Happy 186th, Grover!
In honor of Big Steve’s Big Day, I had some fantastic ideas for a cool video. Then I vetoed them all (you know, to stay in character) and so this is all I have.
He was a workhorse.
As governor of New York, he’d wake up at 7 a.m., work his butt off, then at midnight say “Well, I guess we’ll quit and call it a half day.”
His work ethic was even more pronounced following President Chester Arthur. Arthur worked from 10 a.m to 5 p.m., which honestly seems like a pretty sweet deal. Cleveland worked grueling hours — 8 a.m. to 2 a.m.
In death, keeps company with killers.
His tumor is on display with a bit of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin (John Wilkes Booth’s thorax) and some of President James Garfield’s assassin (Charles Guiteau’s brain).
The rest of Cleveland is buried in the same cemetery as Aarons Burr (both the vice president, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel… and his dad).
I should also mention that Cleveland himself killed a coupla guys when sheriff of Buffalo. He executed them.
He didn’t believe in three terms.
Because of that, Frances didn’t vote for FDR in 1940. She voted for him in 1944 though. Grover never said anything about four terms.
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More on Grover
Being in office was hard on his waistline.
As Troy Senik points out in A Man of Iron, Cleveland’s weight gain was “in presidential terms, the equivalent of swallowing James Madison whole.”
Nosy newspapers wondered about his weight on Frances, ifyouknowwhatImean. They must have figured it out, as evidenced by their six kids and her outliving him by nearly four decades, so she obviously wasn’t crushed to death.
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The New York Governor’s Mansion was the first actual house he lived in as a grown-up. But he almost didn’t live there.
He wanted to live in a hotel instead, but his friends talked him out of it.
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Cleveland’s secretary Daniel S. Lamont likened Cleveland to “A great mastiff solemnly regarding a small terrier, snapping and barking at him.”
Theodore Roosevelt as an annoying yipping dog is just about the most amazing thing ever.
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Grover and Frances had the second biggest age gap.
John and Julia Tyler came in first place, with a three-decade difference. Donald and Melania Trump are separated by 24 years. And the most shocking to me — James and Dolley Madison were 17 years apart. I always assumed they were roughly the same age.
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He almost ended up on the $20.
Instead, we got Andrew Jackson.
You can’t go wrong with Grover
Grover is currently tied for second place in the category of Presidents I’ve Read the Most About. I enjoyed all three books I read about Cleveland — and all made me laugh out loud.
The Brodsky biography said that if James Garfield hadn’t been assassinated, he most likely woulda been “little more than a well-intentioned master of indecision.” Hmph. Agree to disagree. (I myself am a “well-intentioned master of indecision”.)
These doodles were inspired by the following books, which coincidentally includes the three longest titles in my bibliography:
Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character, by Alyn Brodsky
A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland, by Troy Senik
The President Is Dead! The Extraordinary Stories of the Presidential Deaths, Final Days, Burials, and Beyond, by Louis L. Picone
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris
Need more?
If this wasn’t enough Grover for you, or if you want to zip through my most recent doodles while getting a Grover Cleveland song stuck in your head, watch this quick reel. If you want to see the same stuff while listening to the pages flip for some reason, here you go. For a regular dose of Cleveland, follow Grover Cleveland Art Society.
