of substantial, real people, on both her father and mother's sides."

Frank's father was one of six children whose family was relatively wealthy. Her grandfather, Colonel John B. Folsom, owned a mill and lived in a well apportioned Federal style home in Cowlesville (also known as Folsomville), New York, about thirty miles east of Buffalo.

Her mother's roots were equally impressive. Emma Harmon came from the prestigious Harmon family of Caledonia, New York, a good Baptist family and early benefactors of the University of Rochester. In fact, it was her father's time at the university that would bring Oscar and Emma together.

In 1859, and just recently graduated from the University of Rochester, Oscar was invited by Elisha Harmon to be the keynote speaker at a Fourth of July picnic at "Oak Lawn," the Harmon estate in Caledonia, near Medina in upstate NewYork ... It was at this Fourth of July event that Oscar met and fell in love withEmma. Oscar courted Emma while studying law and working as a law clerk for several prominent law firms in Buffalo, one of which Grover Cleveland worked at. Oscar, who was admitted to the bar in 1861, married Emma two years later on September 2, 1863; he was 26 and she was 23.

168 Edward Street

he couple lived in a number of boarding houses while his career was getting started, not being able to afford anything more. However, in 1864 they occupied the house at 168 Edward Street, a quiet side street off Elmwood Avenue, in Buffalo where Frank was bom. Oscar built the sturdy red brick house in 1863 in anticipation of the birth of his first child. The house stood in Allentown (an area of Buffalo), named after Lewis F. Allen, who was a wealthy businessman, farmer, and orchard developer, and who was also Grover Cleveland's uncle.

The Folsoms and Grover Cleveland

t was in Buffalo where his friendship with Stephen Grover Cleveland, then a lawyer in private practice (and soon Assistant District Attorney for Erie County) began. In fact, it was Cleveland who provided the family with Frank's first baby carriage. Several weeks after Frank's birth, Cleveland and another partner in Cleveland's law firm, Lyman K. Bass, visited the Folsoms. As the story is told, it was on this occasion that Cleveland would hold in his arms the child that would twenty-two years later become his bride,

Just a year after Frank was bom, Cleveland ran for District Attorney, but was defeated. It was at this time that Grover became a law partner with Oscar, and they began to practice together in the firm Lanning, Cleveland and Folsom. When in 1870 Cleveland was elected Sheriff of Erie County, he left the firm. His friendship with Oscar, however, survived.

== 1880 US Census ==

15 Year old Frances and her mother Emma (listed as a widow) are boarding with the elderly Carpenters in Buffalo, NY.

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== References ==

* Buffaloah Biography

* Wikipedia for husband - President Grover Cleveland

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