“Not sleeping well?” I asked.
“Please, Nora. Don’t pretend you don’t know what’s going on. Go back and tell Ed and the others I’m not going to change my mind. No way will I be a candidate for vice president.”
“But why not?”
“Well for one thing Roosevelt wants Byrnes.”
“I don’t believe that. The president’s playing some kind of a game. Byrnes would be an awful choice.”
“He’s able enough. I like Jimmy. He asked me to make his nominating speech and I said yes.”
“Ed and the others believe that you’d be the best vice president. Why are you resisting?”
Truman didn’t say anything. Just stood looking up at the fountain. The light show was over. The water was clear again.
“Well, good night,” Truman said and turned.
“Wait,” I said. “Look at those sea horses. Each represents a state that borders the lake—Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana. All of them voted solidly for Roosevelt and will again unless the convention picks a vice-presidential candidate that the unions and Negro voters hate. In other words, Byrnes. You have a duty. You—”
Truman cut me off.
“While I was home in Independence I talked the whole idea over with my wife Bess and daughter Margaret. They’re both against me running. Wouldn’t want the newspapers to go after Bess.”
I knew there’d been criticism of Truman for employing his wife. “Oh, that old stuff about her getting paid as an assistant on your Senate staff? The voters wouldn’t care. A man should be able to help his family.”
Harry Truman laughed. “I suppose that’s how you would look at it in Chicago. To be honest I did it because we needed the money. Hard to run two households on my salary. And we’ve no other assets. I’ve been living in my mother-in-law’s house from the day we got married, but we pay all the expenses. I had some business failures and…” He stopped. “Bess is the most important thing in my life. I’ve loved her since she was six years old. I couldn’t bear to see her attacked and it’s not just the job she held. Bess’s father died when she was very young and she’s never really recovered from the loss.”
“We can get some friendly reporter to do a profile on her. A devoted daughter and wife who was just trying to help her husband out and…,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” Truman said. “Her father took his own life. Ran up all kinds of debts and couldn’t face the consequences. Can you imagine what the Republican newspapers would do with that story? Strangely his name was Wallace. Bess’s mother collapsed after the suicide. Raking it all up would kill her. No, Nora, I have found my place in the Senate. But as vice president I’d be this close to the presidency.” He held up his index finger and his thumb. Just enough light to see the small distance between the two. “And we both know Roosevelt could go at any time. Bess couldn’t survive life in the White House and my daughter Margaret is only twenty-one years old. She wants to be a singer. Can you imagine how hard it would be for her to perform as the president’s daughter? The kind of reviews she’d get from the papers opposed to me?”
“Here,” I said. While he was talking, I’d taken a penny out of my purse. I handed it to him. “Toss this into the fountain. Make a wish. But you have to ask for something you really want.”
Truman hesitated. He shook his head at me. But he did take the coin and threw it into the water. He wants more, I thought. He is ambitious.
I didn’t see Ed again until Monday afternoon at his apartment. “I had to get away from that place for a while. You wouldn’t believe the horse-trading that’s going on,” Ed said as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot he’d made. “I’ve been with Bob Hannegan. You’d like him, Nora. Robert Emmet Hannegan, Jesuit-educated in St. Louis. He’s always worked hard for the Democratic Party and supported Truman. But Truman told Hannegan that there was no way he’d make a run so we’d all agreed on Byrnes. Then the president released a statement this morning saying he wants to let the convention decide, but that if he were a delegate he’d vote for Wallace. None of us are sure what that means.”
“Why doesn’t Roosevelt just say I want Wallace?”
“Because he doesn’t want Wallace. That’s one thing I’m sure about.”
“Please not Byrnes, Ed. He’s a jerk. I like Harry Truman.”
“So do I. But he’s as stubborn as a Missouri mule. Bob showed him that letter from the president saying he’d accept Truman but Harry thinks Bob wrote it himself. Told him that no means no.”
That’s when I explained to Ed how I’d come to take Truman to Buckingham Fountain.
“Hells bells, Nora, can’t you ever just mind your own business?”
“This is my business,” I said. “He wants it, Ed. I saw his face when he made that wish but he’s afraid that running for office would destroy his wife. But I think she might be tougher than he knows. Look at your Margaret. She hated the whole idea of politics. Was terrified of public speaking. But see how she’s reached out to the servicemen at the USO. She gives interviews now, no problem.”
“Chicago isn’t Washington, Nora. The press there is even more vicious and the stakes are higher,” Ed said.
“We’ve survived. And so can they. Somebody has to put steel in Bess Truman’s spine. How will she feel if another man is president while her husband is thinking, that could have been him.”
“And I suppose you want to be the someone who sets Bess Truman straight. I forbid it, Nora. I forbid it absolutely.”
“Dear God, Ed. You never have spoken to me like that before. I understand if you think talking to Bess Truman isn’t a good idea but as far as forbidding me…”
He didn’t say anything and I thought, Is that it? Am I about to fall out with Ed after all these years? But he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“Sorry, Nonie,” he said. “Boy, I really miss Pat Nash.” Pat had died in October an hour after his son had brought his newborn grandson into his hospital room. Another Patrick Nash born in the same hospital on the day Pat died. Dramatic.
“I’m supposed to set up a dinner,” Ed was saying. “Ed Flynn and a few of the others want to talk to Byrnes privately. I can’t do it here or the press would torture us. You’ll laugh at this. I’m borrowing Colonel McCormick’s apartment. The man whose paper attacks FDR and all Democrats. I figure no one would ever expect us to be there. Then tomorrow morning Truman’s agreed to go over and have breakfast with Sidney Hillman, the labor leader, in order to convince him to support Byrnes. A pretty good indication, I’d say, that Harry will not accept a vice-presidential nomination whatever you say, Nonie, which is why I don’t want you bothering poor Bess Truman.”
I’d seen Truman’s face tighten in the reflected light from the fountain. Saw him set his feet. Pull his arm back. Throw that penny. I’d heard the splash.
I didn’t see Ed again until the next day, Tuesday. I’d watched his car arrive and had gone down to the apartment. His driver, Dave O’Toole, let me in but pointed at the closed study door.
“Don’t disturb him, Nora. He’s on the phone,” he said. “The shit is hitting the fan and Mrs. Kelly is expected any minute.”
“What’s going on?” I said to Ed when he came out of the room.
“Wallace just gave a press conference. Said he has enough votes to be elected on the first ballot.”
“No.”
“We probably can stop him but I was just talking to Ed Flynn. He’s put the kibosh on Byrnes. Said we’ll lose the Negro vote in New York.”
“And in Chicago too,” I said.
“Sidney Hillman said the labor unions hate Byrnes. They see him as a strike breaker, so I guess we’re stuck with Wallace.”
“But what about Truman?” I asked.
“Bob talked to him again this morning. No dice. I have to go. Could you make sure this place looks respectable before Margaret comes home?”
“Margaret is home,” a voice said.
We turned. Here she was. Ju
st off the overnight train from Eagle River. Sitting up for fourteen hours in 90-degree heat and 90 percent humidity and not a bother on her. Cool and unwrinkled in her beige linen suit.
“I left the children with Rose and your mother, Ed,” she said. “I couldn’t bear to pull them away from the boat races. So you’ll just have to make do with only me in the box seats when the convention opens tomorrow.”
“The way things are going,” Ed said, “we both should go up to the lake right now.”
“What’s the matter?” Margaret asked.
“Nora will explain. I’ve got to go.”
As he passed Margaret he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for coming back. It helps to have you here.”
She touched Ed’s shoulder. He does love her, I thought, and she, him. I envied them that bond. Marriage. Long years together. Common, and yet precious.
He and Dave O’Toole left.
“Come on, Nora. A cup of tea and then I need a bath and a long nap,” Margaret said.
I followed her into the kitchen. Margaret filled the kettle and set it on the front burner of the mammoth stove and turned on the gas. No match needed. Very modern. She took out a tray and lifted two porcelain cups and saucers down from a shelf, along with matching sugar bowl and milk jug. I waited until she measured the tea into the pot, poured in the water, put a tea cozy over it, set it on the tray, carried the whole thing into the dining room, then sat down and poured tea into the cups.
“You take three sugars, don’t you, and a lot of milk?”
“Yes,” I said. She took hers black.
“Now,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I took a sip of the sweet milky drink. “Ed and the others want Truman for vice president but he’s refusing to run,” I said.
“Mmmm,” she said. “That’s a strange way for a politician to act.” She took a drink of tea. “It’s Bess, isn’t it,” she said.
Never underestimate Margaret.
“I remember when her father, David Wallace, killed himself. One of the papers printed all the details. He died in his bathtub. I always wondered if he’d intended to slit his wrists and lost his nerve. Instead he shot himself in the head,” she said.
“That’s terrible. And I suppose it was Bess’s mother who found him,” I said.
“I think they both did. And he was such a handsome man. Bess’s mother’s family, the Gates, had the money. They owned Queen of the Pantry Flour. The only brand my mother would use. She said it made the best biscuits. Bess had three younger brothers. She must have been about eighteen when her father died. Her mother collapsed. Moved them all to Colorado. That’s where Kansas City people go to get away from the heat in the summer. My mother heard it was Bess who convinced her mother to come back to Independence. They moved into the Gateses’ house and Bess and Harry have lived there ever since,” she said.
“Truman’s afraid the press will go to town on the suicide and Bess and her mother will break down,” I said.
“I wonder,” Margaret said.
She took a sip of her tea. “You and I know something about holding our heads up, don’t we, Nora?”
It had been years since Margaret had alluded to her life before Ed. I was the only one who knew of her two previous marriages, wiped away. Even Wilcox hadn’t been able to dig them up. She was the most respectable of matrons with a life as well ordered as her kitchen.
“And Ed thinks Truman is the best choice?” she said.
“The only good choice,” I said. She nodded.
“Well then,” she said.
* * *
“Mrs. Truman, we don’t mean to bother you,” I started. Though of course that’s what we actually intended to do. Margaret stood behind me in the hallway in front of Bess Truman’s room at the Morrison Hotel late Tuesday afternoon. Hadn’t been hard to find her. Manny Mandel was only too delighted to show off how much information he had.
“Truman’s got his wife, his daughter, and his brother, who’s called Vivian—imagine hanging a moniker like that on a kid—stashed in the Morrison Hotel. Guess he doesn’t want them soiled by politics,” Manny had told me.
The woman holding the wooden door open only a few inches did not look like someone who wanted to take on the hurly-burly of the convention. She wore a light blue dress belted where she’d once had a waist. A solid figure. She was the matron Margaret was pretending to be. I could imagine her presiding over teas at her church but not being the hostess of the president of the United States at the White House.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a very soft voice. “My daughter is out, and I’m not receiving visitors.” She started to close the door.
“Wait,” I said. “We want to welcome you to Chicago and give you this packet that Mayor Kelly has put together for the families of those attending the convention.”
I pushed the big manila envelope toward her. “Here are tickets for the Art Institute which has a wonderful collection of Impressionists, the Museum of Science and Industry, the planetarium, the aquarium. There are even passes here for Comiskey Park where the Chicago White Sox play and…” She didn’t take the envelope but instead moved back into the room and closed the door.
“Thank you but I really have to go,” she said.
Margaret moved in front of me and put both of her hands on the door. “Hello, Bess. I’m Maggie Noll from Kansas City. My mother is Lizzie Burke. She grew up in St. Joe with the Pendergasts. She used to sing at Tom’s St. Patrick’s Day parties. I bet you attended a few of those.”
Bess smiled. “Harry did take me a time or two. My mother couldn’t believe I’d actually go willingly into … But truthfully I enjoyed those evenings. Mr. Pendergast would have Harry play ‘Danny Boy’ on the piano and everyone would sing along. And after all they’d been very good to Harry, which Mother could never understand. But what are you doing here in Chicago, Maggie?”
“I am married to Ed Kelly, the mayor.” Bess stepped back but now Margaret had pushed the door open.
“I know about him,” Bess said. “He’s the one putting pressure on Harry to run for vice president. Well you can tell your husband that my husband is not interested and neither am I.”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” I said. Margaret gave me a look that was equivalent to a kick in the shins. I’d moved too fast. Bess Truman was like a frightened kitten we had to coax out from under a bed.
“Nora here is Ed’s cousin. She works with him. I don’t get much involved with the political side of his life.”
“Neither do I,” Bess said. She smiled at Margaret. Two women with much in common.
“I always tell Ed it’s better for me to keep my distance. That way when he wants to talk something over with me, I can apply common sense rather than be lost in all the maneuvering,” Margaret said.
“Yes,” Bess said. “I’ve told Harry the same thing because he does seem to value my advice.”
Proud of that, I thought. Maybe not such a mouse after all. Margaret took Bess’s arm and leaned in close. “And sometimes I see things more clearly than he does.”
I expected Bess to shake Margaret’s hand off. But she didn’t. She nodded.
“I have a room just down the hall,” Margaret said. “I wonder if you could spare us a few minutes.”
The Morrison had found space for us to use even though they were completely sold out. The suite was being held for some bigwig from California who was arriving the next day when the convention would formally start. The manager of the Morrison told Margaret we could use it for a few hours. I think he thought she was arranging some secret meeting for Ed and the boys. We led Bess Truman through the door into the living room of the suite. The manager had done us proud. On the sideboard was a platter of sandwiches. Next to that were two large urns. One marked “Tea” and the other “Coffee.” A selection of soft drinks stood next to bottles of scotch, bourbon, and gin.
There was a big silver bucket of ice and rows of shiny glasses. Margaret h
adn’t let go of Bess’s arm and guided her over to the couch while I headed for the sideboard.
“What can I get you, Mrs. Truman? Coffee? Tea? Ginger ale?” I asked.
Bess hesitated. Looked over at Margaret.
“How about a real drink, Bess. It’s after five,” Margaret said.
“Well Harry and I usually do have a cocktail at this time of day when he comes home from the office. I wonder if you could make me a Presbyterian?” she asked me.
“That’s scotch and ginger ale, right?” I asked.
She nodded.
“I’ll have the same,” Margaret said.
“Okay,” I said. “Me too.”
Such a strange name for a drink, I thought, as I poured a jigger of scotch into a highball glass, added ginger ale and ice. I took a sip. Not bad. Made the scotch taste ladylike somehow. I mixed two more drinks and put them on the coffee table in front of the couch where Margaret and Bess sat and then went back for my drink and the plate of sandwiches. Ham and roast beef. As I sat down I raised my glass.
“What should we drink to?” I said.
“Missouri,” Margaret said, putting an a at the end of the word, pronouncing it in a way I’d never heard her use before.
Bess took a sip. “Refreshing,” she said.
“We need something in this heat,” Margaret said.
The Morrison had put two large fans in the living room and the windows were open. So it was pleasant enough. All these hotels will have to get air conditioning, I thought. I knew how hot and oppressive the stadium was going to be with all those sweating delegates. Many of them smoking the cigars that seemed to be issued to the members of each delegation. I’m sure Bess Truman and Margaret Kelly would have preferred to never set foot in the place but instead spend the entire convention right here sipping Presbyterians and talking about gardens, which was what they were doing now.
“My garden is at our place in Wisconsin,” Margaret said. “It’s cold up there through May so my hydrangeas don’t bloom until the end of July. But they are gorgeous in August.”
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