Dear Bess: December 5, 1937
Transcript
Welcome to the Dear Bess/ Dear Harry podcast for December 5, 2022, brought to you by Harry S Truman National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service.
The letter we’d like to share with you today was written by Senator Harry S Truman on this date in 1937, and isn’t a very long one, but it’s a very sentimental one, for Senator Truman, still in his first term representing the State of Missouri, is feeling very wistful about his father.
John Anderson Truman had died twenty-three years before, in November, 1914, in the family farm home in Grandview, Missouri. A few months earlier, John Truman had an operation for a hernia, and a cancer was discovered. In the final days of his life, John Truman expressed regrets to his friends that he had not been more of a success in life, and felt regret in that he felt in that he had been a failure. About ten years after this letter was written, someone relayed this to Harry Truman, who, by 1945, had a different job. An angry Harry Truman replied, “How could my father have been a failure? His son is President of the United States!”
But, fundamentally, whether Senator or President, Harry Truman simply loved and admired his father, as did his brother John Vivian Truman and sister Mary Jane Truman. They were simply a very close family. Thank you for listening. Here’s the letter.
[Carroll Arms Hotel, Washington, D.C.] Sunday, December 5, 1937
Dear Bess:
Your special, enclosing one from Margaret, arrived on time. I was out driving around and didn't get it until noon. I am glad the play went off all right. I was sure it would. Wish I could have seen it. Today is my father's birthday. He'd be eighty-six if he'd lived. I always wished he'd lived to see me elected to this place. There'd have been no holding him. I'll go and see the furniture men just as soon as I can. But I don't want to make any purchases until you see whether you like them or not. I've always wanted to take part in the furnishing of a house. But my ideas have always run to such extravagant tastes that I'm afraid you wouldn't approve. I'd like to have rugs and carpets from Bokhara and Samarkand, pictures by Frans Hals, Holbein, and Whistler, with maybe a Chandler pastel and a Howard Chandler Christy or two with Hepplewhite dining room, mahogany beds (big enough for two), etc. ad lib. Well it can't be done - so we'll have to do what we can and I want you satisfied. What do you want for Christmas? - a feather bed or a potato peeler? Maybe you'd like a washing machine or just a plain tub and washboard.
Margaret told me you had taken her list away from her and it made her head ache to create another. What does she want?
Love to you both,
Harry
In this December, 1937, letter, Senator Harry S Truman writes to his wife how he wishes his father, the late John Anderson Truman, were alive to see him serve in the Senate. It's his father's birthday.
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/truman-papers/correspondence-harry-s-truman-bess-wallace-truman-1921-1959/december-5-1937