Bess Truman

by Margaret Truman

  The installation of a Democratic president in 1913 did not improve the fortunes of Harry Truman. The country, at least the western half, promptly reeled into a slump that sent farm prices plummeting - and with them, Harry’s hopes of making a profit from his backbreaking labors. To worsen life for the Trumans, their right to the farm was menaced by a lawsuit brought by their Young relatives, who resented the way their mother, Harriet Louisa Young, had left her property to Harrison and Martha Ellen and cut the rest of the family off with $5 each.

  The brief alleged that Mamma Truman was the villain who persuaded her weak-minded mother to write this will. The accusation made Harry so mad, “I could fight a boilermaker.” Harriet Young was the best businesswoman he had ever seen and a woman of fierce integrity. “If we’d ever mentioned property to her, it would have finished us,” he told Bess. But there was nothing to do except hire a lawyer and slug it out. The legal expenses devoured what little money the farm produced during these painful years.

  In spite of his poverty, Harry was gaining ground with Miss Wallace. Early in the summer of 1913, a little more than two years after Bess had turned down his proposal, she paid another of her rare visits to Grandview. Madge Wallace revealed her displeasure - disguised, of course, as concern - by taking it into her head that some sort of accident had happened on the trip out. She tried to call the Trumans, and the operator refused to connect her. This fact convinced her that a major disaster had occurred, and she was frantic until Bess came home. Harry apologized for the awful phone service - he vowed not to pay the bill - and asked anxiously: “Do you suppose she’ll ever let you come again?”

  Bess came up with a solution to her mother’s hovering presence - longer and longer walks. Harry cheerfully accepted the opportunity to be alone with her. The expeditions undoubtedly involved picnics, and Harry passed this crucial test, without realizing it. They also took up a sport for which Harry Truman had no enthusiasm whatsoever - fishing. Bess loved it, except for one detail - baiting the hook. She would let Harry handle the worms, and then he would read or talk while she pulled carp and catfish from the Little Blue River or some lesser stream.

  On the eve of a fishing expedition in early August 1913, Harry showed how seriously he took his baiting job - while flavoring it with his wry wit.

  It looks as if it might rain this morning. I hope it does. That’s what we need . . . it’ll make the fish bite better. They say that liver is the best bait. Perhaps you wouldn’t object to baiting your hook with liver. It is necessary to bury it for three days. That might cause it to be as objectionable as worms. There’s an old man by the name of Moore living at Hickman Mills who is an expert in the fishing line and he says liver is the best bait on earth. I don’t know what effect the burying has on it but I suppose it adds to the flavor. English are said to have buried their deer meat to make it good. I’d prefer mine to stay on top of the ground.

  We can come home by way of Missouri River and buy a few fish if we don’t catch any in the Blue. I think that is the usual mode of procedure anyway. . . .

  The walks, meanwhile, stretched into marathons. In the fall of 1913, Harry was asking Bess if she had recovered from their most recent outing. “I am just now up to date,” he admitted. A few weeks later, he was warning her: “Be ready to walk Sunday.”

  So it went through the fall of 1913 until the first Sunday in November. On that day, three years and five months after they had renewed their friendship on the porch of 219 Delaware Street, Bess confided to Harry Truman news that he did not believe at first. She told him that in the two and a half years since she had rejected his proposal, her feelings for him had undergone a profound change. She had begun to think that if she married anyone, he would be the man.

  Harry was speechless. He could only sit and look at this golden-haired young woman. Once more, Bess did not know what to make of him. She found herself again wondering what there was about this odd mixture of farmer and thinker and humorist and roughneck who was tempting her to leave the sanctuary of 219 North Delaware Street to risk disappointment and perhaps worse in an uncaring world. “Harry Truman,” she cried, “you’re an enigma!”

  Back in Grandview, Harry got a letter from Bess, reiterating her change of heart. His answer explained his silence on Sunday - and announced his almost delirious happiness.

  Your letter has made a confirmed optimist out of me sure enough. I know now that everything is good and grand and this footstool is a fine place to be. I have been all up in the air, clear above earth ever since it came. I guess you thought I didn’t have much sense Sunday, but I just couldn’t say anything - only just sit and look. It doesn’t seem real that you should care for me. I have always hoped you would but some way feared very much you wouldn’t. You know, I’ve always thought that the best man in the world is hardly good enough for any woman. But when it comes to the best girl in all the universe caring for an ordinary gink like me - well, you’ll have to let me get used to it.

  Do you want to be a farmer? Or shall I do some other business? When Mamma wins her suit and we get all the lawyers and things out of the way I will then have a chance for myself. We intend to raise a four-hundred-acre wheat crop, which if it hits will put us out of the woods. If we lose, which I don’t think about, it will mean starting all over for me. . . . I sure want to have a decent place to ask you to. I’m hoping it won’t be long. I wish it was tomorrow. Let’s get engaged anyway to see how it feels. No one need know it but you and me until we get ready to tell it anyway. If you see a man you think more of in the meantime, engagements are easy enough broken. I’ve always said I’d have you or no one and that’s what I mean to do.

  Harry’s sense of disbelief at his good fortune persisted for the rest of the week and still pervaded his mind during their next date, for which he had tickets to a hit musical, The Girl from Utah. Sitting in the theater, holding Bess’ hand, he heard the show’s leading man sing a ballad by an up-and-coming new songwriter, Jerome Kern. Its title was: “They’ll Never Believe Me.” It struck him as uncanny, as he listened to the singer tell the leading lady that he could not believe someone so wonderful had fallen in love with him. The words were a perfect summary of Harry’s feelings. He would remember the song and the experience for the rest of his life.

  Then he recalled Bess’ baffled cry and began worrying if his dream had really come true. “Bess, why am I an enigma?” he asked. “I try to be just what I am and tell the truth about as much as the average person. If there’s anything you don’t understand, I’ll try and explain it or remedy it.”

  In another letter, he tried to explain why he found it hard to express his feelings to her in person: “You really didn’t know I had so much softness and sentimentality in me, did you? I’m full of it. But I’d die if I had to talk it. I can tell you on paper how much I love you and what one grand woman I think you [are], but to tell it to you I can’t. I’m always afraid I’d do it clumsily and you’d laugh. Then I’d die really. When a person’s airing his most sacred thoughts he’s very easily distressed. No one ever knew I ever had any but you. You are the one girl I’d ever want to tell them to. I could die happy doing something for you. (Just imagine a guy with spectacles and a girl mouth doing the Sir Lancelot.) Since I can’t rescue you from any monster or carry you from a burning building or save you from a sinking ship - simply because I’d be afraid of the monsters, couldn’t carry you and can’t swim - I’ll have to go to work and make money enough to pay my debts and then get you to take me for what I am: just a common everyday man whose instincts are to be ornery, who’s anxious to be right. You’ll not have any trouble getting along with me for I’m awful good-natured, and I’m sure we’d live happy ever after sure enough. I’m writing this at 1 a.m. just because I can’t help it and if you get tired of it . . . put it in the kitchen stove. . . . If you don’t like mushy letters, just tell me so. I never had any desire to write them before or to preach my own good points so strongly.”

  Bess was not entirely pleased by H
arry’s assurance that if she decided to break their engagement and marry someone else, he would understand. A little tartly, she told him that if he met another girl he liked better, he had the same freedom. Harry insisted this was out of the question. He combined this reiteration of his love with some interesting comments on his ambitions: “You were most awful nice about the other girl but don’t suppose they’ll ever be one. If a fellow can pick his idol at ten and still be loyal to it at thirty, there’s not much danger of his finding another. One or two of my aunties and good matron friends have sought to arrange things for me several times but could never understand why they never had any luck. Maybe they will before long. How does it feel being engaged to a clodhopper who has ambitions to be Governor of Montana and Chief Executive of U.S. He’ll do well if he gets to be a retired farmer. That sure was a good dream though, and I have them in the daytime . . . along the same line, it looks like an uphill business sometimes though. But I intend to keep peggin’ away and I suppose I’ll arrive at something. You’ll never be sorry if you take me for better or for worse because I’ll always try to make it better.”

  Although he poured out all this emotion, Harry still signed his letters “Most sincerely.” A reason for this odd hesitation may have been a worry that he aired at the end of one letter, a few weeks after Bess told him of her change of heart. “Do you suppose your mother’ll care for me well enough to have me in her family?” By this time, he had been visiting the Wallace and Gates families long enough to grasp Madge Gates Wallace’s formidable presence in her daughter’s life and the lives of her other children. He had also detected Madge’s polite, subtle antagonism to him and his pursuit of Bess.

  The desire to make some money in a hurry inclined Harry to cast his eyes beyond Missouri’s borders to Montana and Wyoming where a lucky few got rich mining silver and other metals. Both politics and business were more wide open there, which is why he could entertain thoughts about becoming Montana’s governor. But he soon became more realistic about Montana. “It’s such a beautiful climate up there. Only forty-seven below last winter. The wind sometimes blows sixty miles an hour straight from Alaska.”

  For a few months, it looked like the Truman luck was going to turn. Early in 1914, the lawsuit was settled in Mamma Truman’s favor, and for the first time in five years, they could feel secure about their farm. Harry promptly borrowed $600 from Mamma Truman and invested in a 1911 Stafford, an open touring car made in Kansas City. Detroit was not yet the auto capital of America. The Stafford was a spiffy car. New, it sold for over $2,000 - a huge price in 1914. There were ads for lesser cars in the Jackson Examiner for as little as $490, but Harry wanted a car that Bess Wallace would be proud to ride in.

  The Stafford made the trip to Independence a lot easier, although for the first few weeks, until Harry mastered his machine, it did not seem that way. Harry had stalls by the dozen and blowouts by the half dozen. At one point, he spent ten minutes cranking the motor and then the handle flew off the crankshaft, spraining his wrist and banging his head against the radiator. “When you have an auto,” Harry remarked, “there is nothing else to cuss about.”

  But the car was worth the early pain and suffering. It gave Harry little time for Bess. She occasionally went out with other men in Independence, no doubt among the thinning ranks of bachelors from the old Delaware Street crowd. Bess felt compelled to tell Harry about these dates. She hoped he would not be jealous because there was nothing for him to worry about. She may have told him about the exchange Mary Paxton once had with Elmer Twyman. Mary asked him why so few of them had married within the group. “Maybe we all liked each other too much,” Elmer said.

  Harry’s reply made it clear that the essential Harry Truman was emerging from his grief, intact. “You needn’t ever be afraid of my being jealous of your having a good time with some other fellow. . . . It’s my opinion that when people come to the point where they are jealous of each other (which is nothing more nor less than distrust), it is time to quit. I never intend to arrive at that stage myself - i.e., I never intend to quit.”

  While Bess and Harry were struggling to be happy in their small private world, history was rumbling in the distance. Although they never mentioned it in their letters, a horrendous war had begun in Europe in August 1914, around the time that John Truman became ill. Germans and Frenchmen and Englishmen and Russians began slaughtering each other by the tens of thousands. It is amazing to read the Jackson Examiner for this period and see how little attention Missouri paid to World War I during these early days. It is barely mentioned at all and never on the front page. For people living in the center of the immense continent of North America, it all seemed far away.

  Bess was much more interested in the travails of the Trumans - and the renewed adventures of Mary Paxton, who, after two and a half years in Mississippi, had recovered from her breakdown. On the advice of the dean of the University of Missouri journalism school, Mary took a masters in home economics at the University of Chicago. She got a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a district home-demonstration agent. Operating from Roanoke, Virginia, she supervised a large staff of county agents who taught farm wives how to run their homes more economically and how to feed their families more nutritiously. It was hard work. She traveled as much as 1,000 miles a week and seldom slept in the same bed more than one night.

  During Mary’s absence, Bess had become a good friend of Mary’s younger sister, Libby. Both Paxton girls also had a tender, touching, relationship with Madge Gates Wallace. Apparently, they never stopped yearning for the mother they had lost in 1903, and Mrs. Wallace was a substitute with whom they corresponded and to whom they often sent Christmas presents.

  Libby was as independent as - and even more headstrong than - her sister Mary. She, too, wanted a career, and when Mary offered to get her a job as a county agent in Virginia, she leaped at the opportunity. Once there, she discovered she did not like working for her older sister. A battle ensued, which Bess was asked to referee by mail. Bess sided with her fellow older sister. She told Mary that she was “afraid [Libby] thinks she can do as she pleases under you. Yet it’s a question whether anybody else would put up with her.” Libby solved the problem by falling in love and getting married.

  Other friends wrote to Bess from California, Illinois, Michigan, and New York. The letters make it clear that she still had her father’s gift for winning people’s affection. She was particularly close to her first cousins, Louise Gates Wells, her Aunt Maud’s daughter, and Helen Wallace, Aunt Myra’s daughter. Myra had married a lawyer in Kansas City named Boulware Wallace, who was not related to the Independence Wallaces. All these women were around the same age, and marriage was on all their minds. One letter, written from Lexington, Kentucky, by a bridge club member, Nelle Rugg, reported that a mutual friend had been asking when Bess and Harry were going to get married. “I told her we hadn’t set the date yet but that he had given you a sparkler for Xmas.”

  I fear that Nelle was tippling some Kentucky moonshine when she wrote that one - or teasing the nosy friend. Harry Truman did not have the money to buy a diamond. But everyone was obviously watching and waiting for the sound of wedding bells on North Delaware Street. No one was more eager to hear them than Harry Truman. But first he had to get his hands on some money. For a while, 1915 looked like a promising year. The war in Europe had created thousands of jobs in American factories, and farm prices rose with the booming economy.

  But Harry’s hopes were shadowed by the $12,500 debt that he had assumed when he became his father’s partner in J. A. Truman & Son, the company they had formed to run the farm. When his father died, he became responsible for the full amount. Even this sum could be cleared, though, if they “hit” with a bumper harvest. “Things look fine. . . . If the crops only turn out as well as they appear now, there won’t be anything to worry about,” he wrote to Bess in April 1915.

  But by July, there was plenty to worry about. This time, instead of a drought, there was
its opposite - torrential rains. Ditches and furrows filled with water, making it difficult to cut the wheat. In the moisture, another enemy, the Hessian fly, a tiny parasite that had been ruining wheat since Revolutionary days, flourished. To worsen matters, Missouri’s old rival, Kansas, had perfect weather and a stupendous wheat crop, which drove prices down everywhere. By November, a discouraged Harry Truman was again looking beyond Jackson County’s borders for a rainbow with some gold at the end of it.

  He first went to Texas, hoping to find cheaper land where he could expand his chances of making big money fast. He told Bess that he could clear $25,000 in three years and still have enough left over to own a farm worth $150 an acre if he could only persuade his Uncle Harrison to put up the money to get him started. But Uncle Harrison seemed mainly interested in having a good time with his money. For several years, Harry had been dragging him out of half the saloons in Kansas City. Bess, who knew from cruel experience how little confidence anyone can put in an alcoholic’s promises, must have begun to wonder if she would ever become Mrs. Harry Truman.

  Making her unhappiness more acute was the marriage of her brother Frank to Natalie Ott in March 1915. George Wallace was close to repeating the performance with May Southern. Nothing could make an older sister more uneasy than the marriage of younger brothers. It gave Bess the distinct feeling that she was on her way to becoming an old maid. There also was her mother, always there to solicit her companionship, to suggest, however subtly, that maybe it did not matter if Harry Truman failed. Without ever quite saying it, Madge Wallace hinted in her oblique way that it might be better for all concerned if Bess lived out her youth as her mother’s companion, endlessly solacing her grief, wordlessly commemorating the tragedy they shared.