Dear Bess: November 1914
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the Dear Bess/ Dear Harry podcast for November 21, 2021…a service of Harry S Truman National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service. We would like to share with you today a very touching letter that Harry Truman wrote to his sweetheart, Miss Bess Wallace, in November, 1914. It’s not exactly certain when he wrote this letter…a notation on the back of the envelope says November 12, and the postmark is unclear. But it was evidently written shortly after the future president’s father, John Anderson Truman, died.
John Anderson Truman died in the family farm home in Grandview in early November, 1914. His son was at his side. His influence on Harry Truman just cannot be calculated. Harry Truman and his father were quite close, and for the last years of John’s life, they were business partners on the Farm. John was also quite well regarded in the community, and he was mourned deeply there. In his final days, John Truman told friends who visited that he regretted not being a success in life. But after his son became President of the United States, and reporters started asking him about his “failed” father, Harry Truman replied, curtly, “how could my father have been a failure? His son is President of the United States!”
Grandview Dear Bess: Here I am a day late sending you a letter but I had a most awful time with a load of hogs today.
They were shipped yesterday evening and I drove down to the yards and stayed all night in order to be there when they were unloaded this morning. I went over to the yards at half past seven thinking I was very late but the hogs did not arrive on the market until 2:30 p.m. There were 34,000 on hand and the yardmen couldn't handle them all. Mine were finally sold about fifteen minutes before the market closed, at 3:00 p.m. I just now arrived at home and I expected to get in at about 10:00 a.m. I suppose I'll carry some of the malodorous dust from those hog yards in my clothes for sixty days. I wouldn't work down there for fifteen dollars a day.
I have quite a job on my hands now trying to make things run as smoothly as they formerly did. You know, I've been in the habit of running the farm for some time, but Papa always made it go. He could make the men step lively even after he was sick a great deal better than I can or ever will. It surely makes me feel a loss that is quite irreparable, I tell you. There are things that I don't suppose I'll ever learn that were entirely natural to him. I have got to arrange to get some cattle to eat up a lot of feed I can't sell, and I'm morally certain that I'll be skinned on the deal. When Papa did those things, the other fellow was never sure that he had all his hide when the deal was over. About six weeks before he died he bought ten cows from an old tightwad here in the neighborhood that no one else can do business with for $500 and sold them for $900. If I could only make deals like that, there'd be nothing to worry about. You've no idea how much he appreciated the flowers you sent him when he was at the hospital. He wouldn't let the nurse throw them away until they were entirely gone. He was very particular to point them out to Aunt Ella and tell her where they came from. We certainly appreciated the flowers that you and your mother and Frank and George sent to the funeral. Your good letter also helped out wonderfully. I can't tell you how much good it really did me. I can't write you a good letter either for as you can probably tell I can't talk of but one subject. It is probably a very good thing that I have more work to do than I can possibly get done because I have something else to think about. I hope you will consider this worth an answer, and if Ferson gets his new car and will let me have it I hope to ride you around in it Sunday. Would like awfully to see you sooner but can't very well leave home.
Most sincerely, Harry
This touching letter from Harry Truman was likely written just days after the death and burial of his father, John Anderson Truman. In this letter Harry Truman bares his soul to Bess Wallace, many miles away in Independence.
A copy of the original letter can be seen here: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/truman-papers/correspondence-harry-s-truman-bess-wallace-1910-1919/november-1914-postmark-0?documentid=NA&pagenumber=8