New Book Chronicles First Lady Rose Cleveland's Love Affair With Evangeline Simpson Whipple
In the winter of 1889, former First Lady Rose Cleveland crossed paths with a younger widow named Evangeline Simpson while vacationing in Florida. The pair soon embarked on a passionate love affair, exchanging letters dripping with sensualityRose once wrote, My Eve! Ah, how I love you! It paralyzes me. ... Oh Eve, Eve, surely you cannot realize what you are to me, while Evangeline implored my Clevy, my Viking, My
Everything to come to me this nighttraveling together to far-flung locales such as Europe and the Middle East, and even co-purchasing a property in the state where they first met. Upon Evangelines death in 1930, 12 years after her longtime partners passing in 1918, the two were buried side by side in their shared home of Bagni di Lucca, Italy.
As Gillian Brockell reports for the Washington Post, a new book titled Precious and Adored: The Love Letters of Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson Whipple, 1890-1918, offers the first in-depth overview of the couples story, drawing on correspondence held by the Minnesota Historical Society to present an intimate glimpse into their 30-year relationship.
The letters, donated to the society by a descendant of Evangelines second husband, Bishop Henry Whipple, in 1969, were initially hidden from the public on the grounds that they strongly suggest
a lesbian relationship existed between the two women. Following complaints, however, the missives returned to public view and, over the following decades, were referenced in various historical accounts of the pairs lives. Until now, Brockell notes, the writings have never before been published in their entirety.
Rose, sister of President Grover Cleveland, held the position of first lady for the first 14 months of her brothers initial term. (Cleveland, who assumed office as a bachelor, is the only United States president to serve two non-consecutive terms; he served from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897.) According to the National First Ladies Library, she was a serious intellectual, publishing several books during her time in the White House and even was known to conjugate Greek and Latin verbs in her head while attending tedious public functions.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-book-chronicles-first-lady-rose-clevelands-love-affair-evangeline-simpson-whipple-180972472/