Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Marrs Simpson Whipple: 1889-1918

An OutHistory.org Presidential Election Special

The President's Sister and the Bishop's Wife

Copyright (c) 2008 by Jonathan Ned Katz. All rights reserved.

Rose and Evangeline

As playful provocation, I cannot resist titling this story in the suggestive mode of Victorian pornography. But that title misleads; it defines Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Marrs Simpson Whipple by the men in their lives. And despite Rose's sibling tie to a president and Evangeline's marriage to a bishop, this is a story of two women's romance with each other.

In Florida, during the winter of 1889-1890, Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson fell madly in love. And when the winter season ended, Evangeline urged Rose on to another rendezvous: "Oh, darling, come to me this night--my Clevy, my Viking, my Everything--Come!"

Who was this impassioned Evangeline, this ardent Rose?

Rose, at 44, was a well-off spinster (as they said), teacher, and successful public speaker who had edited a Chicago literary magazine, published a novel, and written a popular book of essays dedicated to her fellow countrywomen.

As Grover Cleveland's ultrarespectable sister, Rose had helped her brother survive the scandal of fathering a child out of wedlock and then win his first presidential term (1885-1889). Rose had stood by Grover as First Lady during his inauguration and his two initial bachelor years in the White House.

Evangeline was a wealthy widow of 30, well educated and well traveled, and fluent in several languages. The fortune of her businessman husband, Michael Simpson, had supplemented her own when he disappeared at sea.

Soon after Rose and Evangeline's fervid Florida inaugural in April 1890 on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, Rose writes to Evangeline, suggesting they meet in New York City--though she'd then be forced to stay at Grover's. She adds, hopefully, "Blut if you liked, I could spend most of the time at your hotel-- in your room.

"Ah, how I love you!" Rose exclaims. Evangeline's letters make her "heavy with emotion." Rose proclaims, "Ah, Eve, Eve . . . you are mine by every sign in Earth and Heaven--by every sign in soul and spirit and body.

"Oh, Eve, I tremble at the thought of you," Rose declares, closing, "Sweet, Sweet, I dare not think of your arms."The two do get together again, apparently in that New York hotel room.

The intimacy grows. Rose writes from her home near Utica, N.Y., "I love you, love you beyond belief--you are all the world to me."

Rose views Eve's picture, "the look of it all making me wild." During the night, says Rose, "I ... tried to feel your hand--but it is no use, Eve. I am sure of you, but I do not see your delightful face--or feel your enfolding arms - and lose all else in the shelter and happiness of that haven."

"My Eve,"says Rose, and refers to her friend's "long rapturous embraces--when her sweet life-breath and her warm enfolding arms appease my hunger and quiet my breast--and carry us both in one to the summit of joy, the end of search, the goal of love!"

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Caption on Rose picture Rose Cleveland, sister of President Grover Cleveland, was in love with another woman for many years. She helped her brother receive guests at his 1885 inauguration and served as First Lady for several years.

Caption on Evangeline picture Evangeline Marrs Simpson Whipple was a well-educated, wealthy widow of 30 when she met Rose Cleveland during a Florida trip In 1889. Their love alfair would continue over the next 28 years.