Dear Margaret: January 28, 1952
Transcript
Welcome to the Dear Bess/ Dear Harry podcast for January 28, 2022, from Harry S Truman National Historic Site and the National Park Service.
But today, instead of a Dear Bess or Dear Harry letter, we have an absolutely wonderful Dear Margaret letter, from this date in 1952. Mary Margaret Truman was born in February, 1924, in 219 North Delaware Street. She was very much the apple of her parents’ eyes. When she was born, she was the fourth generation living inside the house, as Elizabeth Gates, Madge Gates Wallace, Bess Wallace Truman and now Margaret were under one roof. Unfortunately grandmother Gates died a few months later, and Margaret had no memory of her.
For many years in her youth, Margaret shuttled between Washington and Independence while her father served as United States Senator for Missouri. This continued while her father was President of the United States. She had sort of an agreement with her father…she wanted to be a professional singer, he wanted her to finish college. She did, and embarked upon a singing career that took her around the globe, and signed a recording contract with RCA Records. In addition to being a singer, Margaret Truman became a radio and television performer, and was a prolific writer. Her biographies of her parents are essential reading. Margaret Truman died in early 2008, a few days before her 85th birthday. The bond between father and daughter is evident in this letter. Have a listen.
[The White House, Washington, D.C.] January 28, 1952
Dear Margie:-
It was a most happy weekend. It always is when you are with your mamma and daddy.
Your pop has been carefully watching the progress and change in his daughter - just as he watched it from five to fifteen. You've never had any advice from your dad except in your interest. When you were anxious to be a singer at fifteen your dad told you to be sure you had an education first. You took his advice. Now you are faced with a successful career. Be very careful that you remember your background and bringing up. Sometimes I'm almost in sympathy with your tough old Grandma Wallace when she weeps and storms about your "show" appearances. But you do not have to let those people pull you down. You can raise them up! I want you to succeed in whatever you undertake. To do that you must give it all you have, keep your balance and display all the Truman-Wallace mulishness where right and wrong are in the balance. Right must always prevail.
Do not let the glamour of the Rockefellers, the Watsons and the so called "stars" get you. There are decent honorable people among the "Big Rich" just as there are among the very poor. Honor knows no class. It is just as great and as necessary at one of the scale as at the other. No one can say which is the top. Jesus Christ was the son of a carpenter (the foster son) and was one himself. He was looked down upon by the "Socially Great" of his time. So was Martin Luther, John Knox, Wycliff, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.
Remember always to keep your balance no matter how great you may become in your own time. Great men and women are assayed in future generations.
Your dad may never be reckoned among the "Great" but you can be sure he did his "level best" and gave all he had to his country. There's an epitaph in "boot hill" cemetery in Tombstone, Ariz., which reads "Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damndest." What more can a person do? I hope that will be yours and your dad's epitaphs.
Love. Dad.
A Harry Truman classic, written by the President to his daughter on this date in 1952. Margaret Truman by this time had been a professional singer for several years now, and was selling out concert halls around the globe.
In this letter, Harry Truman, father, gives his daughter some sage advice. The pride that he felt for his daughter is most evident.
A digital copy of this letter can be found here: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/truman-papers/correspondence-harry-s-truman-margaret-truman-1927-196