family trait.

In campaign literature, so much has been made of the humble
circumstances in which Grover made his start in life that the
unwary reader might easily imagine that the future President was
almost a waif. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He really
belonged to the most authentic aristocracy that any state of
society can produce--that which maintains its standards and
principles from generation to generation by the integrity of the
stock without any endowment of wealth. The Clevelands were people
who reared large families and sustained themselves with dignity
and credit on narrow means. It was a settled tradition with such
republican aristocrats that a son destined for a learned
profession--usually the ministry--should be sent to college, and
for that purpose heroic economies were practiced in the family.
The opportunities which wealth can confer are really trivial in
comparison with the advantage of being born and reared in such
bracing conditions as those which surrounded Grover Cleveland. As
a boy he was a clerk in a country store, but his education was
not neglected and at the age of fifteen he was studying, with a
view to entering college. His father's death ended that prospect
and forced him to go to work again to help support the family.
Some two years later, when the family circumstances were
sufficiently eased so that he could strike out for himself, he
set off westward, intending to reach Cleveland. Arriving at
Buffalo, he called upon a married aunt, who, on learning that he
was planning to get work at Cleveland with the idea of becoming a
lawyer, advised him to stay in Buffalo where opportunities were
better. Young Cleveland was taken into her home virtually as
private secretary to her husband, Lewis F. Allen, a man of means,