No U.S. President has been an only child.
In the sibling department, every President has had, at minimum, one half-brother or half-sister. However, a few Presidents are sometimes considered to have been raised as only children — most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose only half-sibling (his father’s oldest son, James) was 28 years FDR’s senior. Bill Clinton’s half-brother, Roger, is about a decade younger than him. Barack Obama also has a 10-year age gap with his younger half-sister Maya, although he learned later in life that he possessed at least five more half-siblings on his father’s side. Meanwhile, Gerald Ford is the only child his mother and father produced, but he was raised with three younger half-brothers after his mother remarried, and as a teen, learned that he also had three younger half-sisters, via his father.
The no-only-children rule isn’t the only presidential birth quirk. Fifteen Presidents, including Joe Biden, are firstborns. Just seven occupants of the Oval Office have been the babies of their families, among them Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan. That means 23 Presidents have fallen somewhere in the middle of the birth order, with the likes of Grover Cleveland and Herbert Hoover being true middle children (they were born to families with nine and three offspring, respectively). John Tyler, the 10th President, fathered the most youngsters himself: 15.
Grover Cleveland is often remembered for being the sole President elected to nonconsecutive terms. Yet he was also the only U.S. President to serve as a groom while in office. His wedding to Frances Folsom fell on June 2, 1886, less than 15 months after his first inauguration. The bride, 22, was a recent Wells College graduate, and Cleveland was the 49-year-old commander in chief. Once law partners with Frances’ father, Oscar, Cleveland had known her since she was an infant. After Oscar died in an 1875 carriage accident, Cleveland oversaw the Folsom estate and Frances’ schooling. A decade later, Cleveland proposed in a letter; the pair kept their engagement secret until five days before the wedding. The ceremony occurred in the Blue Room and was attended by 28 guests. Rather than use the line vowing to “honor, love, and obey” in the bride’s vows, Frances and Cleveland replaced the last word with “keep.” During Cleveland’s time as America’s 24th President, Frances also gave birth to the lone child ever born to a sitting President in the White House: Esther Cleveland came into the world on September 9, 1893. The couple’s second child of five, Esther was born in her parents’ bedroom.
