Bess Truman

by Margaret Truman

  Fortunately, we did not have to flee across the street like refugees. The victorious president had inveigled Mother and me into joining him and his crew at Key West for a well-earned vacation. We would move out of the Great White Jail when we returned.

  That Key West vacation was not only well-earned, it was badly needed. Bess was as exhausted as Dad and came down with an alarming cold and sore throat that all but prostrated her during our last two days in the White House. Dad was so upset, he could not sleep and kept appearing at her door at 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. to make sure she took her medicine.

  A combination of sunshine and elation soon had the Trumans restored to what Dad liked to call “fighting trim.” We had a good time at Key West on that first visit. Everybody was in a mood to clown, do impromptu jigs, and laugh their heads off at almost anything. There is a wonderful picture of Mother in near convulsions over a wacky pre-inaugural costume parade staged by the White House staffers and correspondents.

  That gives me a chance to say something about Mother’s laugh. It was a unique sound, which spilled out of the center of her body. Hearty would be an old-fashioned way of describing it. In this book, I have inevitably spent a lot of time describing the serious side of Mother’s life. But I want to go on record here about how much she loved a joke and how often she laughed at the pomposity and pretentiousness and downright silliness that afflicts the human race.

  Mother and I slept on the presidential yacht, Williamsburg, at Key West. We let the men inhabit the modest quarters ashore and play poker and practical jokes on each other and drink whiskey to their wicked (as they liked to imagine themselves) hearts’ content. As a dividend to this first visit for the two of us, Mother and I took a cruise to Cuba aboard the Williamsburg. Mother particularly enjoyed this look at another part of South America. We saw the Morro Castle, shopped on the Prado, and had champagne with Senora Prio, Cuba’s First Lady, at the Presidential Palace. At no time during the visit did Mother use the Spanish she had studied during the first years at the White House. Fearing that a mistake would get into the newspapers, she made no attempt to let the Cubans know she had a good grasp of their language.

  On the way home from Havana, we ran into the tail end of a hurricane, which made for a rough voyage. I am immune to seasickness and so was Mother. I guess I inherited it from her. Dad, on the other hand, was never happy at sea, although he did, by sheer willpower, master airsickness. A few days later, Mother had the president out on the still choppy ocean, on the stern of a fishing boat. She tartly reminded Dad that he had extravagantly praised the fishing at Key West and had yet to take her out for a troll. She took fiendish pleasure in inflicting this on him. She knew Harry Truman hated to fish. But on this and all subsequent visits to Key West, a fishing expedition became a fixture of the vacation.

  We did not realize just how important this vacation was to Mother’s health until we got back to Washington. Early in December, we journeyed to Norfolk, Virginia, to present a massive silver service to the battleship Missouri on behalf of our native state, which had paid for it. In the midst of the ceremony, which included a twenty-one-gun salute fired practically into our eardrums, Mother developed a severe nosebleed. Doctor Graham took her behind the scenes and tried to stop it by applying pressure, but that did not work. He finally had to cauterize the veins in her nose. Back in Washington, he immediately took Mother’s blood pressure and discovered it was 190 - alarmingly high. It was grim evidence of the strain she had been under during the campaign - and the previous three and a half years in the White House. Dr. Graham put her on medication and banned salt from her diet. Meanwhile, we moved out of the White House into Blair House and took over its next-door twin, Lee House, in the bargain. Mother announced that the formal social season was canceled, and the secret of the collapsing White House was finally released to the press.

  Now the big question was what to do about the tottering mansion. Should it be ripped down to the foundations and replaced by an entirely new building? Dad consulted Mother on this decision and found she emphatically agreed with his instinct that no matter how thoroughly the old building might have to be gutted, some of it should be preserved. Mother felt that there should be continuity as well as change in this symbol of the presidency. She pushed hard to keep at least the outer walls. The engineers scraped off the white plaster and found sturdy brick underneath it. They decided the walls could be saved.

  It took several months to reach this decision. During the last month of 1948 and the first weeks of 1949, Bess was far more preoccupied with two other problems. Her mother again became seriously ill early in December. Grandmother was eighty-six at this point, and Mother was so alarmed, she summoned Fred Wallace from Denver. His presence seemed to inspire Madge Gates Wallace to rally, and by the time we went home to Independence for Christmas, she was almost well again.

  A few weeks later, Bess wrote to Mary Paxton Keeley, who was so fond of Grandmother: “We were afraid for a day or two [Mother] was not going to make it. But we got her back here [to Washington] by air and she seemed no worse for the trip. And she can have every attention here and be under my eye too. She has to be coerced into doing a lot of things.”

  The inauguration was not so easily solved. Mother had to buy an entire wardrobe for the various functions, and so did I. As usual, she insisted a Wallace family Christmas had first priority and did not get down to the business of choosing some of her dresses until we went back to Washington. To complicate matters, Agasta, her Washington couturier, seldom made evening dresses, so Mother chose Madame Pola of New York to create two of these. That required dashes to Gotham for fittings. Between these expeditions and moving into Blair House, Agasta grew somewhat frantic. On January 12, 1949, with the inauguration only eight days away, she was still shopping for the right material.

  That day, Agasta found a “lovely piece of raw silk” (she wrote) “that is very new.” She was right about the silk. It was a fascinating mixture of iridescent black and gray. From it, she made the two-piece gray-and-black outfit Mother wore to the inauguration ceremony. It had a straight skirt and a peplum jacket with which Mother wore a hat of moonstone straw cloth, trimmed with a single mauve-pink rose embedded in black tulle.

  Agasta also created a short, blue, moiré faille dinner dress, with the fullness gathered into folds at the side of the skirt and held with an enormous navy blue rose. Mother wore this dress to the dinner for Dad and Vice President Barkley. For her inaugural reception - with the White House closed, the reception was held at the National Gallery of Art - Madame Pola created a gown of pearl gray satin with silver lamé and a silver thread design in the shape of a feather. It was cut on princess lines, floor length, with a little train. The deep V-neck was outlined with cutouts of the feather motif. It has often been displayed at the Smithsonian.

  I was fond of that dress, but I adored Mother’s ball gown. It was made of black panne velvet cut on slender lines, the skirt draped to one side. It had a deep circular collar heavily encrusted with hand-drawn white Alençon lace. The collar fell gracefully over her shoulders, forming a lovely oval neckline. I have already used the word regal to describe Mother when she wore an evening dress. In that gown, the word had to be spelled with a capital “R.”

  The inauguration was a continuation of the victory celebration, as far as Mother was concerned. For the entire week, she did not give me a single order or cautionary warning, even though I practically ignored sleeping and eating. She bubbled with good humor and, as tireless as Dad, played hostess to droves of Wallace and Truman relatives and every real and imaginary VIP in Missouri. One thing that she particularly enjoyed was the tons of money the inaugural committee had to spend on the parade, the ball, the whole works. The Republican Congress, certain that Dewey was going to be elected, had voted $80,000 to guarantee a real bash. For a penny pincher like Mother, this was ecstasy indeed.

  Another thing that pleased Mother was Dad’s decision to make it the first integrated inauguration in our nation’s history.
Hotels and restaurants were informed that if they attempted to bar anyone because of the color of his skin they would find themselves in court about ten seconds later. It was the perfect answer to the insults Congressman Adam Clayton Powell had flung at Bess in 1945.

  At the same time, Mother’s realism did not permit her to ignore the serious side of the inaugural. As Dad raised his hand to take that solemn oath on the steps of the Capitol, I glanced at Mother and saw tears on her face. They were a mixture of joy and sadness. She still rejoiced in Dad’s victory, but she knew that the next four years were not going to be easy.

  As we settled into life at Blair-Lee House, Mother made the pleasant discovery that in the Turnip Day special session, Congress, again presuming the next president would be Republican, had voted to raise his salary from $50,000 to $100,000, and given him a $50,000 expense account. This eased some of the pressure on the Truman budget. No longer did Mother have to worry about that thin $4,200 margin of error before the precipice of debt.

  At the end of January, I went off to New York to resume my singing career. Grandmother Wallace, who thought I had fallen out of love with this idea, was upset. She wept and said all sorts of awful things about her granddaughter appearing on the stage. Mother did not say a word against my decision, and behind the scenes she did her best to calm her mother. In fact, as a show of support, Mother parted with Reathel Odum, who by this time had become an invaluable First Lady’s aide. Reathel came to New York with me as a companion - not a chaperone. I made it clear that I had had enough minding to last me a lifetime. In New York, I began studying under a new voice coach.

  In Washington, Bess tackled the formidable problems of being First Lady in Blair-Lee House. She decided to move some of the choicer pieces of furniture from the executive mansion to give the new quarters a White House flavor. She also had several doors cut between the two buildings, which converted them into one house, more or less.

  The real problem was entertaining the Washington social horde, which grew more numerous with every passing day. The maximum number Blair House could handle for dinner was 18, for teas, 250. This meant diplomatic dinners and receptions and all the other functions had to be done three and four times, instead of just twice. When a foreign premier or president or king visited, Bess decided they would give a state dinner at the nearby Carlton Hotel, using the White House staff and White House traditions of table decorations, and, of course, diplomatic protocol.

  On the presidential side of things, in his inaugural address Dad had startled the world with his announcement of his Point Four program to share our scientific knowledge with underdeveloped countries. To sustain this outreach and continue his policy of peace through strength among the free nations, he chose a new secretary of state, Dean Acheson. (Secretary Marshall had announced his intention to retire before the election.) Mother was delighted with this choice, and I am sure that her advice played a part in it. She felt this suave, intellectual New Englander understood Harry Truman, and she admired his grasp of foreign affairs. She also liked his charming, vivacious wife, Alice.

  Secretary Acheson performed magnificently in his first major assignment, the creation of the NATO alliance, in spite of the fulminations of Senator Taft and other isolationist Republicans. On the domestic front, Dad launched his Fair Deal program aimed at giving all the citizens of the republic, small businessmen and farmers, blacks as well as whites, a just share of our postwar prosperity.

  I won’t go so far as to say that Mother coined the term “Fair Deal,” but it was an idea she emphatically approved. No one was more anxious than she to see Harry Truman emerge from FDR’s shadow. She bristled at the idea that the Truman administration was a continuation of the New Deal.

  Dad summed up the Fair Deal’s philosophy in a letter to a prominent businessman early in 1949. “I think small business, the small farmer, the small corporation are the backbone of any free society and when there are too many people on relief and too few people at the top who control the wealth of the country then we must look out.”

  This was an opinion that Bess Wallace Truman shared. It had a personal dimension for her, because in 1947, the Waggoner-Gates Mill, a small corporation by the standards of American big business, had ceased producing Queen of the Pantry Flour, after sixty-four years. The Waggoners, who were majority stockholders, had decided to sell the business, because it was no longer profitable. Frank Wallace, who had devoted twenty years of his life to trying to keep it afloat, was “sick about it,” Grandmother Wallace told her daughter. After much wrangling with the Waggoners, the company staggered on as a local mill, producing flour for bakeries and restaurants and other large buyers. It finally shut down for good in 1953.

  In his 1948 victory, Dad had carried Democratic majorities into both houses of Congress. But he soon discovered that this did not mean smooth sailing for his legislative program. Southerners, after treacherously deserting the party in the election, were eager to call themselves Democrats and use their seniority to grab key committee chairmanships. They promptly went into business as obstructionists and political saboteurs in alliance with Truman-hating Republicans such as Robert Taft.

  Nevertheless, 1949 was the happiest, most peaceful year of the Truman presidency. The 48 victory gave Mother and Dad a feeling that they could finally catch their breaths and take the time to enjoy themselves a little. For Mother, this took the form of inviting more personal friends to Blair House for lunch or dinner, or if they were from out of town, for a weekend visit. I may be flattering myself, but I think she was lonely without me.

  One day Mother sat down with Edith Helm and announced in a solemn voice that she wanted to arrange a luncheon in honor of a member of the White House staff. Under no circumstances was any mention of it to be made to the press. Mrs. Helm dutifully got out her appointment book and asked who the guest of honor was going to be. She presumed it was Charlie Ross or someone of his lofty rank in the circle around the president.

  Mother’s eyes twinkled. “You.”

  After thirty years of sending out invitations for other people, Mrs. Helm was thrilled by this idea. She and Mother worked out the guest list together, inviting mutual friends such as Perle Mesta; Mrs. James Thomson; the daughter of Missouri’s 1912 presidential candidate, Speaker of the House Champ Clark; and Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman, aunt of the Duchess of Windsor. Mother discovered from a conference with the Blair House housekeeper that Mrs. Helm particularly liked an exquisite set of blue-and-gold Lowestoft china, and this was used for the table. The White House florist made a lovely blue-and-gold centerpiece to match the china.

  The luncheon was a triumph of hospitality - and privacy. The reporters never heard a word about it. That was the best part of it, as far as Mother was concerned.

  Another of 1949’s highlights, for Mother, was a visit by Winston Churchill and his wife. Mother gave an official dinner for them in the dining room of Lee House. I did not have to be lured to Washington for this fete. I came like a speeding bullet. It was a cheerful evening. The great Englishman showered compliments on President Truman for the Marshall Plan and the NATO alliance. Mother glowed. Although she was chary of her praise, she loved to hear other people say nice things about Dad. It was especially nice to hear them from a man of Winston Churchill’s stature.

  At that dinner, Mother tried to add a touch of 219 North Delaware by directing the housekeeper to serve one of Vietta Garr’s best dishes, stuffed cucumbers, with the fish course. The cook apparently decided he did not have to consult with Vietta on the recipe, and the result was an inedible disaster. I will never forget the expression on Mother’s face when she tried to cut one of those things. They were still raw. That cook was soon on his way to some greasy spoon, where he belonged.

  No one said a word about this culinary misfortune, of course, and afterward, Mr. Churchill gave Mother a beautifully bound copy of his little book on painting. She asked him to inscribe it. He sat there for about fifteen minutes, brooding over that task, and finally just wrot
e: “For Mrs. Harry S. Truman from Winston S. Churchill.” I remember being disappointed when I nosily peered over Mother’s shoulder and read this inscription. I had been expecting him to come up with some brilliant bit of Churchillian rhetoric. He may have pondered such an alternative and decided this simple statement was a better match to Mother’s personality. I now think he was right.

  While I was struggling to find my way in show business, the First Lady gave her blessing to a pioneering theatrical experiment - shipping an American production of Shakespeare abroad for the entertainment of supposedly snobbish Europeans. The man who managed this feat with a lot of support and encouragement from Mother was a former Independence English teacher, Blevins Davis, who had gone to New York in the 1930s and became a successful Broadway producer.

  In 1946, Blevins married the widow of railroad baron James Norman Hill. When she died in 1948, he inherited $9 million. In 1949, Denmark invited the United States to send a company to perform Hamlet in Elsinore Castle, where the story began, and Blevins put his money and theatrical experience at the disposal of the United States. Mother smoothed his path to State Department approval and the production, starring Clarence Derwent, Walter Abel, and an unknown actor named Ernest Borgnine, was a tremendous hit.

  This was the beginning of a whole series of theatrical companies that Blevins took abroad in the next few years. The climax of these artistic expeditions was his production of Porgy and Bess, which toured Europe from London to Moscow to almost continuous applause. Blevins’ pioneering, which put a severe dent in his fortune, eventually led to the creation in the mid-fifties of a State Department division that routinely sends artistic companies abroad. Few people know that Bess Wallace Truman was the godmother of this good idea.

  Another of Mother’s invisible contributions to the country was less spectacular but far more important. When Harry Truman became president, the budget for the National Institutes of Health was about $2 million. This was hardly surprising. The days of all-out war on cancer and other killer diseases were still in the distant future. Most of America’s money was being invested in the shooting war to defend the country and the world against the fascist threat.