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Sherman A1

(38,958 posts)
Mon Jun 24, 2019, 07:59 AM Jun 2019

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 sensuality—Rose 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 night”—traveling 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 Evangeline’s death in 1930, 12 years after her longtime partner’s 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 couple’s 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 Evangeline’s 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 pair’s 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 brother’s 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/

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