Esther Cleveland's Birthday

Esther Cleveland, second child of Grover and Francis Cleveland, was born in September 9, 1893. She has the distinction of being the only child of a sitting president born in the White House.

Other children had been born there, of course, just not presidential children. Before Esther, there had been nine births in the White House. One grandchild each was born to Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams and Ulysses Grant, and John Tyler welcomed two grandchildren. Emily Donelson, Andrew Jackson's niece, gave birth to no fewer than four children in the executive mansion.

The only child born in the 20th-century White House was Francis B. Sayre Jr. (1915-2008), a grandson of Woodrow Wilson.

Esther Cleveland married Capt. William Sidney Bence Bosanquet of the British Army. Her daughter was the British philosopher Philippa Ruth Foot (1920-2010), who shared a name with Ruth Cleveland, Esther's older sister, who died in 1904 at age 12 of diphtheria. Esther Cleveland died in 1980.