ALS, four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 6.5, black-bordered personal mourning stationery, June 26, 1909. Letter to Mrs. Russell written at the one year anniversary of her husband’s death. In part: “I am just in the anniversary days of those which gave release to my poor husband’s tired body last year. I cannot think of them with grief for he had suffered so—the last was a setting free & a victory. My last weeks have been full of the saddest memories—in anniversary—It is so dreadful to see a strong man suffer. I know there is no help. He dreaded so a long time of helplessness & uselessness & I could only thank God when his distress was shortened—but oh how we miss him!” In fine condition.
Her husband, Grover Cleveland, the 24th president of the United States, had been in failing health in the years and suffered a heart attack prior to dying on June 24, 1908. A newspaper account published following Cleveland’s death related how his wife “was in the sick room most of the night watching the efforts of the three physicians to save her husband. It was not until midnight that it became apparent to the three physicians that their patient was a dying man. From midnight on Mr. Cleveland lingered in a semi-comatose condition, with only the brief intervals of consciousness.” And unlikely modern-day media scrutiny, the early 20th century press reported (and respected) that “Mrs. Cleveland, in screening from the public gaze the closing scenes of life which in a very real sense had belonged to the public, was deferring to the wishes of her dead husband, who intensely disliked ostentation and display.”
Understandably still in mourning, especially on the first anniversary of his death, the former First Lady understood that life must go on, hence this gracious thank-you note. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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