Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-03-09
MRS. CLEVELAND.
Notes About the Lady of
the White House.
HOW SHE MEETS HER GUESTS.
Overwhelmed with an Avalanche
of Letters-Her Daily Occupa-
tiOns, Friends and Pets.

When the historian OF the future
writes the histories OF the "Ladies OF
the White House," he will have a
bright page for Mrs. Frances Folsom
Cleveland, the wife Of the twenty-sec-
ond President of the United States.
Other Presidents have shared the
honors OF the Executive Mansion with
wives whose personal attractiveness,
accomplishments, wit and tact have
commanded admiration, but in not
one of all the wives of the Presidents
have the whole people manifested
more interest than in the present
"Lady of the White House." Martha
Washington was universally loved, :,
and her memory is held in reveren-
tial affection. Dorothy Madison is
remembered in history as one of the
brightest women OF her time. The
wives of the two Adamses left each a
distinct impress. Some of these early
"first ladies'" had Bhown in foreign
courts. As wives, mothers, patriotic
women they had shared in the ankle
ties and vicissitudes of the revolution
ary period, and the Nation was and
is proud of them. People know less
about them now than they ought to
know. None can read of them with
out becoming more interested in their
successor. None OF them, it is safe to
say now, as it will have to be said in
years to come, more widely and gen.
orally endeared herself to the people
of the United States than has the
wife OF President Cleveland.
Mrs. Cleveland has been the "Lady
of the White House" for year and a
half. She captivated everybody who
saw her at her wedding reception,
when, with the President by her side,
she stood on the spot in the Blue
Room where they were married to re-
ceive from diplomats and officers Of
the army and navy and civil service,
and from many friends, wishes for
her future happiness. Her youth,
beauty, grace, animation and unaffect-
ed cordiality were IRE sistible. These
attractions have stood well the test Of
time. Their possession have won
steadily upon the affections of the
conntry. Every visitor to Washing
ton acknowledges it, and it is the
most grievous disappointment to any
visitor to be obliged to 60 away with
out having at least caught a glimpse
of her. For their pleasure and salts
faction there is not one who would
not be glad to exchange the chance Of
seeing all the other varied and attract
i've sights of the snowy capital.
But for Mrs. Cleveland to see and
speak with everybody who would
like to meet her, and whom she might
be glad to meet, would be as impos-
sible as it would be for the President
personally to receive and listen to the
never-ending procession to the White
House of American citizens who desire
to assert the American citizens right
to handle Ibis" President. If the
President is careful of himself, he is
still more careful OF his wife. So, ex-
cept upon strictly formal occasions,
during the few weeks between New
Years Day and Ash Wednesday, she
is only "at home" to callers on two
days in the week, and then only for
an hour at a time and by appoint
ment. In arranging the appointments
for these calls the valuable services of
Private Secretary Lamont are relied
upon to restrict callers to reasonable
number for the allotted time.
Those who are fortunate enough to
have the chance to meet Mrs. Cleve-
land at home are received by her in
the Red Parlor, the most homelike OF
the apartments on the semi public
lower floor OF the White House. She
meets her guests with a charming
welcome, unconstrained yet dignified.
She talks freely and frankly about
most subjects but politics. Touch
politics, and she laughingly diverts
the conversation to book or people,
or perhaps to the drama, for she con-
fesses to liking for the theater so
strong that she is sure she must curb
it. She has also great fondness for
the opera. If she knows how to be
sarcastic she does not show it. She
is not critical. With much Of the
tact of Dorothy Madison, she evil
IDENTIFY prefers to make friends rather
than enemies for her husband and
herself. So she seeks to win, not to
provoke. While she addresses you
you are the person in whom she is
most interested.
Mrs. Cleveland likes the White
House. She has never joined in the
chorus of detraction OF the building
that it was once regarded as proper
to raise whenever it was mentioned.
She is interested in it's history, in the
fact that Martha Washington, who
never lived in it, saw its foundations
rising while her husband was yet
President. When she refers to the
somewhat limited privacy which she
enjoys, Mrs. Cleveland recalls Mrs.
Abigail Adams written amazement,
on her arrival at the house, when it
was to be occupied for the first time,
to find upon what ga grand and su.
perb scale" it was constructed, her
reflection that it would require "about
thirty servants to keep the apartments
in proper ORDER" and her fear that to
light ''the great castle" would alone
be ga great tax"
But Mrs. Cleveland does not have
much of "the great castle"t to herself,
nor are thirty servants required to
keep it in order. She has a boudoir
and four or five other rooms on the
second floor for her own use and for
the bestowal of guests. Her boudoil
opens upon a central corridor, com
fortably furnished for and used as a
family sitting room. There are some
good paintings of American scener,
by American artists on the walls, a
portrait of the President, some bric-a'
brac, a peryading air of homelikeness,
and occasionally, in the evening, 9
little good tobacco smoke from the
Presidents after-dinner cigar. All the
bed-chambers open upon this corridor