A Hidden Gem in the Ozarks

Marshfield, Missouri, is a little town, about 30 miles northeast of Springfield, tucked into the Ozark plateau. Its gently rolling hills and rural nature remind me of the lower Piedmont region of North Carolina, the state I call home. But just as the Missouri hills offer a variety of geological riches, including quartz and the agriculturally important limestone, Marshfield likewise offers gifts to those who love history and enjoy the company of like-minded aficionados.

I discovered this semi-hidden treasure last week, when I responded to an invitation to accept the Ella Dickey Literacy Award at the Marshfield Cherry Blossom Festival. I will confess an initial skepticism when I received an e-mail from one Nicholas Inman, telling me that I had been chosen for such an honor. My biography of the nation's youngest first lady, Frances Folsom Cleveland, titled "Frank" (for the name she used in childhood and with family), has enjoyed, shall we say, modest sales - although my publisher has kindly characterized the numbers as "not too shabby." But even though I wasn't wholly convinced by the information I had uncovered via some Internet sleuthing, I had a sixth sense that this festival was legitimate and that it was a trip that I should make.

The easiest way to try to describe the Cherry Blossom Festival to a neophyte is to say that it brings together the descendants of the nation's presidential families, but the reality of the event actually defies description. The festival is one part history, one part book festival, one part religious revival, one part racial healing, and one part show business. It is a homo sapien version of a banana split, a concoction of seemingly unrelated flavors that, when enjoyed together, provides an overwhelmingly pleasant taste sensation greater than eating each individual ingredient alone.

Several of the events center around the uniqueness of having so many presidential descendants together in one room, ranging from a descendant of Washington's family to a cousin of Bill Clinton's. The addition of a few authors, history devotees, impassioned advocates for racial healing, actors from yesteryear's family-oriented television programming, war heroes and well-known politicians, topped with a significant dollop of committed local residents demonstrates that, at her best, American can still be a successful melting pot society.

I had the singular pleasure of sitting next to the eldest grandson of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt during dinner one evening and engaging in a stimulating conversation that ranged from the current economic conditions to the occasional enjoyment of a cigarette. Clinton's cousin had recently met people that I have known for several years through my work. Harry Truman's nephew responded enthusiastically when I mentioned why my mother had considered Truman to be a great and courageous president. I shared knowledge of the Confederacy with a descendant of Jefferson Davis, who is also related to the Rutherford B. Hayes family. Speaking of Jefferson, descendants of the Tom & Martha and Tom & Sally sides were both present, and they bear an uncanny resemblance to one another, as well as to their distant ancestor, Thomas Jefferson. And I was finally able to meet, in person, the Cleveland grandson with whom I have exchanged several delightful and fun-to-read e-mails.

Remarkable is too bland a word to describe the Cherry Blossom Committee that organizes and executes this event. People open their homes to the invited attendees, transport them to and from the airport, take guests who speak to nearby colleges and schools to their venues, and make sure that it all happens seamlessly. Everything is done with warmth, genuine hospitality, and smiles. The food, too, is excellent. (I would list the first names of everyone who helped to make our stay so fabulous, but I am afraid I will forget a name!)

This is an annual event that takes place at the end of April. I've already marked my calendar, and God willing, I will be back next year.

Writing Biography

A member of a book club that recently read "Frank: The Story of Frances Folsom Cleveland," as its monthly selection (thank you!) asked how I had managed to research and write biography. It is a good question.

Biography is, of course, the story of someone's life. Unlike fiction, in which the author must create every aspect of the novel - plot, characters, actions, motives, setting - biography offers a natural backdrop and a natural order to the organization of the material. You have a person who has been born, had a childhood, formative years, adulthood and, eventually, death. That, at least, makes the organization of the book easy - but finding material, particularly when one is researching an historic figure who was fastidious about concealing her private life, - is the heart of the challenge.

My early research was characterized by a simple timeline - key dates (birth, college years, marriage, etc.) - that was enhanced by noting the names of influential people and historical events associated with those dates. In writing about Frances, I spent untold hours in the Microfilm Division of the Davis Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, poring over the microfilms of the Grover Cleveland papers, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

A research trip to two key places in Frances' life - Wells College, her alma mater, and the Grover Cleveland Birthplace Museum, in Caldwell, New Jersey - provided access to unique archival material. Inter-library loan enabled me to access additional materials although, to this day, I regret not having found the resources that would have enabled me to spend about a week in the Library of Congress going through the papers of many of Cleveland's cabinet members.

Then there is the pure serendipity of finding interesting little tidbits - a name, a reference, a quote that pops up that makes sense because I've been looking at the larger picture. Those are the gems that are the researcher's equivalent of panning for gold and finding the sought-after nuggets.

"Frank" is the product of many rewrites. The first set of rewrites occurred to prepare the manuscript for initial review; the second rewrite was the result of an honest, and much needed, critique. The challenge, to address the observations of a demanding reviewer (who was on target with the comments), was to demonstrate in the telling of Frances' life that she was not just another Gilded Age matron who did good works because it was expected of one in her social class. The message was clear: if I thought Frances was interesting enough to research and write about, convey to readers that she is worth reading about.

If the feedback I have received from readers is any indication, I succeeded in my task.

Remembering The Ladies

(Top image: Lucinda Frailly, a/k/a Frances Cleveland, and the author of "Frank: The Story of Frances Folsom Cleveland";

Bottom image: "Frances" describes the details of her wedding gown to the audience at the National First Ladies Library event, "White House Weddings.")

The National First Ladies Library, located in Canton, Ohio, has chosen to remember the nation's first ladies - those women whose warmth, style, intelligence and subtle political maneuvering helped their husbands attain the presidency of the United States.

Last weekend, May 7-8, was my second trip to this relatively new national treasure. I was hosted for a book signing of my biography of Frances Folsom Cleveland, in conjunction with the Library's program called "White House Weddings."

The event, which showcased all of the nation's White House brides, which included presidential wives and daughters, adopted the decorations used by the Clevelands for their White House nuptials. The NFLL's attention to detail even included the ribbon-tied white gift boxes with a piece of wedding cake inside - a memento the Clevelands gave to their wedding guests.

Frances became First Lady at the same moment she said "I do" to Grover Cleveland in the Blue Room of the White House. This is where the wedding ceremony of the 49-year old portly bachelor and the 21-year old comely Miss Folsom took place. Frances had returned just five days before from her seven-month trip to Europe. She and Cleveland had initially planned a quiet and private ceremony at the farm of Frances's paternal grandfather, Colonel John Folsom, but Folsom's sudden death as Frances, her mother and cousin were aboard ship returning to America changed those plans.

The Cleveland wedding was as small and private as one could make it, considering the parties involved and the venue. Cleveland's cabinet members and their wives, a few close friends of the couple and family members made up the party of 30 attendees. The Clevelands left for their honeymoon location under cover of darkness and boarded a private rail car, but newspaper reporters found them out and followed. Even in the days before paparazzi and telephoto lenses, the media managed to intrude on what should have been an intensely private occasion. It was the beginning of a long and antagonistic relationship between the presidential couple and newspaper reporters.

The honeymoon literally didn't last long, and the couple returned to Washington within a week of the ceremony - Cleveland to resume his presidential duties; Frances to embark on an entirely new life in the public eye.

Frances Cleveland and her Alma Mater (Wells College)

What an absolute thrill it was to spend the better part of this week at Wells College, in Aurora, New York. This beautiful campus, founded by the same man who started Wells Fargo Company, Henry Wells, sits on the shores of Cayuga Lake, in New York's Finger Lakes region. While it is a small school, Wells is rich in heritage, and it also has a little-known history of graduating young people with a far and significant reach.

Frances graduated from Wells in 1885. In 1887, the school named her as its first alumna trustee. She was one of the first two women named to the trustee board; the other being Wells's "Lady Principal," (what we would today call a dean), Helen Fairchild Smith.

Frances took her trustee responsibilities seriously, and she attended the meetings regularly and served her alma mater for forty years. During that time, she worked with the administration in the rebuilding of the school's Main Hall, which burned in 1888. She solicited a contribution from the philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, to build a library on the campus, completed in 1911 and named in her honor. Frances was instrumental in handling a crisis in the school's leadership, in 1912, and she headed Wells's Million Dollar Campaign, in 1922. This campaign, which asked alumnae to give or solicit donations totaling $333 each, was successfully completed in 1924.

Education was a passion of Frances's that stayed with her throughout her life. She was one of the first of Wells's "girls" (the school went co-ed five years ago) to be notably influential in American life.

Time often dims the memory of contributions that individuals have made to the greater good of a community. To see the stately and well-maintained buildings that have been on the Wells campus for over a century, and to know that this school continues to prepare young people for successful lives, is a good reminder that one person's contribution can easily outlast that individual's lifetime. Such is the case with Frances Folsom Cleveland.

To see a photo of Wells College president, Lisa Ryerson, "Frances Folsom Cleveland," and me, alongside Frances' wedding portrait, click here: http://wellscollege.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/missed-charter-day/

Why Write About Frances Folsom Cleveland?

"Why did you pick her?" is a question I am asked nearly every time someone hears about my book, "Frank: The Story of Frances Folsom Cleveland, America's Youngest First Lady." It's a fair question. Frances is not, as one person told me, "in the upper constellation of first ladies": that stratospheric region inhabited by Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dolley Madison and Abigail Adams. The fact that Frances was considered a hostess on par with Dolley Madison has long been forgotten, and the uncanny parallels with Jackie Kennedy have never been fully drawn.

There are quite a few "firsts" associated with Frances. In addition to being the nation's youngest first lady, she was the first to marry a sitting president in the White House; the first First Lady to give birth to a baby in the White House; and the first to remarry after her husband died (Jackie Kennedy is the only other first lady to do so).

There are the forgotten "firsts": a kindergarten in the White House for preschool children; the first First Lady to graduate from college; one of the first two female trustees of her alma mater, Wells College. Frances played a behind the scenes role in finally getting copyright legislation passed to protect American authors, and following the presidential years and the family's settling in Princeton, New Jersey, Frances was instrumental in the founding of the New Jersey College for Women.

Newspaper articles, as well as her letters, reveal a woman of strong and determined character, with an egalitarian streak that endeared her to the public and to the White House staff. Her husband, Cleveland, who came across in public as gruff and taciturn, actually had a better sense of humor and was an outstanding raconteur in private. Frances, perhaps because of the demands on her to watch her children and household while Cleveland spent hours in the presidential study, in a fishing boat or on a hunting trip, was friendly enough. But she also had a stern and unyielding streak that remained with her throughout her life.

Historians refer to Frances as a "transitional" first lady. Although she continued to maintain a very traditional posture as the White House hostess, she did, in fact, understand the value of parlor politics. She played that game well enough that sometimes even her husband, who believed women should not be in politics, had to support what she was doing.