By Claudia Loucks
Geneseo Current
Ever wonder if you may be related to an American President? Anyone having ancestors who lived in Colonial New England could be. More information is available at a 2 p.m. program on Tuesday, Nov. 18, at the Geneseo Public Library when Geneseo native, Tim Pletkovich, will be interviewing George Cleveland, grandson of President Grover Cleveland.
George Cleveland, grandson of the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, is a self-employed consultant living in rural Tamworth, N.H., and information from the Geneseo Library states, that “he bears an uncanny resemblance to his grandfather, who died in 1908.”
Cleveland has spoken about the importance of a healthy history curriculum in middle and high schools around the country. He is an advisor to the Grover Cleveland Birthplace Memorial Foundation, and his passion for fundraising knows no bounds, having appeared in a calendar wearing only a hat. (That calendar brought in $75,000 for nonprofits.) – According to information received from the library.
Pletkovich grew up in Geneseo and spent more than 35 years as a secondary school teacher in New York and Illinois and worked as a baseball scout for the Chicago Cubs. He recently returned to make Geneseo his home.
He is the author of the book “Civil War Fathers: Sons of the Civil War in World War II,” and is writing a book about presidential genealogy. Pletkovich co-wrote “Nuns, Nazis, and Notre Dame: Stores of the Great Depression, World War II and the Fighting Irish,” with Gerald A. O’Reilly.
Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, served as president from 1885-1889. The automobile and telephone were still new inventions when he occupied the White House, so the fact that he has a living grandson makes George a bit of a curiosity. Grover lost the election to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, but was elected again, serving from 1893 to 1897. He died in 1908.
It wasn’t until the 1990’s that George Cleveland decided to dig deeper into his grandfather’s background and performed historical interpretation and character impersonations of his grandfather and other historical figures.
Information from Pletkovich received by the library states: “It’s a matter of sex and math because Grover was almost 25 years older than my grandmother when they were married,” he (George Cleveland) said. “It’s ridiculous to have somebody who’s still alive whose grandfather was born in 1837. You know, my father was born in 1897. And then he met and married my mother in 1943 when she was teaching his children from his first marriage. So, we basically dropped two whole generations.”
“He (Grover) believed that you shouldn’t benefit from public service,” said Cleveland of his grandfather. “And, as a result, when he got out of office, there were a lot of companies that wanted him to come on their boards…but he turned all those offers down because a public office is a public trust.”
Cleveland and Pletkovich will be speaking at a breakfast at The Central Schoolhouse Inn in Geneseo from 8:30 to 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 18. Tickets are $60 per person and reservations are necessary. For more information, or to make a reservation, call Pletkovich at 309-253-5377.