Article

Christine (Meyer) and David F. Wallace, Jr., Oral History Interviews

Christine and David Wallace: August 25, 1991 Photo Identification Session #1

Harry S Truman National Historic Site Oral History #1991-26 DAV-AR 4384, 4385

Credit / Author:

NPS/ Eastern National

Date created:

11/03/2022

Audio Transcript

Corresponds to the transcription below.

Christine and David Wallace: August 25, 1991 Photo Identification Session #2

Harry S Truman National Historic Site Oral History #1991-26 DAV-AR 4384, 4385

Credit / Author:

NPS/ Eastern National

Date created:

11/03/2022

Audio Transcript

Corresponds with the transcriptions below.

Christine and David F. Wallace, Jr. — Christine (Meyer) and David F. Wallace, Jr.
NPS

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE AND DAVID F. WALLACE, JR. PART I: PHOTO IDENTIFICATION SESSION

AUGUST 25, 1991
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

INTERVIEWED BY JIM WILLIAMS
ORAL HISTORY #1991-26
This transcript corresponds to audiotapes DAV-AR #4384-4387

HARRY S TRUMAN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

EDITORIAL NOTICE

This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for Harry S Truman National Historic Site. After a draft of this transcript was made, the park provided a copy of the interviewee and requested that he or she return the transcript with any corrections or modifications that he or she wished to be included in the final transcript. The interviewer, or in some cases another qualified staff member, also reviewed the draft and compared it to the tape recordings. The corrections and other changes suggested by the interviewee and interviewer have been incorporated into this final transcript. The transcript follows as closely as possible the recorded interview, including the usual starts, stops, and other rough spots in typical conversation. The reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written, word. Stylistic matters, such as punctuation and capitalization, follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition. The transcript includes bracketed notices at the end of one tape and the beginning of the next so that, if desired, the reader can find a section of tape more easily by using this transcript.
Christine Wallace, David F. Wallace, and Jim Williams reviewed the draft of this transcript. Their corrections were incorporated into this final transcript by Perky Beisel in summer 2000. A grant from Eastern National Park and Monument Association funded the transcription and final editing of this interview.

RESTRICTION

Researchers may read, quote from, cite, and photocopy this transcript without permission for purposes of research only. Publication is prohibited, however, without permission from the Superintendent, Harry S Truman National Historic Site.

ABSTRACT

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE AND DAVID F. WALLACE, Jr.

PART I – PHOTO IDENTIFICATION SESSION
HSTR INTERVIEW #1991-26

JIM WILLIAMS: This is an oral history interview with Christine Wallace. It’s August 25,
1991. Also, David Wallace. We’re in Independence, Missouri, and
we’re looking at historic photographs of the family.
CHRISTINE WALLACE: This is probably Oscar Wells.
DAVID WALLACE: What are you whispering for?
C. WALLACE: Because I’m not sure of that.
WILLIAMS: Can we go back to the beginning? Do you recognize these people at all
[82-265 and 82-266]?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t.
WILLIAMS: Okay.
C. WALLACE: But this person looks a lot like . . . Where is that other one?
WILLIAMS: This one?
C. WALLACE: The one by itself. No, that one. Not that one.
D. WALLACE: The one below there.
C. WALLACE: This one. Look, this one looks like that, and to me . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, this is Wells, isn’t it?
C. WALLACE: I think that’s Oscar Wells.
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s what it says.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
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WILLIAMS: This photograph, 82-316, now, it’s Fred and Madge.
C. WALLACE: And I don’t know who that is, nor do I know who that is.
WILLIAMS: Do you know about what time that would have been?
C. WALLACE: This is Margaret [in 82-317-1&2]. Now, this is in the back yard at 219,
and that is May’s house down here.
D. WALLACE: What was the year, roughly?
C. WALLACE: Well, that has to be . . . Let me see, Fred and I were married in 1933, so
it’s got to be before that.
D. WALLACE: Well, she looks a lot older though, Mother. Look how old she looks.
C. WALLACE: Who? Grandmother Wallace?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: How old was he when you were married?
C. WALLACE: He was born in 1900, so he was thirty-three years old.
WILLIAMS: Well, that’s easy to remember.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And the other ones are of Margaret on that page, obviously in the back
yard.
C. WALLACE: Yes, they’re in the back yard of 219 North Delaware.
WILLIAMS: That one is 82-248. They say those are the Wallace boys. Do they look
like George, Frank, and Fred to you? I realize you didn’t know them
back then.
C. WALLACE: I can’t tell. Do we have a magnifying . . . Where is that magnifying
glass we had?
D. WALLACE: We didn’t have one.
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WILLIAMS: I didn’t think of that.
C. WALLACE: That looks like Frank Wallace up there.
WILLIAMS: The one on the left?
C. WALLACE: Yes. But there were only Frank and George and Fred, and there are four
boys there. No, I don’t know. I wouldn’t say for sure. What did they
say?
WILLIAMS: It says, “They appear to be the Wallace brothers.”
C. WALLACE: [reading from the Truman Library identification card] “Three young
boys on the steps of a house. They appear to be the Wallace brothers,
George, Fred, and Frank.” “Portrait of a boy one year old.”
WILLIAMS: That’s another photograph.
C. WALLACE: But then I count four people there. There’s one, two, three, four. Don’t
you? The youngest one would be Fred.
D. WALLACE: Yes, there’s somebody sitting in front.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: One, two, three, four.
C. WALLACE: But there were only supposed to be three boys.
WILLIAMS: Now, do you recognize your husband?
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s definitely Frank on the left. That’s when he had hair. We just
don’t know who this is in back. That’s Fred and that’s George, but I
don’t know who this is.
C. WALLACE: Fred would be the little one.
WILLIAMS: So you think it’s Frank and George?
D. WALLACE: I’m sure that’s Frank there, because that’s what his hair looked like in
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other pictures I have seen.
WILLIAMS: On the left?
D. WALLACE: On the left.
WILLIAMS: And the one in the middle you think is George?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. It’s too chubby looking for George.
C. WALLACE: Yes, that would have to be George, but the smallest one, it would be
Fred. But who is that one up on the right at the top?
WILLIAMS: Did your husband go to the University of Missouri?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: This is 82-268.
C. WALLACE: That looks like Fred up there. He had sort of that . . .
WILLIAMS: Up at the very top left.
C. WALLACE: Wouldn’t you say?
WILLIAMS: You don’t know any of the other people?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Do you agree?
C. WALLACE: They could be his friends from school that came up. That’s the only
thing I could say.
WILLIAMS: And the next one is 82-269.
D. WALLACE: No, it’s taken in Columbia.
C. WALLACE: Yes, those might be his fraternity brothers. He belonged to the SAE
fraternity.
D. WALLACE: That’s what it is.
WILLIAMS: When did he graduate?
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C. WALLACE: He didn’t. He quit.
WILLIAMS: When did he quit?
C. WALLACE: He had about two years.
WILLIAMS: So he was . . . roughly 1920?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Was that before you knew him?
C. WALLACE: Yes. [82-269] That’s another at Columbia. I’m sure that was the
fraternity one.
D. WALLACE: It’s Columbia, yes.
WILLIAMS: Were you ever at Myra Wallace’s house down in Kansas City?
C. WALLACE: Yes, that was over on Gladstone.
WILLIAMS: Is that this house [82-59-87 &88]?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: How much did you see them?
C. WALLACE: Not too often. His two children . . .
WILLIAMS: John and Helen.
C. WALLACE: . . . were John and Helen, and Helen taught and she was very good.
She’d come by and see Grandmother Wallace lots and lots of times.
John, no, but after John was married to Marian, another Marian, they
had a baby, and a couple times we did go to their house and visit with
her, but then we just kind of drifted away. I don’t know what happened,
but then we moved away or they moved away or something. But Helen
Wallace was very good to Grandmother Wallace. She would come time
and time again. Now, this looks like the house, and that probably . . . I
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never did see him.
WILLIAMS: He was dead before you . . .?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Were you ever at that Wallace house?
D. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: This is 82-271.
C. WALLACE: Right. Well, there again they’re friends of Fred’s at the university.
D. WALLACE: It’s the same stone column. I’ll bet you $100 that’s the SAE fraternity
house.
C. WALLACE: I’ll bet it is, too.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever meet any of his friends from college?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s certainly not him.
WILLIAMS: So, once he quit, he didn’t have much to do with those people?
C. WALLACE: Well, he was an architect and then he started working on architecture.
WILLIAMS: Is this the one in the car?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: I guess they just assume when there’s three boys that they’re George,
Frank, and Fred.
C. WALLACE: Well, that is Fred.
WILLIAMS: So it’s Harry . . .
C. WALLACE: That looks like Fred there, but I wouldn’t call that a boy. I think that’s
Bess, isn’t it?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
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C. WALLACE: This same person here is that person there, wouldn’t you say?
WILLIAMS: I can’t see.
C. WALLACE: Now, that’s not a boy. Look at the hair. See what David thinks.
WILLIAMS: And they say that’s Fred with Harry, 82-58-39.
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s Fred, but I don’t think that looks a bit like Harry. Do you
think so?
WILLIAMS: In 1913 he would have been thirteen, right?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And Harry would have been . . .
D. WALLACE: Eighty-four, right?
WILLIAMS: He would have been almost thirty.
C. WALLACE: This doesn’t look like Harry. Look at that close.
WILLIAMS: I don’t know. I never saw him in person. What do you think? What
would they have been doing at the Sugar Creek Water Works?
D. WALLACE: Well, I mean, they weren’t married or anything then either. What’s he
doing with Fred Wallace? He didn’t get married until 1918 or 1919,
something like that.
WILLIAMS: In ’19.
D. WALLACE: Yes, so what’s he doing with Fred Wallace six years before that at the
water works?
WILLIAMS: Well, he started courting her in . . .
D. WALLACE: I know, but it doesn’t make any sense. And also, what are they doing?
Fishing? Unless he’s holding a line here or something like that.
WILLIAMS: Maybe that’s what was written on the photo.
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D. WALLACE: And it looks a little old for thirteen, I think.
C. WALLACE: This could be Fred.
D. WALLACE: If this is Frank, that means he’s gone bald by that point, and he wouldn’t
have and didn’t. See, they’re saying that’s Frank just because it’s a bald
person there. I just don’t . . . and that’s not Fred. This is George, if
anybody, over Frank right there.
WILLIAMS: We’re back on 82-362-2.
C. WALLACE: You mean the one that I think is Fred is not Fred?
D. WALLACE: No, it couldn’t be. Do we have a date on this?
WILLIAMS: Nineteen seventeen, I think.
D. WALLACE: Oh, no way.
C. WALLACE: Well, he’d be older than that then.
WILLIAMS: Because he’s in his captain uniform.
D. WALLACE: I just don’t know who this is, you know, with all the hair.
WILLIAMS: In the front seat? Who do you think the bald guy is?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. I’ll tell you, a magnifying glass would help a bit. I don’t
think Frank would have been driving a car with flags on the front of it
either. Is this the bond sale thing? I mean, there’s a reason for this.
There’s a reason for this event, and I think when you get to the reason
for the event, you’ve gotten to who’s in the car. It may be 1917. I’m not
so sure, because the U.S. didn’t go in the war until ’18. They were in
and out in the same year, I think, weren’t they?
CONNIE ODOM-SOPER: [whispering] The National Guard?
D. WALLACE: Well, maybe the National Guard, right. But what is this? Is this July
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Fourth? Could be.
WILLIAMS: Some kind of parade would make sense.
D. WALLACE: But where are we? That’s the thing. We don’t know anything here, do
we?
WILLIAMS: Well, is this George’s house?
D. WALLACE: It could be there.
WILLIAMS: In the driveway?
D. WALLACE: It looks like it. That looks like the old fence that was around George’s
house for a long time, painted green. Can we keep that a little separate
for a while? It gets easier as you go, Mother. You’ll start recognizing
people. See, all this is twenty years before you ever got married.
C. WALLACE: I would say that was Fred Wallace sitting there on the . . .
WILLIAMS: Hanging out the door?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Here?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: This is in 82-58-36. Do you know where that would have been?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: 82-147-2 & 3.
D. WALLACE: Oh, God, that’s a neat picture of May. They all look so young, it’s sad.
C. WALLACE: Now, if this was taken at 608 North Delaware . . . Now, they did move
down to Delaware after she was married to Mr. Wallace, and that’s
where she had all her kids. Now, Fred was three years old when his
father died. Well, if they call that Fred, he looks a lot older than three
10
years old, so I wouldn’t say that’s Fred at this location. Now, it could be
Fred, but what the location is I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Well, I think they may have guessed the location from this next one,
because there’s the big tree that was in front of your house down there
on Delaware.
C. WALLACE: Their house?
WILLIAMS: See this big walnut tree or whatever?
C. WALLACE: Well, the Paxtons lived next door to them, didn’t they?
ODOM-SOPER: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Now, this isn’t the house here. This is the 219 house.
WILLIAMS: No, that would have been the 608 house.
C. WALLACE: This is the house that they lived in, and then when their father died they
eventually moved up to 219.
WILLIAMS: Do you remember that house?
C. WALLACE: I’ve never seen it.
WILLIAMS: Is it still standing?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I never had seen it. Now, if he’s three years old, he’s an
awful big three years old, as far as I’m concerned.
WILLIAMS: But you’ve never seen this picture before?
C. WALLACE: No. Wouldn’t you say he’s a big three years old there?
WILLIAMS: I have a hard time judging children.
C. WALLACE: Well, three years old, they’re only about . . .
WILLIAMS: He looks more like five or six.
C. WALLACE: I think so, too.
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WILLIAMS: Opinion?
D. WALLACE: Yes, it looks like him.
C. WALLACE: Now, here, that looks like a three-year-old.
WILLIAMS: Yes. Now, these I don’t know which one they wanted us to look at [82-
59-99 to 115].
C. WALLACE: They’re stuck together.
WILLIAMS: Now, I would say that’s Bess, right [82-59-99]?
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s what they say, but it doesn’t look like her.
WILLIAMS: Do you remember 219 looking like this, with the ropes [82-59-104]?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember. I remember seeing pictures of it. But it’s similar to
the way it is now, only there’s a little bit more gingerbread on it, I think.
Now, to me . . .
WILLIAMS: I think they say this is Fred [82-59-101 & 102].
C. WALLACE: That is Fred. See, that’s about the right size.
WILLIAMS: In the older . . . the 608 house, I think, is what . . .
C. WALLACE: Yes, at the 608 house, but that one that they call Fred as that age, he’s
much older. Now, how old he was exactly when they moved up to 219,
I don’t know how long she stayed . . .
D. WALLACE: No, I think it’s George.
C. WALLACE: That could be George.
D. WALLACE: Then that makes sense, and the size makes sense.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and he and George looked . . .
WILLIAMS: He had curly hair like that?
C. WALLACE: Yes, George had beautiful curly hair.
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D. WALLACE: Very curly hair.
C. WALLACE: There’s a baby picture of him where he had long curls.
WILLIAMS: And what about Fred’s hair?
D. WALLACE: The same. He had curls, too.
ODOM-SOPER: They went out to Denver for a year after that happened.
C. WALLACE: Yes, that’s right.
WILLIAMS: Now, they say that it’s Fred Wallace . . .
C. WALLACE: [reading] “The three Wallace brothers . . .” Oh, you’re up there.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “Fred Wallace as a child seated in a small chair by window.”
C. WALLACE: At 219 North Delaware. That would be in the . . . Well, that would be in
the living room, wouldn’t it? I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: When did they move out of 608?
C. WALLACE: That I don’t know, David.
D. WALLACE: Well, he killed himself in 1903.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Wasn’t it ’03?
C. WALLACE: Well, it’d have to . . . because Fred was three years old when his father
died.
D. WALLACE: Okay, so then they moved into 219 like in 1904 or 1905.
C. WALLACE: And then she was by herself for a while, and as you say, they did go to
Colorado for a while.
D. WALLACE: Okay, but not Denver.
ODOM-SOPER: Colorado Springs.
C. WALLACE: Colorado Springs.
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D. WALLACE: Manitor Springs.
C. WALLACE: No, Colorado Springs. Grandmother Wallace and the children.
ODOM-SOPER: To stay with Frank [Gates].
C. WALLACE: Yes, she had a brother . . . Madge had a brother living there.
WILLIAMS: I think they say this one is him, too, but you can’t really see the face of
the boy [82-59-102]. Do you recognize any of these others?
C. WALLACE: Well, I think that’s Fred there.
WILLIAMS: That’s 82-59-107.
C. WALLACE: With the house behind. Now, this could be Frank Wallace or George, I
don’t know.
WILLIAMS: That’s 106.
C. WALLACE: See what David thinks.
WILLIAMS: Now, on this second page, these are the tableaux that I had seen.
C. WALLACE: They’re the what?
WILLIAMS: Some of them are double exposures, I think. They’re doing . . .
C. WALLACE: The shows they’re making . . .
ODOM-SOPER: The ballerina.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever hear about them doing . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, I know Bess did a lot of things.
WILLIAMS: They say that these are the three brothers on piggyback.
C. WALLACE: Could be, because look how little that one up there is. And this to me
looks a lot like Bess.
ODOM-SOPER: It looks like her pose.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
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WILLIAMS: These are in the 82-59 series.
C. WALLACE: Where did you find these, in an album?
WILLIAMS: The Truman Library found them in an album in the attic, several albums.
This is the Wells crowd [82-58-78]. Did you know them very well?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Those Platte City relatives?
C. WALLACE: No, I didn’t know them very well. That’s the one place that
Grandmother Wallace afterwards would go, up to there to see her sister.
WILLIAMS: Would you go up there with them?
C. WALLACE: I wasn’t in the family then. See, I didn’t make the family until 1933,
[chuckling] and this was all prior to that. Now, I did go up several times
after we were married, or they’d come . . . I don’t ever remember Auntie
Myra coming down at all, or Auntie Maud. But Louise Wells, she was
one of Mrs. Truman’s attendants when they were married, and also
Helen Wallace. And then Gates Wells was a banker up there, and he
was Louise Wells’s. . . Louise Hull, she was Louise Hull, Gates Wells
was her son, and he married, and Annie and he had those girls you were
talking about, that you have talked to. What’s their names?
WILLIAMS: Anne and . . . ?
C. WALLACE: Anne Louise and . . .
WILLIAMS: Helen?
C. WALLACE: Helen.
WILLIAMS: And Bess was the youngest.
C. WALLACE: Weren’t there only two of them?
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WILLIAMS: Those were Gates’s daughters, aren’t we talking about . . .?
C. WALLACE: Yes. Gates, didn’t he just have two?
WILLIAMS: Gates Wells, he had three.
C. WALLACE: Three? I’ve forgot that. Well, then Annie was killed. She started across
the street, and a car came around and killed her. And then I think he
remarried, but I lost track of him because by that time we had moved
away, and I don’t know. I thought it was Anne Louise and Helen, and
little Bess. That’s right. Anne Louise, Helen, little Bess. I don’t
remember Helen. I remember Anne Louise.
WILLIAMS: But I don’t think their mother was killed. This must be another . . .
C. WALLACE: Annie? Gates Wells’s wife?
WILLIAMS: Was this Lee Hull?
C. WALLACE: Gates . . . Gates Wells . . .
WILLIAMS: I don’t know. I’d have to have my chart in front of me.
C. WALLACE: Gates Wells was the banker, and he was married to Anne, Annie, and
she was killed—I know it—and they had Anne Louise and Bess and . . .
I don’t remember Helen. Where’s your chart? You don’t have it?
WILLIAMS: [chuckling] It’s at the office. I didn’t think we’d need it. I’ll ask you
tomorrow.
C. WALLACE: You can go through it, but you check that. But would that show that
Annie had been killed?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Oh, she was nice, too, a nice person, and I can remember their house sort
of vaguely. That’s the best I can do on that, but you check that one out.
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WILLIAMS: These I’m not sure what they . . . They’re baby pictures [83-91-1 to10].
Do you know who these . . .
C. WALLACE: I’ve never seen them before. That doesn’t even look like Margaret.
Who do they say they are? George?
WILLIAMS: “Christine Wallace holding a baby.” [laughter] That must be that one
[83-96-4].
D. WALLACE: No, that’s the nursemaid.
C. WALLACE: Who is this?
WILLIAMS: It says “unidentified young girl.” Then it says this one is you with a
baby.
C. WALLACE: Oh, that’d have to be . . .
WILLIAMS: Probably David. [chuckling]
C. WALLACE: No, that doesn’t look like David, and that doesn’t look like me.
D. WALLACE: Well, are you sure it isn’t the nursemaid?
WILLIAMS: This is 83-96-1 through 10.
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s certainly not you, and it’s not me, and these are not anybody
that’s related to anybody.
WILLIAMS: You don’t recognize these?
D. WALLACE: I’ve never seen any of these people ever. Except there’s the pergola.
Actually, this all sort of looks like Honolulu.
WILLIAMS: So it could have just been neighbors or . . .?
D. WALLACE: Well, yes. I mean, they’re all over the place. They’re across the street.
Who knows? You know, also the fact is . . . I don’t know, the size of the
photographs are varying considerably, and I don’t know what they did
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here, and I think you could also tell very quickly from the cameras that
they had. And I know the cameras that they had and used in the house,
and none of them were this format. Most of them were 2 1/4 or 3 1/4
Kodak bellows cameras, and I have Dad’s. So, if you see any pictures
smaller than that, I can practically tell you like that. That would be the
format, like that. Probably taken by people who were over here. I know
who that is.
C. WALLACE: God, I hope I’ve improved.
WILLIAMS: They may just be contact prints, actually.
D. WALLACE: No, these aren’t contact prints.
WILLIAMS: No, I mean the library has the negatives and this is the . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, it could have been. We know that’s you, dear. We know that’s
you.
WILLIAMS: This is you?
C. WALLACE: That’s what they say.
D. WALLACE: Well, it is you.
WILLIAMS: 83-75.
C. WALLACE: I say I hope I’ve improved.
D. WALLACE: She looks like the Duchess of Windsor.
WILLIAMS: Where is that, do you know?
C. WALLACE: Wait a minute, I know . . .
D. WALLACE: That’s not the sofa in the living room.
C. WALLACE: Not my sofa.
D. WALLACE: So it isn’t the one in the living room. Is it the one in the den?
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WILLIAMS: Was it at the White House, or . . .?
C. WALLACE: Oh, God!
D. WALLACE: Yes, this is later. This is the White House.
C. WALLACE: Make it a good story.
D. WALLACE: No, look at the picture on the wall. The framing.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: I was never there.
D. WALLACE: No, that’s the White House.
WILLIAMS: That’s about the age you were in the White House years?
D. WALLACE: Well, ’40, and ’39, ’38, ’37.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling; reading] “They are dressed in winter clothes and are
outdoors.” That’s Fred and me.
WILLIAMS: 82-141. Where are you, do you know? Was that in Independence or .
. .? [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Well, what are these little postage stamp pictures? You mean, they’ve
taken pictures of pictures and now are printing . . . This is like fifth
generation on things. No wonder we can’t recognize anyone, because
some of these . . .
C. WALLACE: God, we had hats on!
WILLIAMS: These are photocopies of the original pictures.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know where this is.
WILLIAMS: Some of these were in a postal souvenir album that apparently you put
them in . . .
C. WALLACE: I’d say in the back yard in Independence. It sounds like a good story.
19
WILLIAMS: It looks like there’s a hill or something, but do you know about what
time that would have been?
C. WALLACE: It must have been in the winter because we have . . .
D. WALLACE: No, year, Mother dear. We know it’s winter.
WILLIAMS: Were you newlyweds or . . .?
C. WALLACE: Well, I think it was shortly . . . We were married in July. I’d say it was
about December. Well, there’s no . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, why wasn’t it in Carmel then?
C. WALLACE: That’s not Carmel. I didn’t have a hat, that kind of a hat.
D. WALLACE: You were also not dressed that heavily. You’re wearing a coat with a
fur collar on it, and Dad doesn’t even have an outer coat on. He’s got a
double-breasted suit on there.
C. WALLACE: Yes, he always wore . . .
D. WALLACE: So this is like October or something like that, or April.
WILLIAMS: Of ’33?
D. WALLACE: October ’33, April ’34, but she would have been like six months
pregnant then. April? No, four months pregnant, and I don’t think it’s
that, so I think it’s late fall ’33. And there are hills in Independence. I
don’t know where you people have been. You drive up and down them
all the time.
C. WALLACE: Well, this is not me.
WILLIAMS: That’s not around here.
C. WALLACE: And I’ve never been to Mills College.
WILLIAMS: Does it say it’s you? [chuckling]
20
D. WALLACE: Let me see.
WILLIAMS: 82-120, “Snapshot of Mrs. Christine Wallace.”
D. WALLACE: Oh, my goodness, Mother never had that jaw. [chuckling] No, no.
C. WALLACE: I’ve never been to Mills College. I know where it is. It’s in California.
D. WALLACE: Well, there’s sequoias behind it. You don’t suppose somebody was over
there and they saw sequoias and suddenly made it Mills College?
WILLIAMS: I think what they probably did was they saw a young lady and figured it
was you, because you were the youngest in the crowd. I don’t know
how they identified these, but I’m glad to know that they’re . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, also, this is dated 3/13/26, and she wasn’t on the scene then either.
WILLIAMS: You wouldn’t have been in college?
D. WALLACE: No, she wouldn’t have.
C. WALLACE: Yes, in New York.
WILLIAMS: In ’26 you were?
D. WALLACE: You were nineteen or eighteen. Yes, you went to Finch for college.
C. WALLACE: Yes, I went to Finch in New York, not Mills College.
D. WALLACE: With John Tunney’s mother.
WILLIAMS: John Tunney?
D. WALLACE: The woman who married Gene Tunney, the boxer. She went to Finch.
WILLIAMS: Do they have this one right?
C. WALLACE: If I looked like that, I sure have changed. Well, this is 219.
WILLIAMS: Those are the awnings we were talking about earlier.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and this is Fred, I think.
WILLIAMS: We’re on 82-475-1, the second from the left you say is Fred?
21
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. They have me next to him, but I’m not in any of those
pictures.
D. WALLACE: It’s awfully hard to tell, because you can’t see the features in these.
C. WALLACE: Well, look at these. You can sure tell that . . .
WILLIAMS: “. . . is to his right, in the middle of the group.” Well, you’d be to his
left if that was even you.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s certainly not her. The pudge pot here, no. But that is him.
C. WALLACE: Looks like Dad, though.
D. WALLACE: That’s Fred.
C. WALLACE: But he had a lot of girlfriends.
D. WALLACE: But’s that’s not Mother
WILLIAMS: We need to pause for a second.
[End #4384; Begin #4385]
WILLIAMS: Now, this is 82-475-1, 2, and 3, I guess. You’re not in any of those?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: But that is Fred with some women?
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s Fred. No question about it. That’s him.
WILLIAMS: But it’s before you would have been around?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And you said he had girlfriends in college before you?
C. WALLACE: Don’t all boys?
D. WALLACE: Probably.
WILLIAMS: You weren’t the first one, like Bess was for Harry?
C. WALLACE: No. [chuckling]
22
WILLIAMS: No? Okay. And who’s this little thing?
C. WALLACE: Punkin [David Wallace] over there at the other side of the table.
WILLIAMS: 82-129-1. Do you know where this would have been?
C. WALLACE: Yes, that was up in the upstairs room at 219 North Delaware. It was on
his . . . what do you call . . . bassinet. Is that what you call those things?
D. WALLACE: No, it’s a bath thing.
C. WALLACE: Bath table.
ODOM-SOPER: Bathinet.
C. WALLACE: Bathinet, thanks.
WILLIAMS: It looks like it folds up. Does it?
C. WALLACE: It does.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that was rubber and it’s on jiggly, wooden sticks, and that’s been
around the house for a long time and probably somewhere.
WILLIAMS: So what year? You can hold your head up, so . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, he wasn’t quite a year old, but he’d be . . .
D. WALLACE: In ’35.
WILLIAMS: And this is in the big . . . Well, there’s one of these big mirrors, it looks
like, one of those gold mirrors.
D. WALLACE: No, that’s not a mirror. It’s something else. It’s just this rotten picture.
We have the original.
WILLIAMS: Is it the mantle piece?
C. WALLACE: [reading] “Marian Wallace, back yard of 219.”
WILLIAMS: Is that correct?
C. WALLACE: That’s what I’d call it.
23
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes, that’s Marian.
WILLIAMS: 83-72.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s Marian.
WILLIAMS: About how old?
D. WALLACE: That’s her dress. That’s that dress that was around for years, that blue
velvet dress with the tucks in the front of it. She’s about two or three,
which would make it about 1940.
WILLIAMS: She was born in ’38?
D. WALLACE: In ’37.
C. WALLACE: I could tell you a horrible story about that blue velvet dress, but I don’t
think I’ll . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, tell it.
C. WALLACE: Well, when we lived in Albuquerque, I had a little chest of drawers
about so big, nice big drawers and so forth. So I had this blue velvet
dress made by a lady in Independence here who made children’s clothes
and smocked them.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s not this dress.
C. WALLACE: No. Now, let me tell you about this. You said something about a blue
velvet dress. So Aunt Bess had this blue dress, a velvet dress, and she
said, “Here, Chris, why don’t you have this . . .” whatever this
dressmaker’s name was, I can’t remember, “make a dress for Marian out
of it?” So I did. Well, anyhow, it was packed away in this drawer in
Albuquerque.
D. WALLACE: You mean Margo? You’re in Albuquerque. You’re fifteen years later.
24
C. WALLACE: I’m talking about the dress now.
D. WALLACE: What does it have to do with this?
C. WALLACE: Bess gave me some velvet to have a dress made for Marian, and she
wore it, and I packed it away in this chest when we were in
Albuquerque, because nobody could wear it. Well, I went to straighten
up the drawer one day and there was a mouse nest in the drawer.
[chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Well, yes, it was a nice little place to make little baby mice.
C. WALLACE: I thought I would die! [chuckling] Oh, it was a horrible experience.
WILLIAMS: Did she ever find out?
C. WALLACE: Well, she never wore it again, nobody did, because it had been kind of
munched on.
WILLIAMS: Are we back to David again?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, that doesn’t look like you, David.
WILLIAMS: 82-127-8. It doesn’t say who it is.
D. WALLACE: Well, number one, it isn’t me. Number two, it is far earlier than the
other picture, because kids didn’t wear those kind of clothes. I would
say you’re closer saying this is my father as a baby.
ODOM-SOPER: Gracious me.
D. WALLACE: What?
ODOM-SOPER: That’s quite a skip.
D. WALLACE: No, but I mean, take a look.
WILLIAMS: I think they got the wrong photo with the card.
D. WALLACE: Yes, I mean, I bet that’s him.
25
WILLIAMS: They meant to get 128 and they got 127.
D. WALLACE: It just looks like that . . .
C. WALLACE: David, where would that house be?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. I never saw it. It’s in Kansas City.
C. WALLACE: Is that you?
D. WALLACE: Yes, I’m pretty sure. That’s the little baby carriage that you had for us.
C. WALLACE: Where are all your curls?
WILLIAMS: 82-128-1, that’s you?
D. WALLACE: Could be. The car is 1924, but I mean, they lasted. I’m pretty sure
that’s me. But this is definitely Mother’s baby carriage that was around,
because this whole little thing opened up at the end with blue canvas, the
whole thing.
C. WALLACE: I thought it was brown canvas.
D. WALLACE: Well, whatever, the same thing. That’s in Kansas City or out here
somewhere.
C. WALLACE: I’d say that was in Kansas City, and we were out in the yard, and it was
some house on the block.
D. WALLACE: Well, when were we living in Kansas City?
C. WALLACE: We weren’t, but Grandmother and Granddaddy were and we were
probably visiting them.
D. WALLACE: You moved back into Kansas City for a while. When was that?
C. WALLACE: We did?
D. WALLACE: You did.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
26
D. WALLACE: When?
C. WALLACE: Well, let me see, you were . . .
D. WALLACE: You picked up and moved back in with them for a while, didn’t you?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Well, when was that?
C. WALLACE: Well, about a year . . . You were not quite a year old.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s when it is.
WILLIAMS: Which granddad and . . .
C. WALLACE: My mother and father.
D. WALLACE: Her parents.
WILLIAMS: They lived in Kansas City?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Yes, on Armour Boulevard.
WILLIAMS: So you went from one in-laws to . . .
D. WALLACE: They had a spat, and then they came back.
C. WALLACE: But look, that would be the same thing as that one.
WILLIAMS: It looks like you’re chewing on a shoe or something [82-128-2].
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] We didn’t feed him.
D. WALLACE: It’s also very young. You’re sure this isn’t Marian, Mother? Well, then
this is winter, ’34 or ’35. I’m not a year old.
WILLIAMS: Near Armour Boulevard, somewhere.
D. WALLACE: I think so.
WILLIAMS: Now, is this you [82-128-3]?
C. WALLACE: In Kansas City with David. I remember that coat if I live to be a
27
hundred.
WILLIAMS: Big lapels or collar.
D. WALLACE: Tell us about the coat, Mother.
C. WALLACE: It was navy blue and had white fur collar on it.
D. WALLACE: Yes, and where is this?
C. WALLACE: In Kansas City, Missouri, at Grandmother’s, in front of the Sombart
Apartments, on the corner of Armour Boulevard and I forget where.
D. WALLACE: They’re still there, too.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: The Sombart?
C. WALLACE: S-O-M-B-A-R-T. Now, this is David with Mary Miller, who was his
godmother, and it was taken the day he was christened.
WILLIAMS: And that’s 82-128-5. Who was Mary Miller?
C. WALLACE: A friend of mine.
D. WALLACE: Went to school with her.
C. WALLACE: Yes. The same thing as I told you before: me, the baby, and the same
blue coat.
WILLIAMS: You had a hat back then. You said you didn’t have . . .
C. WALLACE: I don’t have it now. I didn’t keep it that many years.
WILLIAMS: You look happy.
C. WALLACE: Here’s David, the baby carriage, and Fred. Same place, Sombart
Apartments, in front.
WILLIAMS: These are all the 82-128 series. Were you a happy baby? Was he a
happy baby?
28
C. WALLACE: He was a good baby. I don’t remember where . . .
D. WALLACE: That’s one of the most used adjectives in Independence, Missouri, is
“good.” Everybody is good. Right, Mother?
C. WALLACE: I can’t figure out where that was taken. That’s David again [82-127-6].
D. WALLACE: No, it’s not. That’s Dad.
WILLIAMS: You saw these, too?
D. WALLACE: The clothes are all wrong. The light is all wrong, the clothes are wrong.
C. WALLACE: I said isn’t that David?
D. WALLACE: It doesn’t even look like me. And where is it? Where is this diamondpatterned
wall?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
D. WALLACE: There was nothing like that in the Sombart, was there?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: And we know there’s nothing like that in the house in Independence
then. It’s like trellis wallpaper, like this.
C. WALLACE: I know. Isn’t that you?
D. WALLACE: No, I don’t think so.
C. WALLACE: The mouth is wrong.
D. WALLACE: Well, the hair is wrong, the outfit’s wrong. That’s around 1912.
C. WALLACE: Well, then that has to be Marian.
D. WALLACE: Oh, no, it’s before that. That’s a turn-of-the-century outfit.
WILLIAMS: It looks like you’re in one of those barrel-shaped, Victorian chairs.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s not me. I mean, if we could see the picture and see what that
wall is . . . Now, just a minute, there was wainscoting there, wasn’t
29
there?
C. WALLACE: Look here. Look here. Here’s another one of those walls, and that is you
on that.
D. WALLACE: Oh, that is me. You’re right, that is. Sorry, it is. Which means that
some room in the house or in the Sombart, Mother, had to have that
diamond-patterned wallpaper on it.
C. WALLACE: Yes, but I don’t know where it was. Now, that couldn’t have been out
on the porch with a trellis, and it was a trellis . . .
D. WALLACE: No, it’s a wall, and you see the corner of the wall right there, and the
wallpaper goes around the corner.
WILLIAMS: These are the 82-127 series.
D. WALLACE: I have a funny feeling about that wallpaper, that I remember it from
somewhere. And where I remember it from is in the hall downstairs,
which means . . . The hall doesn’t turn into another room. It hits those
sliding doors everywhere.
WILLIAMS: Except that one doorway into the living room, there is no sliding door.
C. WALLACE: No, look David, here it is. Turning the corner you can see that wall . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, the sun is coming in . . . the light is coming in from there. Oh, I
know exactly where it is. This is in the den.
C. WALLACE: That’s where it was.
D. WALLACE: And that is the wallpaper that was in the den when we had the black and
white furniture in there. Yes, that’s it.
C. WALLACE: Yes, okay.
WILLIAMS: So that’s the north side?
30
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s the room, and this is the sun coming through there. And now
I remember because the furniture was furniture they should have been
shot for ever getting rid of. It was glorious, art deco chrome . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, now, he mixed those up.
WILLIAMS: That’s fine.
C. WALLACE: And these are all the same.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s there. That’s where it is.
WILLIAMS: There’s a whole series of them.
C. WALLACE: Yes, here. God, that’s a terrible picture of you.
D. WALLACE: And that’s what we found in Denver, is one of the side tables from the
furniture.
C. WALLACE: Look there, isn’t that terrible of you?
WILLIAMS: It was black and white?
D. WALLACE: Black and chrome.
C. WALLACE: What happened? Last time I was there it wasn’t in that room.
D. WALLACE: It sure was.
WILLIAMS: That’s hard to imagine in the Truman home.
D. WALLACE: They’re selling it.
C. WALLACE: What? They’re selling it to you?
WILLIAMS: 82-126.
D. WALLACE: Who’s this? Oh, that’s me, huh? Where did all these pictures come
from, and why don’t we have them?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I was wondering the same thing.
D. WALLACE: Yes, see, there’s that format of Dad’s camera.
31
WILLIAMS: Well, I could sell you copies.
D. WALLACE: There’s the format of Dad’s camera.
WILLIAMS: Like two and a half inches high . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, this is it right there. There it is. I have the camera.
WILLIAMS: So he took these.
C. WALLACE: Now I’ve got him the way I remember him with all his curls. He had the
most beautiful curly hair. Look at the curls.
WILLIAMS: They’d be happy to sell you copies. If you have dinner with Dr. Zobrist,
you can ask.
C. WALLACE: Here’s David with his father at 219 . . . [83-15]
D. WALLACE: We have that picture.
C. WALLACE: See his curls?
D. WALLACE: Oh, give me a break! I gave Ben Zobrist this picture. Now it’s coming
back at me.
C. WALLACE: What did you give it to him for?
D. WALLACE: Why not?
WILLIAMS: It says “Truman House.”
D. WALLACE: I’ve got plenty of them.
C. WALLACE: But see his pretty curly hair? He had such pretty curls.
WILLIAMS: You had a cute smile.
C. WALLACE: All right, now, here’s the Christmas tree in . . .
WILLIAMS: How old were you, two?
D. WALLACE: Oh, two. I was born in ’36.
C. WALLACE: Here’s the Christmas tree in the alcove in the living room. Here is
32
Margaret, Marian, and David [82-130-2].
WILLIAMS: Is that typical of the way Christmas looked?
C. WALLACE: Except the tree in later years was bigger.
WILLIAMS: Why was that?
D. WALLACE: Everybody got grander. [chuckling] Dad and Mother sent back the blue
spruce in . . . whenever it was, and it scratched the ceiling.
C. WALLACE: Well, a friend of Fred’s had crated it and delivered it and put it in the
back yard, and it looked like an old oil well standing in there.
[chuckling]
WILLIAMS: This says 1937 on that, doesn’t it? Right? And there’s a puppy,
supposedly [82-130-1].
D. WALLACE: That’s right.
C. WALLACE: Oh-oh, here’s David, his puppy Spot.
D. WALLACE: Yes, Spot, which then went on and was raised by . . .
C. WALLACE: George.
D. WALLACE: After we moved to Denver.
C. WALLACE: Say, did you see that woman get on the plane today?
D. WALLACE: It was Spot’s tail that broke the electric eye beam I told you about when
they first put it in around the house. He used to run around with his tail
sticking straight up.
WILLIAMS: What kind of dog is he?
D. WALLACE: It was a mixed dog. Mother was in the hospital for an operation, and I
got it from somebody. Who did I get it from? You were in for a thyroid
operation.
33
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, but you came in with Dad to see if I’d let you have it and I
said sure. That was when I had my thyroid operation. But what was I
going to say? Did you see the woman get on the plane today? She had a
little carrying case like this, and it had a little doggy in it.
WILLIAMS: Did somebody get a high chair that year, or is that just sitting there?
D. WALLACE: I think probably they got it, and it would have been Marian. That’s
Marian.
C. WALLACE: Yes, the little one is Marian.
D. WALLACE: Oh, there’s Spot!
C. WALLACE: There’s the same thing [82-130-3].
WILLIAMS: Looks kind of like a terrier.
D. WALLACE: Oh, puppy is dead [?]. He got so fat he looked like a little elephant
running around.
C. WALLACE: George just adored that dog. Same thing.
WILLIAMS: And he broke the beam? Was that when Mr. Truman was president?
They had beams set up?
D. WALLACE: That’s when they didn’t have a fence, so they put this electric eye thing
around the house that reflected.
WILLIAMS: Would this have been on Christmas morning?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Did you all get up and run downstairs?
D. WALLACE: Yes, Mother will tell you all about . . . Mother, tell them about
Christmas morning.
C. WALLACE: We came down and looked at the Christmas presents.
34
D. WALLACE: Where were they?
WILLIAMS: How did they get there?
C. WALLACE: All right, now just you all shut up. You see where the Christmas tree is?
And then right next to that was a rocking chair, and that was
Grandmother Wallace’s chair, so all her presents were put in that chair.
WILLIAMS: To the right.
C. WALLACE: Then you come along the long wall where the sofa . . . and that’s where
Bess and Harry and sometimes some of Margaret’s presents were put.
D. WALLACE: And that’s the sofa that’s at Margo’s house.
WILLIAMS: There was a sofa along the north wall?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and some of Margaret’s were put under the tree, but most of them
were on there. All right, then you go out to the hall, and then across the
wall here was a secretary.
D. WALLACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa. At the end of the sofa was the velvet chair.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: You skipped that.
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know who . . . Oh, it was Frank and Natalie’s.
D. WALLACE: Frank and Natalie’s stuff was in the velvet chair then. Then you come
around the corner of the living room and there was a secretary here,
which is in Maryland.
C. WALLACE: And then there’s a door into Grandmother Wallace’s room.
D. WALLACE: Yes, then the door on the porch.
C. WALLACE: And then there was a big wing chair, and that’s where Fred and I had our
35
presents, and then there was the fireplace, and then you come to another
chair and that was George and May’s. I think we had one for Vietta,
Pete, didn’t we? I can’t remember that.
WILLIAMS: So everything was on a chair?
C. WALLACE: Everybody’s, yes.
D. WALLACE: Yes, except the kids.
C. WALLACE: Except the kids’. They went under the tree.
WILLIAMS: Were they all wrapped up, or did you just pile them up?
C. WALLACE: All the presents were wrapped that we gave people, but the kids’ from
Santa Claus were not wrapped.
D. WALLACE: Why don’t you tell them what kind of presents they were?
C. WALLACE: I gave Uncle Harry a pair of garters for Christmas. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: No, but it was very much the era when you gave people a carton of
cigarettes, and that was the Christmas present. I mean, it was not a big
expensive hoo-haw, let me tell you.
C. WALLACE: We didn’t have much money.
D. WALLACE: It was very much socks and ties and garters and things like that.
C. WALLACE: Well, we didn’t have much money. That’s back in the thirties, geez!
D. WALLACE: Well, don’t be defensive, Mother. We’re trying to explain what it was
that you gave them.
C. WALLACE: I’m not. Am I defensive?
D. WALLACE: Yes, because we didn’t have much money. It was back in the thirties.
C. WALLACE: That’s not defensive. That’s just telling the truth. Here’s Marian at 219
North Delaware [82-131-5].
36
WILLIAMS: During the Depression, huh? It looks like there were plants in the
background.
D. WALLACE: The same room.
WILLIAMS: In the study?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: I know, we had a few plants in our house.
WILLIAMS: And this was chrome and black furniture?
D. WALLACE: Yes, and the tables were . . . The furniture was white metal with white
and black patterned fabric cushions on it.
C. WALLACE: Here are Marian and David getting over the flu, and we had them in the
same bed [82-132].
D. WALLACE: White and black patterned cushions, right in front of your nose. There it
is. How’s that for a memory?
WILLIAMS: Was it like a houndstooth kind of . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: This bed at this time was in Fred’s room. I used to change them back
and forth.
WILLIAMS: Fred’s room was the northwest . . .?
C. WALLACE: The great big one here, I had Marian . . . Who did I have in it? Marian
and David. Then you’d go down here and here was the sewing machine,
here was the door into this room, and that was Fred’s room. Well,
sometimes I’d take that double bed and put in there and sometimes I’d
take it and put it over here.
WILLIAMS: It looks like you had animals on the wallpaper. Do you remember that?
37
This is 82-132.
C. WALLACE: David and Marian.
D. WALLACE: Is that Marian and me?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: I should remember animals on the wallpaper when I don’t even
remember sleeping with my sister? [laughter]
C. WALLACE: You weren’t sleeping. We were trying to keep you happy because you
both had the flu.
D. WALLACE: We know, Mother.
WILLIAMS: We finally get some scandal here. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: But where was the animal wallpaper, Mother?
WILLIAMS: It looks like a children’s wallpaper.
D. WALLACE: Mother, dear? Animal wallpaper? I don’t think that is animal
wallpaper. I think it was a pattern of something else like animals, like
chickens.
WILLIAMS: Well, it looks like Indians or something.
C. WALLACE: It wasn’t animal wallpaper.
D. WALLACE: What is it? Is this in the big room or is this in the room over the parlor?
It’s in the room over the parlor, I think.
WILLIAMS: Which you called Fred’s room.
D. WALLACE: Because we were sick, because you put us in there. That’s where the
double bed was.
C. WALLACE: I don’t see an animal.
D. WALLACE: Well, what is the pattern?
38
WILLIAMS: That one looks like a monkey or something.
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know. I think it’s just something that’s wrong in the
picture.
D. WALLACE: All over the wall?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: It looks like a circus.
D. WALLACE: It looks like a circus pattern.
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Here’s a monkey on a stand and somebody with a whip.
C. WALLACE: I don’t ever remember putting any circus paper in that room.
D. WALLACE: There’s a lion standing on a drum here. You don’t remember this
wallpaper?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Did you redecorate like that?
C. WALLACE: Oh, we used to do lots of crazy things.
WILLIAMS: Well, I’ve heard that you painted, but would you change the wallpaper
and make a children’s room?
C. WALLACE: Well, sometimes if I got somebody to do it. I couldn’t to it.
WILLIAMS: This is you in the study, same furniture.
C. WALLACE: The same thing.
D. WALLACE: The same thing, same thing. Right, and there’s the Raggedy Ann doll.
Where is that now?
WILLIAMS: 82-131-3.
C. WALLACE: At 219.
39
D. WALLACE: The Raggedy Ann doll is still at 219?
C. WALLACE: Oh, the Raggedy Ann doll? Raggedy Ann doll, that was Marian’s. I
guess it probably went to pieces by now. She’s gone through three kids,
too.
D. WALLACE: Seven kids.
C. WALLACE: Seven kids.
WILLIAMS: It looks like Marian is maybe upset in this one, number 4.
C. WALLACE: Here are Marian and David on Marian’s first birthday [82-131-1].
WILLIAMS: Did you wear those sailor suits a lot?
C. WALLACE: Yes, they all did in those days.
ODOM-SOPER: They’re cute, Jim.
D. WALLACE: You obviously didn’t hear what I said.
WILLIAMS: Well, this is in the dining room.
D. WALLACE: Dining room.
WILLIAMS: I recognize that wallpaper. Marian’s first birthday, so that would have
been 3/2/37.
C. WALLACE: She was born in ’37.
D. WALLACE: On 3/2/38 then.
WILLIAMS: Well, this thing is wrong then. They say it was ’37, her first birthday.
D. WALLACE: Change it. It’s 3/2/38. She was born in ’37.
ODOM-SOPER: What kind of light hung in the middle of the dining room before the
chandelier, the big chandelier?
C. WALLACE: It was just . . . What was the chandelier like in the dining room?
D. WALLACE: Well, it wasn’t brass.
40
C. WALLACE: Did they change that when they . . .
D. WALLACE: The have sort of an ugly brass one in there now, I think, that they’ve put
in—I mean, very much W. & J. Sloane.
WILLIAMS: You mean in the dining room?
D. WALLACE: Just a minute. There it is right there. It was brass but it was much
different, with those little shades. There it is, Mother, right there.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Where is that?
C. WALLACE: Well, how would I know?
WILLIAMS: Whose high chair is that?
D. WALLACE: That’s the high chair that was by the Christmas tree.
WILLIAMS: That’s not the one that was Margaret’s that’s still sitting there?
HAGENSEN: It may be one that I did, I catalogued or something.
D. WALLACE: Is that Margaret’s high chair or is that the one you got for Marian on her
first Christmas?
C. WALLACE: This is not Marg’s.
D. WALLACE: That’s Marian’s, yes.
C. WALLACE: Yes, this is that regular high chair that has the thing in front. Now, the
other thing you’re talking about was like a youth . . .
D. WALLACE: I’m talking about this one.
C. WALLACE: Okay, that’s the one I bought to put Marian in.
D. WALLACE: All right, and you gave it to her. It’s in front of the Christmas tree, the
Christmas just before this, two months before this.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
41
D. WALLACE: Because it still looks in pretty good condition.
C. WALLACE: Now, the other chair you’re talking about is called a youth chair,
because it doesn’t have this tray in front.
WILLIAMS: Right, we’ll see that tomorrow.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: And this is on the east side of the dining room, or shooting south on the
east side of the dining room.
WILLIAMS: And these were all from your father’s cameras?
C. WALLACE: Here is David and Marian in the hall [82-133-1]. There’s a mirror. We
had a crèche set up there and that’s what they’re looking at.
D. WALLACE: The crèche is at Margo’s house.
WILLIAMS: Along which wall was this?
C. WALLACE: That was at 219, in the hall.
D. WALLACE: What did you do, give her that mirror, too?
C. WALLACE: No, I didn’t give her that mirror.
WILLIAMS: On the north wall? We still have that.
D. WALLACE: The east wall. The east wall.
C. WALLACE: They have that mirror.
D. WALLACE: That’s where the portrait is now.
ODOM-SOPER: That mirror is in the parlor now.
WILLIAMS: Okay, and whose silhouettes are those?
D. WALLACE: Mother and Dad. Aren’t those silhouettes you and Dad?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: And the crèche is on top of a mahogany veneered federal folding table,
42
card table. It can sit like this or it folds down and opens up into a card
table. Where is that?
C. WALLACE: Marian.
D. WALLACE: Marian has that table.
WILLIAMS: Would this have been in 1938, would you say?
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s about right.
WILLIAMS: She would have been a year and a half . . .
C. WALLACE: Here they are.
D. WALLACE: There’s the blue velvet dress, friends.
ODOM-SOPER: Indeed. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: There it is.
WILLIAMS: And your shorts. You’re wearing shorts in December?
C. WALLACE: Here they are.
D. WALLACE: You obviously didn’t hear what I said. Now, that’s the following
Christmas now. We’re talking Christmas ’38 now.
WILLIAMS: Well, they say this is Christmas ’38.
D. WALLACE: Well, fine, same thing.
WILLIAMS: Blue or blue velvet?
C. WALLACE: Well, Marian was born in ’37. Now, she’s more than a year old in that
picture.
D. WALLACE: Obviously. Christmas ’38.
WILLIAMS: A year and a half old?
C. WALLACE: I’d say it was Christmas ’39.
D. WALLACE: No, no.
43
WILLIAMS: What’s this big alphabet thing over here [82-133-2]?
C. WALLACE: That’s something they got for Christmas from Santa Claus.
WILLIAMS: What is it, though? It looks like a slot machine, kind of.
C. WALLACE: Why sure, we started them young. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: That isn’t what that is at all, and I can’t see.
C. WALLACE: Is it a book?
WILLIAMS: It’s just hard to tell.
C. WALLACE: We’ll say it’s a book because . . .
WILLIAMS: Did she get a chair?
D. WALLACE: It’s a swing.
WILLIAMS: A swing?
D. WALLACE: Two side pieces shaped like this, and then there’s something here, and I
think there’s a swing in the middle. I’m pretty sure of that.
WILLIAMS: Okay, so you can sit and swing and learn the alphabet?
D. WALLACE: Yes. Now, you must understand, Christmas was really . . . I mean, if
people did not behave civilized, I think they would have killed each
other . . . Who untangled all the Christmas lights?
C. WALLACE: Me! [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: She untangled all the lights. And remember, this is when one light was
burned out nothing worked.
C. WALLACE: And when two are burned out you go crazy.
ODOM-SOPER: Yes. You don’t remember that, Jim.
WILLIAMS: Yes, I do.
ODOM-SOPER: Do you?
44
D. WALLACE: And George basically put the lights on the tree, right?
C. WALLACE: And then all the family sat around and kibitzed: something there, too
much there, hang something up there. [chuckling] That’s true.
WILLIAMS: So when would you decorate? The day before or . . .
C. WALLACE: No, we generally decorated . . .
D. WALLACE: Quite a bit before.
C. WALLACE: Yes, a little bit before.
D. WALLACE: A week before or something.
WILLIAMS: But all the brothers would come over and . . .
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes.
D. WALLACE: But that was all the time. I mean, they were around all the time—not
every meal, but a lot of meals, every major meal.
C. WALLACE: Yes, every Thanksgiving, every holiday . . .
D. WALLACE: Oh, well, more often than that. Like every week they’d be over,
something like that, you know.
WILLIAMS: And the Trumans had Vietta then?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: No, the Wallaces had Vietta.
WILLIAMS: The Wallaces?
D. WALLACE: Right.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Mother Wallace paid her?
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Well, sure.
45
C. WALLACE: I guess she did.
D. WALLACE: Of course she did.
C. WALLACE: All right, here is Marian and David in their cold weather outfits and
all . . .[8-135-1]
D. WALLACE: This would be that winter of ’38-’39.
C. WALLACE: This is all 219 North Delaware. It couldn’t be anything . . .
WILLIAMS: You have a Mickey Mouse cartoon book of some kind.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s how I taught myself to read. Seriously.
WILLIAMS: You taught yourself to read?
D. WALLACE: Yes, reading Mickey Mouse comics, sitting in my maternal
grandfather’s little rocking chair, which I still have, which was her and
my father’s.
C. WALLACE: I wish we had saved all those comics.
WILLIAMS: The Meyers’?
D. WALLACE: Was it Meyer’s rocking chair? It was your father’s rocking chair, the
little tiny one?
C. WALLACE: My father’s.
D. WALLACE: And it was covered with velvet, and then Mother and Dad had it
recovered in a bamboo/rattan sort of thing, which I still have, and
Christopher had it—my son. But I literally sat by . . . If this is the
upstairs, the big room, this is Delaware Street and you have two
windows here and you have a fireplace here, right? A door into the
room over there. And I sat right there by that window in that rocking
chair and taught myself to read with Mickey Mouse comics.
46
WILLIAMS: In the southeast corner of the big bedroom?
D. WALLACE: Right.
C. WALLACE: I also have the rocking chair my mother had when she was a little girl.
Well, here they are.
WILLIAMS: That’s quite an outfit you had. Were you just outside somewhere?
C. WALLACE: Well, they didn’t wear them inside, really. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: No, but are they on the way to school or just . . .
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t think so. I think they are walking from the house down to
the driveway to get in the car.
D. WALLACE: Or go down and see . . .
C. WALLACE: Aunt May or Aunt Natalie.
D. WALLACE: May or Natalie.
WILLIAMS: And your dad was there to take your picture.
D. WALLACE: Standing there taking pictures. Worse than I am.
WILLIAMS: I think it’s the one in the slide show that you’ll see tomorrow
[82-133-3].
D. WALLACE: Well, there’s the thing, that same thing.
WILLIAMS: Okay, the swing. It looks like you got quite a few toys.
C. WALLACE: Oh, they were good. Santa Claus always . . .
D. WALLACE: Is this the train now?
WILLIAMS: This says it’s ’43.
D. WALLACE: It couldn’t be ’43. Look at how little she is. See how little? Do I look
nine years old? No.
C. WALLACE: You’re about six in these.
47
D. WALLACE: Mother, I’m not six because Marian is about two. This is ’39 or ’40,
Christmas of ’39 or ’40.
C. WALLACE: God, this seems so hard.
D. WALLACE: It’s the same one. She’s wearing the same dress. It’s the same presents.
WILLIAMS: This one’s different, though.
D. WALLACE: It’s the same stuff. There’s the same drum, there’s the same . . . this
thing. That was a real monstrous present.
WILLIAMS: That was ’39 or . . .
C. WALLACE: That’s Grandmother Wallace with Marian and David.
D. WALLACE: Now this is later. Now, this could be ’43 now.
WILLIAMS: This is 82-134.
D. WALLACE: See, does that say ’43? Well, doesn’t that make more sense? It isn’t
even the same decoration on the . . .
C. WALLACE: She’s such a cute little girl. Grew up and had seven kids. She had
cancer, and we lost her.
D. WALLACE: This is the chair that sat right here. The clock’s in the corner. That’s the
corner of the room right here. So this is the chair that was right over
there where they put George and May’s furniture, right?
C. WALLACE: Presents.
D. WALLACE: Presents, sorry. Did you know her legs used to swell up all the time?
WILLIAMS: Why was that?
D. WALLACE: What’s the term? See how swollen her legs are?
ODOM-SOPER: Gout.
D. WALLACE: No, dropsy, whatever it is. It’s when you have bad circulation.
48
HAGENSEN: Isn’t that phlebitis?
D. WALLACE: Something like that.
WILLIAMS: Was that a typical scene?
D. WALLACE: Very typical.
WILLIAMS: She’d sit and read to you?
D. WALLACE: No, this is very posed.
C. WALLACE: She always had trouble with her ankles. There they are, and that’s . . .
David was old enough, going to first grade there.
WILLIAMS: [reading book title in picture] “Transport picture . . .” Okay. Going to
school?
C. WALLACE: First grade. I’m sorry.
WILLIAMS: That’s okay. Now we’re back to Mickey Mouse. This is 83-11.
ODOM-SOPER: She’s cute.
C. WALLACE: It’s Marian.
WILLIAMS: 83-12, you can see the pergola in this one.
D. WALLACE: Well, yes, but we’re back many years. This is back to the other crowd,
Mickey Mouse, you know. This was going to school, obviously.
C. WALLACE: Yes, that’s the outfit you had when you went to . . .
D. WALLACE: Oh, that awful hat. I remember that, with that brim that had fuzz all over
it.
WILLIAMS: And the ear flaps.
D. WALLACE: Well, the whole thing. I mean, it’s an aviator hat. This is modeled after
an aviator hat at the time, you know.
C. WALLACE: All the kids were wearing them, just like they wear Levis now.
49
WILLIAMS: Was that just in the back yard?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: You know where it was. It is dated 1939. There it is, dated 1939. But
I’ve got to tell you, Marian looks older than three years old, I’ll tell you,
there. But if it’s dated, we can’t argue about it, can we? No, we can’t.
And where is this pergola that was supposed to be in the back . . .?
WILLIAMS: It’s in this one.
D. WALLACE: It says in this one.
WILLIAMS: Well, that may be the card for this one.
D. WALLACE: Well, this is a totally different picture.
WILLIAMS: They copied the cards wrong on some of these.
D. WALLACE: God, I wish we had a magnifying glass so we could see what this
magazine, book, is I’m reading.
WILLIAMS: It looks like something “pictures.” “Transport pictures?” Were you
interested in airplanes?
D. WALLACE: I have the original book I had then, which was about DC-3’s. I found it
the other day. But that’s not it. This looks like soft stuff, looks like
magazines.
WILLIAMS: You all certainly saved things.
D. WALLACE: I started throwing away . . .
C. WALLACE: I wish we had saved all those . . .
D. WALLACE: Mother, don’t jump ahead.
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Don’t jump ahead. You’re getting to the end of the book before you get
50
to the. . . . You’re getting all the good stuff.
C. WALLACE: No, I’m trying to see if . . . that is Marian. It’s in the back yard [82-136-
3].
WILLIAMS: What’s this fence?
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s that back porch, how it used to be. And that used to be like,
when you went down under to the basement.
D. WALLACE: Where you go down to the basement. It had that open panel thing, like
one-by-sixes.
WILLIAMS: Where did this fence run?
D. WALLACE: It wasn’t a fence. It was across the bottom of the porch.
WILLIAMS: This thing right here?
D. & C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: That’s under the back porch, across the bottom of the back porch.
C. WALLACE: And you went into the basement there.
D. WALLACE: This is the back porch.
C. WALLACE: Well, now it has a great big back porch, but those days it just had the
little narrow one.
WILLIAMS: But this looks like it runs down to the driveway.
C. WALLACE: No, it’s going this way. It’s the angle of it.
D. WALLACE: This is the house. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wrong. This is that little picket
fence that was there. This is the side of the porch.
WILLIAMS: Okay. That’s right.
D. WALLACE: So the kitchen door is right there, and the stairways are right there. That
little area around where all those bushes are was fenced at one time.
51
God knows why, but for a very short time.
C. WALLACE: There was a little fence here that we put out for him to go out and play
in.
D. WALLACCE: So they could lock me up.
WILLIAMS: Like a big playpen.
C. WALLACE: We locked him in, and he comes and unlocks it and brings the key up to
us. [chuckling]
[End of #4385; Begin #4396]
WILLIAMS: So it had to go up to the sides of the house to keep him in . . .
D. WALLACE: No, it was around those bushes right there.
C. WALLACE: There were four things.
D. WALLACE: You come down the kitchen stairs here and you come down that other
stairway there, and here’s a sidewalk, here’s a sidewalk. It was right
here.
C. WALLACE: You go down the sidewalk here, then you make a turn, and right there
was a little gate, and it went into this little fenced place and we had . . .
D. WALLACE: A kennel.
C. WALLACE: A kennel. [chuckling] And we had a sandbox in there for him to play
in.
WILLIAMS: These are 82-136.
D. WALLACE: God, you wonder what went wrong. It’s all in these pictures.
C. WALLACE: This is Marian [82-136-4].
WILLIAMS: This is Marian?
D. WALLACE: Locked me in the kennel.
52
C. WALLACE: See, here he is. [chuckling] See, here he is all locked in. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Here’s a little chair or something. Oh, okay.
D. WALLACE: This is Marian. Now, see, look. This is the screen porch off the
Trumans’ bedroom upstairs.
WILLIAMS: The sleeping porch.
D. WALLACE: The sleeping porch.
C. WALLACE: Yes, here’s another picture.
D. WALLACE: I forget these words for things. That’s what they were called, a sleeping
porch. You’re calling them . . . Mr. Truman’s nap room. Now you
know where you are here. Everything’s very clear in that picture, right?
You didn’t see where the little fenced cage is.
WILLIAMS: So the fence, did it run down all the way to the driveway?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: I don’t think it ran that far, no. Look at that miniature Adirondack chair
I’m sitting in [82-136-1]. Isn’t that neat? Isn’t that simply a ghastly
outfit with the beret and the matching blue flannel coat?
WILLIAMS: And you had a scarf.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] It was brown.
D. WALLACE: Brown.
WILLIAMS: Did you make any clothes?
C. WALLACE: No! [laughter]
D. WALLACE: Are you kidding? Oh, those shoes are real special, too [82-136-2].
C. WALLACE: [laughter] I was waiting for you to see those.
WILLIAMS: Did they pinch your feet?
53
C. WALLACE: Here’s Marian.
WILLIAMS: 82-137-3.
C. WALLACE: And we had this big . . . I was telling somebody we had a great big tree
back there. They cut it down or something . . .
D. WALLACE: Where those bushes are now, there was a tree in the middle of them all.
C. WALLACE: Well, it was where they put the Secret Service.
D. WALLACE: Oh, this is down there?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Mother, there’s still the damn fence. It was like you fenced the whole
back yard. [chuckling] That couldn’t be.
C. WALLACE: Yes, but it looks that way.
WILLIAMS: So you had a rope swing, it looks like.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and eventually it turned into a trapeze, and Margaret had that as. . .
WILLIAMS: It went up higher, you mean?
C. WALLACE: Well, yes, you know . . . [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Did anybody seem to mind when you were turning the yard into . . .
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: Why? It’s their yard. I mean, Grandmother didn’t complain, and the
Trumans were never there. They were off in Washington all the time.
Who’s going to say anything?
WILLIAMS: I just didn’t know if she had flowers out there.
C. WALLACE: Here’s Marian. Maybe some of that . . . Look, David, you’re getting
that . . .
D. WALLACE: Only one is indoors and the other is outdoors.
54
WILLIAMS: Is this the dog or is it stuffed [82-138]?
C. WALLACE: That’s the dog.
WILLIAMS: Spot, was it?
D. WALLACE: That’s Spot. That’s the pergola.
WILLIAMS: Is that full-grown Spot?
D. WALLACE: Oh, no. No, this is . . .
WILLIAMS: This is 82-138.
D. WALLACE: No, this isn’t. This is the Christmas after Spot. Nineteen forty sounds
about right. No, he must not be Spot because he would have been grown
up more. Just a minute! Something’s wrong, because there’s that little
baby dog in a Christmas picture, but I got Spot for my birthday. This is
birthday.
C. WALLACE: You never had two dogs; you only had one.
D. WALLACE: Well, I’m just saying something’s wrong here.
WILLIAMS: It wasn’t Mike, was it?
D. WALLACE: No, that’s that awful dog of Margaret’s. I still have the scar from him
when he bit my leg. It was a really awful dog.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember that dog.
D. WALLACE: The Irish setter?
C. WALLACE: Well, that was ours.
D. WALLACE: Red Irish setter?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: No, you’re not. It was Mike.
C. WALLACE: Well, we had one, too, but you weren’t even around then, so there was
55
nobody . . . He wouldn’t bite you.
D. WALLACE: Now, this I don’t think is October. I think this is probably January or
February, because that’s the only way Spot could be that size. But I
swear to God he was a birthday present, not a Christmas present.
C. WALLACE: Well, your birthday is in October.
D. WALLACE: So it wouldn’t work. Do you remember that in Aunt May’s house? The
scarf?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: On the swing, 82-137-1. This says 5/12/40.
D. WALLACE: It could be. I mean if that’s the date, that’s the date.
WILLIAMS: You would have been six.
D. WALLACE: No, five.
WILLIAMS: Almost, and going on six. The same thing [82-137-2]. So that was
hanging by a tree near the barn?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: I think whoever typed this on the back certainly saw people that aren’t in
this . . . Well, that’s David in the snowstorm, but they say Marian is
there, too.
D. WALLACE: What does it say on the back?
WILLIAMS: Some of these cards don’t match the photographs.
D. WALLACE: Playing together in the swing. That’s fine, okay.
WILLIAMS: Is this David?
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] Yes.
WILLIAMS: And who’s that?
56
C. WALLACE: David.
WILLIAMS: 82-139-1 & 2.
D. WALLACE: We’ve seen that hat before. That’s the hat.
WILLIAMS: Big gloves, too.
D. WALLACE: This was taken on the south side of the house right off of Grandmother’s
bedroom, on that little porch on the south side off the living room.
That’s actually turning around and shooting the other way from the same
place.
WILLIAMS: Toward the alleyway.
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Is this one Marian [82-139-3]?
C. WALLACE: Let me see, yes.
D. WALLACE: Where are the snows of yesteryear? Right? Isn’t that what I’m
supposed to say right now in my best Proustian French.
WILLIAMS: Would you crawl through the bushes or anything?
C. WALLACE: What are you saying in French?
D. WALLACE: Ou sont les neiges d’autrefois?
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Where are the snows of yesteryear?
C. WALLACE: Ou est la neige de l’autres annees?
D. WALLACE: Ou sont les neiges d’autrefois?
C. WALLACE: Ou est la neige.
D. WALLACE: Ou sont. No, Mother.
ODOM-SOPER: Ou est la neige.
57
WILLIAMS: The transcriber is going to love this.
D. WALLACE: Plural, plural, plural! Ou sont.
C. WALLACE: Where are? Ou sont les neiges . . .
ODOM-SOPER: The snows, he’s right.
D. WALLACE: Les neiges d’autrefois.
C. WALLACE: Of another time.
D. WALLACE: Yes, right.
WILLIAMS: I’m impressed.
D. WALLACE: And I can even quote Marcel Proust, too.
C. WALLACE: Et je peux parler Francais aussi.
D. WALLACE: This is the same place, looking the other way [82-139-4].
WILLIAMS: Is that a Western Flyer type thing? Did you have one of those?
D. WALLACE: Not Western Flyer. It’s American Flyer. Both of those are wrong. It’s
something Flyer.
C. WALLACE: [reading the card for 82-140-1 to 3] “Dressed in Sunday clothes.” I
didn’t know they had Sunday clothes.
D. WALLACE: We’re back in our little sailor outfits.
WILLIAMS: Yes, this says “September 21, 1941.”
D. WALLACE: I presume someone who has nothing better to do over there looked it up
and saw this was a Sunday, so they put “Dressed in Sunday clothes,”
right? Right. Boy, is that an ugly outfit.
C. WALLACE: Here you are in your Sunday clothes again, and he’s standing on the
edge of a teeter-totter.
WILLIAMS: You had a teeter-totter?
58
D. WALLACE: Yes, it was in the back yard, right down toward the driveway.
WILLIAMS: And there’s somebody’s car. Whose car is that? This is 82-140-3.
D. WALLACE: What’s the year?
WILLIAMS: 9/21/41.
D. WALLACE: It doesn’t look like the Ford. Oh, yes, it is, that’s the side. It’s my
father’s 1939 Ford two-door.
WILLIAMS: Is this the same car?
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s the Ford. No, but it looks like a four-door and we only had a
two-door Ford, so that doesn’t make any . . . Did anybody else have a
four-door, Mother?
C. WALLACE: I wouldn’t remember.
D. WALLACE: Frank had that ’39 Chevy that he drove until it fell apart.
C. WALLACE: Well, maybe it’s a Chevy.
D. WALLACE: No, it’s definitely a Ford. We always had Fords.
WILLIAMS: You always had Fords?
D. WALLACE: We did.
WILLIAMS: How come?
C. WALLACE: Because they got sort of . . . I don’t know, hooked.
D. WALLACE: Who knows how that was.
WILLIAMS: Well, the Trumans always had Chryslers and Dodges.
D. WALLACE: And George had a Hudson, the only imagination in the whole family,
and May had the Hudson then, and we had a ’39 Ford until we got a ’49
Ford.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] Going up in the world.
59
WILLIAMS: Ten years?
D. WALLACE: But that is definitely a four-door ’39 Ford, and it is not our car then. But
if I see the real picture I’ll know what it is.
WILLIAMS: Now you’re on the north side of the house.
C. WALLACE: Here’s Marian, and that’s May’s house in the background [82-140-1].
D. WALLACE: Actually, maybe we were all along. Those bushes look like the same
thing. Maybe all those pictures were on the north side.
WILLIAMS: It looks like you’ve worn out a spot in the grass under the swing.
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: There’s a lawn chair sitting out. Was that typical?
D. WALLACE: Do you see where the swing is? This is from the alley, here’s the
pergola, there’s the house across the street.
WILLIAMS: The Hunt house.
D. WALLACE: Yes, and the driveway is right there.
C. WALLACE: This is Fred and Margo . . .
D. WALLACE: So Mother was right. It was right where the Secret Service hut was.
C. WALLACE: There’s Fred and Margo [83-16].
D. WALLACE: In Denver.
WILLIAMS: Well, that’s a little . . . actually, a photo inside of a greeting card type
thing.
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: I’ve seen the original.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s at the house in Cherry Hill, isn’t it?
C. WALLACE: This is Margo on the sofa that they had in the room where the piano is
60
[83-7-1 & 2]. The piano was here, this is the front, and then as you
come along the side in front of those windows there they had this sofa.
WILLIAMS: It would have been on the north side then.
C. WALLACE: That’s right.
D. WALLACE: Yes, but that was their sofa, not ours, right?
C. WALLACE: That was their sofa.
D. WALLACE: But it was in the parlor.
C. WALLACE: Yes. And here she is again.
WILLIAMS: And this says it was December ’48. Is that right?
C. WALLACE: Yes, she was born in August of . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, this isn’t in Independence, is it?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Were you back for Christmas?
D. WALLACE: Well, then this is at the White House. No, this is Christmas in
Independence.
C. WALLACE: Independence.
D. WALLACE: Margo was born in August, so this is Christmas, so we came back on the
Eagle or something.
C. WALLACE: Yes, I had a picture of Margo with all of the family. I mean, here she is
with Grandmother.
WILLIAMS: Is this the same sofa that’s in the living room now with the blue
slipcover on it?
C. WALLACE: No. It might be the same sofa but it’s . . .
WILLIAMS: It looks kind of lumpy, the way that one is.
61
C. WALLACE: Don’t they have one in the parlor?
WILLIAMS: It’s a Victorian settee.
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes, the sort of icky Victorian thing. This has those sort of pointy
little corners in the back. I think this is the one in the living room.
C. WALLACE: Well, it had something different on it. [interview interrupted—
extraneous conversation regarding refreshments not transcribed]
D. WALLACE: That’s a wonderful picture of Grandmother.
WILLIAMS: Is that typical? I hear she always wore the neck . . .
D. WALLACE: The thing with a cameo, which was just her style. I don’t know. I
brought her that from Italy. These are nice pictures of Margo.
C. WALLACE: I don’t see things that they see in these pictures.
D. WALLACE: Well, look around.
WILLIAMS: It may not be the right card.
C. WALLACE: Is that Margaret with the Hunt kid?
WILLIAMS: It says it is, Marian and Margaret. 86-206-8 and 9.
C. WALLACE: It was Hunt, the Baptist minister’s . . . Hunt’s kid.
D. WALLACE: That’s the girl from across the street.
WILLIAMS: You said her name was Mary Ann or . . . ?
C. WALLACE: Here it is again.
D. WALLACE: Was it Mary Ann Hunt, Mother?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Is that Margaret? She looks awfully thin.
C. WALLACE: I thought so, too.
WILLIAMS: Oh, no, it’s Marian.
62
D. WALLACE: Well, are we going to date this thing here?
WILLIAMS: It says it’s Marian Wallace.
C. WALLACE: Where’s Marian? Where do they say? Let’s see.
D. WALLACE: Here’s Marian.
WILLIAMS: Marian on the left and the . . .
C. WALLACE: Marian. Yes, it’s Marian. Margo and . . .
D. WALLACE: You said Margaret.
C. WALLACE: Oh, no, Marian. I meant Marian. Marian is the one that played with the
Hunt kid.
D. WALLACE: All right, so this is about 1944. But how does that work? We were
already in Denver then. She’s got to be ten or twelve years old here.
C. WALLACE: We went back for a visit in the summer, too.
D. WALLACE: Oh, so that’s how it was.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: So how did they become friends?
C. WALLACE: Well, they were young people and they saw each other and thought,
Well, let’s play.
WILLIAMS: The same age, roughly?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And what about this one, 83-6?
C. WALLACE: The same thing. What is it?
WILLIAMS: It’s Fred.
C. WALLACE: It’s Fred, yes.
WILLIAMS: Where is that?
63
C. WALLACE: He’s sitting on a sofa in some room.
WILLIAMS: Is it the White House?
D. WALLACE: No, it’s 3751 [South Gilpin, Cherry Hills, Colorado].
WILLIAMS: What’s that mean?
D. WALLACE: No, it’s not. No, this is in . . .
C. WALLACE: 219 North Delaware.
D. WALLACE: Not that fireplace. That’s the White House or Blair House. I think it’s
Blair House.
WILLIAMS: They say “circa 1948.”
D. WALLACE: Well, then it would be Blair . . . No, because they knocked down the
White House in ’49.
WILLIAMS: I think there may be some more in this series. Let’s put it aside.
C. WALLACE: All right, Harry, Bess, Margaret, Fred, Grandmother Wallace, and Mary
Jane Truman [64-35-2].
WILLIAMS: Where were you?
D. WALLACE: Probably taking the picture.
C. WALLACE: I was not asked to be in the picture.
WILLIAMS: Were you there, though?
C. WALLACE: Yes, I must have been.
WILLIAMS: Do you remember the occasion? It’s 5/11/45.
C. WALLACE: 5/11/45?
WILLIAMS: That would have been just after he became president.
C. WALLACE: Well, it would be after the . . .
D. WALLACE: Oh, no, that has to be the wrong date.
64
WILLIAMS: 64-35-2.
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s a month after Roosevelt died.
C. WALLACE: Yes, or was that when Margaret . . . We went back for Margaret’s
graduation.
D. WALLACE: Well, if it says the date, this has got to be a . . .
WILLIAMS: It’s a wire service photo.
D. WALLACE: It’s a wire service photograph, so the date is not . . . Did you all go back
to the White House? We were living at the Ayres Hotel. That means
you went back the following month?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: Well, it says so. Here’s an AP picture that has you there May 11 of ’45.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. When was this picture taken?
WILLIAMS: It doesn’t say. It’s from Mr. Truman’s scrapbook.
C. WALLACE: Well, that is . . .
WILLIAMS: That’s 65-1285 . . .
C. WALLACE: Bess, Margaret, Marian, David, and Bill Metzger.
WILLIAMS: Bill Metzger?
C. WALLACE: M-E-T-Z-G-E-R, Metzger.
WILLIAMS: Who was that?
C. WALLACE: He was an attorney friend of ours, lives in Denver—did.
WILLIAMS: What house is this?
D. WALLACE: That is on the steps of the State Capitol of Wyoming. So there.
C. WALLACE: What were you doing up there?
D. WALLACE: It’s when Uncle Harry was on the 1948 non-political tour of the country,
65
the whistle stop campaign, and we were in Cheyenne with him.
C. WALLACE: And you went along?
D. WALLACE: We met him up there.
WILLIAMS: So you didn’t ride along for part of it?
D. WALLACE: No. Now, we may have.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember that.
D. WALLACE: Bess, Margaret, you, me, Betty Metzger, and Bill Metzger.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember those things. Betty Metzger?
D. WALLACE: Yes, right there next to Bill.
C. WALLACE: Way in the background, kind of dark?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And they were family friends of yours?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Yes, and one of these people here . . . this man is the governor of
Wyoming, I think, here.
WILLIAMS: The one you can’t hardly see?
D. WALLACE: I’m 99 percent sure this is. I know it’s that trip. It’s the ’48 . . . the trip
before the . . . It’s the summertime trip.
WILLIAMS: Before the campaign.
D. WALLACE: July ’48.
WILLIAMS: Well, they don’t have anything on the card.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know who in the hell that is.
D. WALLACE: I have a real problem with the date on this. I just don’t think everybody
could have gotten back, but maybe so, you know? That would be
66
exactly what the family would do.
WILLIAMS: It would have been around his birthday. Did they celebrate?
D. WALLACE: Truman’s birthday in the White House, yes.
WILLIAMS: V-E Day?
HAGENSEN: Wasn’t there a special service or ceremony for that, end of the war in
Europe or something, when they all went . . .
C. WALLACE: What date are we talking about?
D. WALLACE: May 11, ’45, three days after V-E Day, three days after his birthday.
C. WALLACE: When did Margaret graduate from college? We went back for that.
WILLIAMS: Would she have been twenty-one? That was in ’45.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: That’s college. That’s it. That’s why.
WILLIAMS: And that’s why she’s in the center like this.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s when she graduated from where, though?
C. WALLACE: George Washington.
D. WALLACE: She didn’t go to George Washington, did she?
C. WALLACE: She sure did.
D. WALLACE: Oh. Oh, that’s right, she did. Well, that’s her graduation.
WILLIAMS: And you went back for that?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Well, it was probably the first time the whole family went back to the
White House. I mean, they gave poor Eleanor three weeks to get
everything out of there and then we moved in like a bunch of magpies.
67
WILLIAMS: Madge’s legs were swollen up a little bit.
D. WALLACE: They always are.
C. WALLACE: Now, here is a date for inauguration for 1949 [83-100-1 to 8 series].
D. WALLACE: Yes, January 20.
WILLIAMS: Can you even tell from these pictures?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Is this in the White House? Blair House?
C. WALLACE: I can start down here. Okay, where will I start? I’ll start here. That’s
May. That’s May. I’m not sure about that, ask David about there. I
think that’s Aunt B. That’s Fred, that’s Frank. This looks like Natalie.
WILLIAMS: That one’s real dark.
C. WALLACE: And this looks like a chair.
WILLIAMS: Were you getting ready?
D. WALLACE: Mother, you have a wonderful sense of humor. Where has this been all
my life?
WILLIAMS: Were you getting ready for the inaugural?
C. WALLACE: Well, we were all dressed in formals with corsages.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s Frank there.
WILLIAMS: This is the one she . . .
D. WALLACE: May, Frank . . . Who? She doesn’t know who that is?
C. WALLACE: Not at the top left.
WILLIAMS: Who do they say?
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s the same one. It’s the same dress in all three of them. Look at
the lace covering the arms.
68
C. WALLACE: I thought so, too.
WILLIAMS: It’s May.
C. WALLACE: In fact, it looks like May has a veil over her head.
D. WALLACE: No, this is May right here. That’s the same time. Yes, see over her
head? Well, then she put it around her back like that. She’s got a lace
stole.
C. WALLACE: And she was trying to figure out which way looked better.
D. WALLACE: And she was trying to figure it out. But that’s definitely May. There are
those shoulders, you know?
WILLIAMS: So who do you think took these pictures? George?
D. WALLACE: It could be, yes. See here, hello, here we are. Same pose, same place,
Blair House. Blair House.
WILLIAMS: It’s 83-6.
C. WALLACE: Blair House, yes.
D. WALLACE: The White House doesn’t have any round fireplaces, that I remember.
We were all staying in Blair House, and Blair House does have round
fireplaces.
WILLIAMS: So 83-6 is the same as 83-100-5.
C. WALLACE: You know, we’d get ready to go to a party and we’d go down and get
ready to go out the door, and here laid out on the floor were boxes of
corsages. Take your choice, whichever one you want. People would
send them in, and they’d just . . . ten of them or more. Never so many
flowers to wear in my life.
D. WALLACE: Yes, I’m sure this is not family quarters in the White House. I’m sure
69
this is Blair House.
C. WALLACE: That’s at Blair House.
WILLIAMS: Look at this. Is that the way they put the . . .
D. WALLACE: It says “family quarters in the White House,” but it doesn’t look like the
rooms on the third floor. I mean, the ceilings are too high, you see? The
ceilings are very low on the third floor of the White House, and there’s
not that much up there anyway. Blair House.
WILLIAMS: This one, it’s 83-111, and it says “Marian and Natalie Wallace on a
couch at Blair House.”
D. WALLACE: That’s right, Marian and Aunt Nat.
WILLIAMS: It looks like the same room as this other.
D. WALLACE: See, we’re all in Blair House. It’s got to be Blair House. But the
giveaway is . . . look at the height of the ceilings. See, it’s not that high
on the third floor of the White House, which were the family quarters,
but they are in Blair.
WILLIAMS: So Blair House is, in a way, more elegant or formal?
D. WALLACE: Well, than the top floor of the White House. You can’t see it above the
parapet. The White House has only two floors, then you’ve got the
fence, but between that there’s a whole other floor.
WILLIAMS: Again, I apologize. These aren’t very good copies, but . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, you’ll have to ask David about those.
WILLIAMS: 83-101[-1 to 8].
C. WALLACE: I know who I think they are, but I want to hear what he thinks.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s Frank in one of them. I can see from here.
70
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Is this the same occasion, or different?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: There’s Natalie and Mother and Frank. Look, we’re all in the same
damned room in Blair House. I mean, I can’t see, they’re such awful
pictures. This is the family dining room at the White House. It’s Dad
and Alonzo Fields.
WILLIAMS: That’s number 4 in that series.
D. WALLACE: Yes. And Frank leaning on his chin like that. If I could see the picture I
could go right around the table. That was Christmas of 1945. I’m sure it
was Christmas.
WILLIAMS: This says January of ’49.
D. WALLACE: I mean ’49. Okay, well, that wasn’t Christmas. It was just dinner. Why
does it look like Christmas dinner, though?
WILLIAMS: Well, was it the inauguration?
D. WALLACE: Yes. I think that’s the family dining room, but I don’t think it’s the State
Dining Room. These are really good pictures, if I could see what they
are. Here’s Bess.
WILLIAMS: Again, I think these are just negatives that they’ve made contact prints.
C. WALLACE: I’d say this is Bess, Harry, little Margo . . . I guess it was Marian, I don’t
know, with Margaret, and I don’t know who the guy is that preached
[68-1667].
WILLIAMS: What are they doing at a Baptist church?
C. WALLACE: Oh, they went there to church.
71
WILLIAMS: 11/22/45?
C. WALLACE: Sure, they used to take turns.
WILLIAMS: In Washington, I assume.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s definitely Marian and Margaret.
WILLIAMS: Where were the rest of you?
D. WALLACE: There’s Dad right there.
WILLIAMS: Behind the minister.
D. WALLACE: Date’s wrong.
C. WALLACE: That’s Marian, David, and Bess [90-35].
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s about right because . . . This would have been Thanksgiving
in ’45. We went back for Thanksgiving after having been there in May?
It could have been.
WILLIAMS: This is the 68-1667.
D. WALLACE: Well, they’re sure of the date, I guess, from other reasons, I think.
C. WALLACE: A terrible picture.
WILLIAMS: Well, this looks like a wire photo, see?
D. WALLACE: Okay, but the only thing I have to add is there’s Dad.
WILLIAMS: The second one from the right in back?
C. WALLACE: Oh, that’s our Christmas. That I can tell you.
D. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know if it’s third. I don’t know what that is.
C. WALLACE: Here’s Frank, me . . .
WILLIAMS: Presumably the whole family was there.
C. WALLACE: That’s the back of Fred’s head.
72
HAGENESEN: When was this taken, again?
C. WALLACE: In the family dining room at the White House.
WILLIAMS: This is 90-35.
D. WALLACE: Oh, there’s the family dining room.
WILLIAMS: Could you talk about 90-35?
D. WALLACE: Yes. There are better ones of this with my eyes open. Those were in
People magazine, and I had complained that, you know, everybody gets
their picture taken with him but us, and so she said, “Come on, boys,
let’s take some pictures.” And we walked out in the yard and took some
pictures.
WILLIAMS: You and Marian?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Aunt B.
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: You have that.
WILLIAMS: And this is 68-1236.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s me, Marian, Aunt B. That’s a Truman. Which Truman?
C. WALLACE: Mary Jane?
D. WALLACE: Fred . . . That’s not Mary Jane. It’s Fred’s wife. What’s her name?
HAGENSEN: Margaret, too?
C. WALLACE: Luella? No, I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Is that Fred?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s one of the Truman guys.
73
WILLIAMS: Yes, that’s Fred. It looks like Fred.
D. WALLACE: And that would be his wife.
WILLIAMS: What was her name?
C. WALLACE: It wasn’t Luella, was it? No.
WILLIAMS: That’s Vivian wife.
D. WALLACE: This is well into . . . What is this? Where are we here, in ’51?
WILLIAMS: It’s 1/3/53.
D. WALLACE: Oh, this was the last Christmas in the White House.
C. WALLACE: That was our last Christmas.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that was the last one. Grandmother had died in ’52, so this was
when we all got together for that last Christmas holiday in the White
House.
C. WALLACE: And she had it in the State Dining Room with all the trimmings. It was
kind of nice.
WILLIAMS: Do you recognize people in the background?
C. WALLACE: Well, isn’t there a Fields in that picture?
D. WALLACE: No, this is Nicholson and [unintelligible], Secret Service men.
C. WALLACE: Fields is in one of these.
D. WALLACE: What?
ODOM-SOPER: I’m trying to remember Fred’s wife’s name.
D. WALLACE: Yes, well, it’s right there.
ODOM-SOPER: That doesn’t help us with her name.
D. WALLACE: Silly. Yes, she was all right. Where are we going? That’s the thing.
Where are we going and . . . Well, no, look where we are! We’re not in
74
the White House.
C. WALLACE: Where are you?
D. WALLACE: In the Capitol. See over the door, the writing?
C. WALLACE: Was that the inauguration?
D. WALLACE: It wouldn’t be the inauguration in ’53, Mother, on January 3.
WILLIAMS: Were you just taking a tour?
D. WALLACE: No, it was a farewell speech or State of the Nation speech or something.
WILLIAMS: Does it say that on the back?
D. WALLACE: No, I don’t know what it says on the back. [reading] “. . . leaving the
house gallery after attending the opening of 83rd Congress.” Pretty
good guess, David. “Mrs. Fred Truman.”
C. WALLACE: Who’s Mrs. Fred Truman?
D. WALLACE: Mrs. Fred Truman.
WILLIAMS: We’re trying to think of it.
D. WALLACE: That’s what we’re trying to think of.
WILLIAMS: I have a picture of her grave.
D. WALLACE: Is she dead? [chuckling] Oh, I didn’t know, maybe it was one of these
bought in advance things, you know? What do you call that?
WILLIAMS: Planning ahead?
D. WALLACE: No, there’s another term for it. Pre-planned.
C. WALLACE: Pre-planned burial.
WILLIAMS: Pre-planned burials, yes. Okay, this is 83-103-2. Do you recognize
these people?
D. WALLACE: Yes, I recognize them all.
75
C. WALLACE: That’s the White House, and that’s the White House.
D. WALLACE: There’s Dad, Grandmother. Why don’t you have a picture we can see?
C. WALLACE: Wait till you see this one! They even give us backs of heads.
[chuckling]
D. WALLACE: [unintelligible], Marian, blank, me, Mother, Frank, George,
[unintelligible], Alonzo Fields. I don’t know the other ones.
WILLIAMS: Alonzo Fields is the one at the far right?
D. WALLACE: Yes, and taking the picture would be my father. No, he’s here.
C. WALLACE: No, he’s there with the back of his head.
D. WALLACE: There’s Frank and there’s George. So who’s taking the picture? May.
C. WALLACE: May Wallace isn’t there, is she?
WILLIAMS: That’s not her.
D. WALLACE: That’s Natalie, maybe.
C. WALLACE: Well, Natalie wouldn’t take a picture. Is Margaret in that?
D. WALLACE: Yes, Mother, but you can’t see them. They’re just white blobs. We
have this picture. You’ve seen it for twenty years, thirty years.
WILLIAMS: Was it just the Wallaces that would go up for Christmas?
C. WALLACE: And Mary Jane. How about Mary Jane?
D. WALLACE: Mary Jane. Yes, she’s there, standing right next to him.
WILLIAMS: Vivian wouldn’t?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: So it was basically you guys.
D. WALLACE: Yes, and that’s in the family dining room. Well, let’s see, now they’ll
tell me who my family is here. Margaret, that probably is. Yes, so that’s
76
. . . No, no, no. Margaret, Madge. They’re calling that Margaret? No,
this they’re calling Margaret. They’re going left to right, right?
Margaret, Madge . . .
C. WALLACE: Who’s Madge?
D. WALLACE: You know who she is. Mother!
C. WALLACE: Well, who is Madge?
D. WALLACE: Gates Wallace.
C. WALLACE: Well, yes, but she was dead. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Not in 1947 she wasn’t, at Christmas dinner.
C. WALLACE: Oh, I thought that was the 50-something one.
WILLIAMS: Fifty-three.
D. WALLACE: Their identification is all off on this, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
See, this is bad. Here it says “second row, left to right.” I don’t know
what they’re . . . Second row? There’s not a first row and second row in
this thing.
WILLIAMS: And you think they would have gone clockwise.
D. WALLACE: That’s Dad. Well, I mean, are we going to just let it be wrong?
WILLIAMS: Well, eventually it will probably be corrected.
D. WALLACE: Well, just a minute, here it is. Around the table from the left then, Fred,
Madge Gates Wallace, Natalie Wallace,”—could be, yes. Marian, Bess
opposite him, yes, then me, then Christine, right, then Frank, George,
Mary Jane, Harry, and Margaret. Margaret took the picture.
WILLIAMS: She’s not in it.
D. WALLACE: No. She took the picture.
77
WILLIAMS: Well, here’s who some of these people are. This is 83-103.
D. WALLACE: Oh, doesn’t that look like fun? No wonder they threw us out. This is the
East Room. This is the family picture. There’s Dad. There’s Mother.
There’s Grandmother. I’m right in there somewhere, and Marian’s
there. And I can’t see a thing. That’s Christmas in the White House.
WILLIAMS: With Margaret and Marian?
D. WALLACE: Yes. Same dinner. See, Margaret’s back in the chair now. Dad’s out of
the chair. He took that picture. Now they’re both out of the chair. Now
this is just everybody sitting around upstairs.
C. WALLACE: [laughing] I think we’re getting slap-happy, don’t you?
D. WALLACE: Oh, no, this is Margaret’s crowd. All her friends from school. But this
is the one in the East Room. I can’t it’s too small for me to see, other
than Marian sitting on the floor.
C. WALLACE: Margo was there, too, that last Christmas, but she was upstairs. She was
such a brat.
WILLIAMS: Margo was how old?
C. WALLACE: Four.
WILLIAMS: She was being a brat?
C. WALLACE: Oh, God, she was terrible. So we had to take her upstairs.
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes, there I am right next to Uncle Harry. My ears sticking out.
C. WALLACE: Look at this one of David.
WILLIAMS: It this you [83-107-6]?
D. WALLACE: What?
WILLIAMS: Is that you?
78
D. WALLACE: No!
WILLIAMS: It says it’s “possibly David Wallace.”
D. WALLACE: No, it’s not. Well, we know who that is. That’s Thundercloud.
[Margaret, 83-107-8]. This is in the east wing in the White House.
WILLIAMS: Now this is in the study in the home now [John J. Audubon print in 82-
107-4 & 5]. Do you know anything about the “Columbia jays”? These
Audubon?
D. WALLACE: No, but that’s in the east wing of the White House there. There they all
are. You’ve got the IDs on all those.
WILLIAMS: So this is in the White House, back to the White House?
D. WALLACE: This is Madge Strickler.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes.
D. WALLACE: Now, they’re the brothers.
C. WALLACE: Margaret.
D. WALLACE: Margaret Strickler.
C. WALLACE: Margaret Strickler. She’s the one that . . .
WILLIAMS: The voice, or piano, music. . .
D. WALLACE: Yes. I’m sure that’s who that is right there, sitting in the sofa right there
on the bottom.
WILLIAMS: Does it say that?
C. WALLACE: Yes, that’s who that is—that “unidentified couple.”
WILLIAMS: Is that what you were laughing about?
D. WALLACE: This on the back of the Williamsburg. I can’t se who the people are, but
that’s the back of the Williamsburg. The fantail.
79
[End #4386; Begin #4387]
WILLIAMS: And who’s this? Who’s the one that they think is you?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t see. I’m going blind here with these
awful pictures.
C. WALLACE: What did I want to ask David if he’s seen a picture of? Clark. . . ?
WILLIAMS: “Unidentified older couple,” so that’s the Stricklers [83-107-5]?
D. WALLACE: I think so. The Stricklers, yes. Well, that’s sure not me [83-107-6].
And that’s when they did the family picture.
C. WALLACE: Of the family, yes.
WILLIAMS: You went out on the yacht?
C. WALLACE: No, that was taken in the White House, and here . . .
D. WALLACE: Mother, you’re not even talking about the same picture.
C. WALLACE: Of Frank, George, Bess, and Fred?
D. WALLACE: No, we’re not talking about that anymore.
WILLIAMS: There’s one that’s . . . Would you have gone out in December on the
yacht?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Why? Wouldn’t it have been cold?
D. WALLACE: Last time together.
C. WALLACE: Well, they had inside rooms. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: I thought the fun part of it was to stand out by the railing.
C. WALLACE: Yes, it was nice, though.
D. WALLACE: I mean, they got ’47 of us, fourteen, thirteen years old. Do I look
thirteen years old to you there? He looks about twenty-five, yes.
80
WILLIAMS: He looks about twenty-five.
C. WALLACE: Wait till he sees this next one. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Oh, I know. That’s the same one that’s on here. That’s Christmas
upstairs in the White House. Here it is right here. There it is. [laughter]
Oh, that’s wonderful of Margaret. Honey, we love you. [chuckling]
Boy, are we coy.
WILLIAMS: 82-158.
D. WALLACE: No, it’s the same one. Look, it’s the same stupid picture. Look, it’s the
same one.
WILLIAMS: The big eight-by-ten.
D. WALLACE: It’s exactly the same picture.
WILLIAMS: Yes, with that one you really get the detail in it.
D. WALLACE: Oh, wonderful. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: You said you wanted them all blown up like that.
C. WALLACE: Can you see it?
WILLIAMS: What are you holding, presents?
D. WALLACE: This great Missouri beauty. Don’t you just love her?
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] Oh, dear, we’re getting slaphappy.
D. WALLACE: Well, we’re just about done. If you move along a little quicker we’ll get
done.
C. WALLACE: Well, I’m doing it as fast . . .
WILLIAMS: This must have been that same dinner that we saw earlier. 83-77 and 79.
D. WALLACE: Yes, but this is not the Christmas dinner. This is back to . . .
WILLIAMS: It says January.
81
D. WALLACE: January.
WILLIAMS: This says ’49, so you would have been there for the inauguration, doing
something. More of the same, and they’re small. It really does help you
for to see them.
D. WALLACE: There’s a blowup of that one in the East Room with Margo sitting on the
floor. Marian sitting on the floor [81-104-4].
WILLIAMS: Well, somebody’s in a high chair here. Is that Margo?
D. WALLACE: That’s Margo in the high chair. Well, this is the last one. That’s in the
State Dining Room. That’s that last weekend [81-103].
WILLIAMS: So you had a big farewell?
D. WALLACE: That’s the big farewell hoo-haw, yes. See, there’s Marian and me, and
Uncle Harry and Mary Jane and Frank and Natalie and Frank again—no,
it couldn’t be—and somebody and somebody and Bess and Fred and
Mother’s back and Margo in the high chair.
WILLIAMS: This is 81-103. That’s the wrong card, I think.
D. WALLACE: Playing cards? Sure.
WILLIAMS: [chuckling] It’s the wrong card.
D. WALLACE: No, there’s in front of the Christmas tree, I believe. Well, anyway,
everyone has to figure out who this is. Well, there’s Margo. They got
her off the floor this time. Oh, no, this is the last Christmas in the White
House. See, that was Marian on the floor before. Now, this is Margo.
Marian’s standing up now.
WILLIAMS: Well, 81-104.
D. WALLACE: Natalie, Margaret. This is great. I wish I had a copy of this. I think I
82
do. Natalie, Margo, Marian, George, May, Fred, Mother, Bess, Frank
with his ears sticking out, Harry, me with mine sticking out, Mary Jane.
They’re all here.
WILLIAMS: I’ve heard that George was dark. Is that just . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, he was dark-skinned, yes, dark-complected.
C. WALLACE: I wonder what that is?
WILLIAMS: Did Frank always have the circles under his eyes?
D. WALLACE: And his ears sticking out like that, yes. Always.
WILLIAMS: Any reason that you know of?
D. WALLACE: I think Natalie just was a bad cook, and he ate bad food all his life, and
so he had these big dark things under his eyes.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “Snapshot of Marian and David posing outdoors with an
unidentified girl.” 83-109.
C. WALLACE: What?
WILLIAMS: Is that you?
D. WALLACE: I can’t even see it. What am I doing with about a 1926 car in the
background? Marian is bigger than me? No, that’s Margaret, that’s . . .
You don’t have a magnifying glass, do you? No, this is certainly not
that, but this is something. Actually, the car is a much different car than
I thought. It’s about a ’35, ’36. That’s Frank’s car. That’s a ’39 Chevy.
So it’s Margaret, me, and Marian.
WILLIAMS: So it is right.
D. WALLACE: Margaret must be the unidentified girl. I mean, that’s what it looks like
to me. I can’t really see it very well.
83
WILLIAMS: This one don’t even bother with. These are bad.
D. WALLACE: Well, we just did this. It’s the same one, just a different pose of the
same crowd. You know how you can tell? Because the bench is off to
the side like that.
WILLIAMS: These are deteriorating Polaroids.
C. WALLACE: These are really bad. You can’t even tell . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, this is you, Mother, right there.
WILLIAMS: 85-97-4.
D. WALLACE: Yes, a deteriorating photograph.
WILLIAMS: They say it’s a “small Polaroid snapshot, not in good condition, of a
Christmas dinner . . . at the Truman house?”
C. WALLACE: Well, I suppose that looks like Bess, doesn’t it?
D. WALLACE: Well, no, I don’t think so.
WILLIAMS: I guess it is, isn’t it?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s where it is.
WILLIAMS: That’s the chandelier. It doesn’t have the . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, there’s Frank and da-da-da-da. There’s me and George, and
there’s Marian, and she’s got to be fifteen or sixteen years old here. It’s
about ’53. Here’s Dad. Now, let’s see what they say it is.
WILLIAMS: I don’t think they’re dated at all. Was there a servant?
D. WALLACE: Well, this is Fred [85-97-3]. They’ve got it all wrong here. It’s Fred,
Frank . . . See, they have it as George, Frank . . . No, it’s Fred, Frank,
then Bess, then David—no, not Fred—then that’s George, and Marian.
84
They just have George . . . This is Fred, that’s George. So this is . . . I
don’t know, this is very definitely Independence.
WILLIAMS: The first Christmas back from the White House?
D. WALLACE: No, we didn’t go anymore then, did we?
C. WALLACE: The last Christmas we had with the family was in ’52.
D. WALLACE: In ’52. No, but there’s something definitely going on here, and Marian
is older than fourteen. Look. I mean, she’s wearing lipstick and
everything. Come on, Mother. This looks like about ’54 or ’55, and I
don’t know where . . . It’s in the parlor, like we all came back for
something. That’s Dad on the left.
C. WALLACE: Right here, there’s the . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, I know.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and then this looks like Frank Wallace way down here.
D. WALLACE: Yes, Mother, I already identified it. We’re just trying to figure out what
it is.
WILLIAMS: Were there any other holidays or graduations?
D. WALLACE: There was nothing after that. Boom, gone.
C. WALLACE: What date did you call this?
D. WALLACE: Well, look at how old Marian looks.
WILLIAMS: It’s not dated.
D. WALLACE: On the right.
C. WALLACE: That’s not Marian.
D. WALLACE: Sure is.
C. WALLACE: It’s Margaret.
85
D. WALLACE: No, it’s not. It’s very definitely Marian.
C. WALLACE: It is not Marian.
D. WALLACE: It is, because we have a copy of it.
C. WALLACE: I’d say it’s Margaret.
D. WALLACE: You’d be wrong. Margaret looks that young and I look that old?
C. WALLACE: You don’t look old. You’re right there next to George.
D. WALLACE: Yes, I’m at least twenty.
C. WALLACE: Here’s George, and then there’s you. You look about fourteen.
D. WALLACE: No, wrong.
WILLIAMS: Is that the same girl?
D. WALLACE: Here it is, the same thing. Oh, now just a minute.
WILLIAMS: It says, “Frank is carving the turkey.”
D. WALLACE: Yes, there it is. Did we have Christmas in ’51 at the house, not at the
White House?
C. WALLACE: Yes, we’ve always . . . Yes.
D. WALLACE: Don’t say “Yeah, we’ve always . . .” We had it at the White House. This
is Christmas ’51. I think that’s what it has to be.
WILLIAMS: So Margo would have been thirteen or so?
D. WALLACE: Wearing lipstick.
WILLIAMS: You let her wear lipstick when she was thirteen?
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s certainly not Margaret. Yes, this is ’51, Christmas of ’51 here.
That’s what it is.
WILLIAMS: It definitely wasn’t after ’52?
D. WALLACE: No, it’s definitely . . . Well, now, just when did Natalie die?
86
WILLIAMS: In the sixties.
D. WALLACE: Yes, the only thing, the only cropper here, if it’s ’51, where is
Grandmother? Now, the problem is she always sat at this end of the
table, so . . .
WILLIAMS: Okay, that’s the same thing we were going to ask tomorrow.
D. WALLACE: So she would be right here. There’s Dad.
WILLIAMS: She sat near the kitchen end?
D. WALLACE: She sat at the kitchen end all the time.
WILLIAMS: Was that considered the head?
D. WALLACE: That was her seat. No, the head was over there. That’s where Uncle
Harry sat all the time. But here he’s just sitting sort of around on the
side. I mean, it’s a very strange set-up, this table. There’s Mother. Or
who is that?
WILLIAMS: Who is sitting on the side?
D. WALLACE: See, if that’s Marian, she is talking to whoever this is, which is identified
as . . . Bess? Forget it. No, Christine.
WILLIAMS: This is number 1.
D. WALLACE: I know. Number 1. “On the right side of the photo, bottom to top:
Christine, Marian, Fred, David, Bess.” Well, we know that’s wrong
because we know this is George next to Marian. So that’s Christine. So
Marian is talking to Mother right here. Dad is across the table. Marian
is talking to you, you’re sitting right here, Dad is there, so Grandmother
is right here.
WILLIAMS: And then you have George.
87
D. WALLACE: Who took the picture?
WILLIAMS: Margaret?
D. WALLACE: Margaret took the picture.
WILLIAMS: These are from her papers.
D. WALLACE: Margaret had the Polaroid. Those are her pictures.
WILLIAMS: And do you think it’s ’51?
D. WALLACE: Fifty-one.
WILLIAMS: And so that’s why Grandma is not in it, because . . .
D. WALLACE: She’s here. She’s in it. Margaret’s shooting it over her head.
WILLIAMS: But she was there, she’s just not in the pictures.
D. WALLACE: Right. Yes, I would not stake my life on it, but I think we can see it right
here, the whole thing.
WILLIAMS: Anything in these?
D. WALLACE: Edwin Land, eat your heart out. He just died, you see, and his pictures
are still fading.
WILLIAMS: A dark snapshot of Christine and Fred on a couch. Is that you?
C. WALLACE: Well, I’m way up here in the dark. [83-99-1]
D. WALLACE: God, this is more fun than we’ve had in a long time, looking at all these
bad old pictures.
WILLIAMS: Do you know these three? This is 83-99-3.
D. WALLACE: I can’t even see them, so how can I know them?
WILLIAMS: It says it’s Margaret with two girls.
D. WALLACE: This is at the White House, right?
C. WALLACE: Do you want to try my glasses? They’re just magnifying glasses.
88
D. WALLACE: All these bookcases. Is this at the White House? Where is this supposed
to be? One.
WILLIAMS: At the White House during the time of the 1949 inauguration.
D. WALLACE: Who are those funny-looking people?
WILLIAMS: Number 2 is Christine Wallace.
D. WALLACE: That’s not Fred and Christine, absolutely not. That’s not them, not at all.
C. WALLACE: I couldn’t tell.
D. WALLACE: Absolutely not.
WILLIAMS: Who is it?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Margaret or . . .?
D. WALLACE: Well, there’s the driveway. It says, “Margaret . . . ”
C. WALLACE: I don’t know which way this goes. Oh, thank you. What’s all this stuff
here?
HAGENSEN: I’m not sure.
C. WALLACE: I can’t make heads or tails out of anything here.
HAGENSEN: This looks like it may be inside a train or an airplane, because there’s
little windows.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Yes, and a young Margaret Truman, that’s right.
C. WALLACE: I can’t tell anything on that one.
D. WALLACE: So that is not Christine and Fred Wallace, and that is not Christine
Wallace on a couch.
WILLIAMS: They’re saying one of these is you.
89
D. WALLACE: Oh, God, I love this. Don’t you love that picture of Margaret?
C. WALLACE: I didn’t read it because I couldn’t make head nor tail out of it.
D. WALLACE: Don’t you see Margaret there? And Bess [83-99-?]?
WILLIAMS: Where are they? At a baseball game?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: David used to have a table like this. It’s a lot of work but they’re pretty.
WILLIAMS: Does that look like Natalie to you?
C. WALLACE: I can’t see. I gave him my glasses.
D. WALLACE: No, it’s at, whatever this is.
WILLIAMS: Some kind of military . . .?
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s what they’re at.
C. WALLACE: Maybe they’re at a parade.
WILLIAMS: They say this is Natalie, and then the rest are unidentified women, 83-
102.
D. WALLACE: No, that’s not Natalie.
WILLIAMS: It’s not Natalie?
D. WALLACE: No. It’s a bunch of people on a bus. Oh, forget it. I mean, nobody’s
ever seen any of these people.
C. WALLACE: I don’t see how you could tell head nor tail . . .
D. WALLACE: Why don’t you just tell them to throw these away?
C. WALLACE: They won’t let them.
D. WALLACE: Maybe they’ll fade.
WILLIAMS: Marian. It says one of these is Marian.
D. WALLACE: It’s not. Believe me, it’s not.
90
WILLIAMS: Possibly Marian Wallace, number 4.
C. WALLACE: Possibly.
D. WALLACE: These pictures, you know, are before the . . . Remember Miss Lantern
Jaw, about 300 pictures back? That’s her. No, these pictures are
nowhere I’ve ever seen. This brick building with the striped awning in
front of it? I’ve never seen this building.
WILLIAMS: It looks like a tavern.
D. WALLACE: It looks like a tavern. And look, everybody is riding on a bus here. The
bus window is dated from about 1949, 1948. This is definitely not
Natalie. I mean, this is in California. Look at the tile roof and
everything.
WILLIAMS: We have those down on the Plaza.
D. WALLACE: And who is this supposed to be? Aunt B. floating in a . . .
WILLIAMS: In an inner tube?
D. WALLACE: In an inner tube. I think you could give those pictures up for . . .
WILLIAMS: Well, somebody went on a trip and had these.
D. WALLACE: That’s right. So find out who went on a trip and then you know who it
is.
C. WALLACE: And what kind of a trip.
WILLIAMS: A bunch of women, where they went swimming and were on a bus.
D. WALLACE: So it’s the bridge club, is what it is.
WILLIAMS: Kind of a Hawaiian . . . They had a big straw hat.
D. WALLACE: It could be down in Key West.
C. WALLACE: Have you seen these new floaters that you can wear when you go
91
fishing?
D. WALLACE: Your feet stick out at the bottom.
C. WALLACE: Well, you put flippers on your feet, and then this thing you put over and
it comes around. I saw one on TV the other day, and it had a motor in it.
D. WALLACE: It had a motor on it.
C. WALLACE: And you walk right out into the lake and . . .
D. WALLACE: Kick.
C. WALLACE: And kick.
D. WALLACE: To fish. The whole idea is fishing.
C. WALLACE: And then you fish, and all you see . . .
WILLIAMS: While you’re floating?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: What keeps them from coming up and biting you?
C. WALLACE: Well, fish won’t bite you.
D. WALLACE: Nothing. That’s the sporting . . .
C. WALLACE: But here you are, you look out in the middle of the lake and here all you
see is these people, and you think, “Oh gee, that’s a shallow lake to be
able to walk out like that.” [chuckling] Try it.
WILLIAMS: It’s kind of like waders only you go . . .
D. WALLACE: Is this more?
WILLIAMS: No, that’s all.
D. WALLACE: Thank God.
WILLIAMS: You can go to bed.
D. WALLACE: It’s obviously something I can’t see. It’s notes.
92
WILLIAMS: Oh, no, it’s just my file on you all.
D. WALLACE: I really put you through hell getting us over here.
D. WALLACE: Oh, this is what I have to sign.
WILLIAMS: A gift form.
C. WALLACE: What?
WILLIAMS: In order for us to use these interviews that we’re doing, you need to sign
this release form, each one of you.
D. WALLACE: You can fill it all out, right?
WILLIAMS: Right.
C. WALLACE: What if I don’t sign it?
D. WALLACE: Well, burn the tape.
WILLIAMS: You don’t get your $20 tomorrow. [chuckling]
C. WALLACE: Are you writing my name?
D. WALLACE: Not your signature. Right there.
WILLIAMS: Could you fill in your address and all that stuff?
C. WALLACE: Where does he want me to sign? Here?
WILLIAMS: This part right here: signature, address, telephone, and date. And I’ll
type in the rest.
C. WALLACE: What’s today, the twenty-fourth?
WILLIAMS: Twenty-fifth. It’s our birthday.
C. WALLACE: What happened to the twenty-fourth?
ODOM-SOPER: It went yesterday.
C. WALLACE: Oh, thank you, dear. Well, I haven’t had today as Sunday at all. I don’t
know whether I can write tonight or not.
93
HAGENSEN: Isn’t your birthday October 30?
D. WALLACE: Oh, I hate that you know that.
HAGENSEN: That’s my birthday, too, so . . .
D. WALLACE: Oh, really? Well, you’re about the seventh person I know with the same
birthday.
HAGENSEN: Well, good, it’s kind of a nice birthday, yes.
D. WALLACE: But I’m the quintuple Scorpio, not you.
HAGENSEN: Quintuple? What is that?
D. WALLACE: [chuckling] Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.
HAGENSEN: All in Scorpio?
D. WALLACE: All in Scorpio.
WILLIAMS: I think your signature looks like Mrs. Truman’s?
D. WALLACE: You do?
WILLIAMS: With the D and the . . . At least your signature on the stationery that I
have of yours somewhere. Have you not noticed the . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, a little bit.
WILLIAMS: I think the W, when she does Bess W. Truman.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s my nasty letter. God, you keep everything.
C. WALLACE: What do you mean, your nasty letter?
WILLIAMS: He wrote us a nasty letter [October 13, 1986]. He said we should talk to
you.
C. WALLACE: What? What is my telephone number? 3-0 . . . What are we?
D. WALLACE: 303. What are you? 303.
WILLIAMS: I have it.
94
D. WALLACE: 322-6518. Well, I think that’s wonderful. I wrote that letter three or
four years ago and it’s finally getting to the surface. That long ago, five
years, and it’s finally surfacing. What happened? You mean, someone
finally woke up or you grew up? [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Well, they made me a historian this summer.
D. WALLACE: What was that doing, just sitting in a file somewhere?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Why?
WILLIAMS: They figured we’d have to go out to L.A. or whatever to get you, and
they didn’t have the money to do that.
C. WALLACE: What’s the date today, eight . . .?
WILLIAMS: Twenty-five.
C. WALLACE: Twenty-five. Did you do all this, too?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Yes, he filled in your name up there. I’ll type in Independence and the
dates. Thank you. Oh, that’s her pen.
D. WALLACE: Why is your hand not shaking? It doesn’t shake when you want it to. I
told you that all along. You’re in just great shape.
C. WALLACE: Because I took a pill before dinner.
D. WALLACE: Are we done? Is this tape still going?
WILLIAMS: What will happen is we’ll get these transcribed eventually and send you
copies, and you can edit them and scratch things out.
D. WALLACE: Whatever. Who sits and transcribes these? What a boring job.
C. WALLACE: You mean we see all these pictures again?
95
WILLIAMS: We pay someone. What?
C. WALLACE: We’ll see all those pictures again?
D. WALLACE: No, Mother, the transcription.
WILLIAMS: I don’t know just how much of this will be transcribed.
D. WALLACE: God, I hope not all of it.
WILLIAMS: Maybe the comments about . . .
C. WALLACE: This is pretty. It looks nice in here.
D. WALLACE: Well, what about all of the stuff when we start, you know, giving you
the dirt tomorrow? Are they going to transcribe that?
WILLIAMS: Yes, tomorrow will be more of a formal interview, just sitting and
visiting. I thought this might be a way to refresh memories or . . .
D. WALLACE: No, I think it’s terrific.
WILLIAMS: And also help the library, even though they gave us crummy copies of
these photographs.
D. WALLACE: Well, they’re good people over there. They’re just strange.
END OF INTERVIEW

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE & DAVID F. WALLACE, JR.
PART II – DRIVING TOUR

AUGUST 26, 1991
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

INTERVIEWED BY JIM WILLIAMS
ORAL HISTORY #1991-26
This transcript corresponds to audiotapes DAV-AR #4388-4390

HARRY S TRUMAN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

EDITORIAL NOTICE

This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for Harry S Truman
National Historic Site. After a draft of this transcript was made, the park provided a copy to the interviewee and requested that he or she return the transcript with any corrections or modifications that he or she wished to be included in the final transcript. The interviewer, or in some cases another qualified staff member, also reviewed the draft and compared it to the tape recordings. The corrections and other changes suggested by the interviewee and interviewer have been incorporated into this final transcript. The transcript follows as closely as possible the recorded interview, including the usual starts, stops, and other rough spots in typical conversation. The reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written, word. Stylistic matters, such as punctuation and capitalization, follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition. The transcript includes bracketed notices at the end of one tape and the beginning of the next so that, if desired, the reader can find a section of tape more easily by using this transcript.
Christine Wallace, David Wallace, and Jim Williams reviewed the draft of this transcript. Their corrections were incorporated into this final transcript by Perky Beisel in summer 2000. A grant from Eastern National Park and Monument Association funded the transcription and final editing of this interview.

RESTRICTION

ABSTRACT

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE & DAVID F. WALLACE, JR
PART II - DRIVING TOUR

HSTR INTERVIEW #1991-26

WILLIAMS: This is the continuation of the oral history interview with Christine
Wallace and David Wallace. It is the morning of August 26, 1991. We
will be driving around the old section of Independence, talking about
people and places that the Wallaces knew when they lived here in
Independence. Driving the car is Jim Williams from the National Park
Service, and Carol Dage, curator of Harry S Truman National Historic
Site for the National Park Service, is also in the car. [Starting near 600
W. Maple Avenue]
C. WALLACE: You mean everything we say is being recorded?
D. WALLACE: I’ll bet you’re going to regret that . . . Dr. Gard, Mother.
WILLIAMS: Dr. Gard?
D. WALLACE: Or Comboy. Well, that’s who lived there in 1948: Raymond Gard,
Lawrence Comboy.
C. WALLACE: Well, we weren’t here in 1948.
D. WALLACE: Presumably they were the same doctors.
C. WALLACE: We were in . . .
D. WALLACE: Mother! In 1938, or whenever I had my tonsils out.
C. WALLACE: Well, you said 1948.
WILLIAMS: They were here in 1948. Were they the same doctors?
2
C. WALLACE: My daughter was born in . . .
D. WALLACE: Mother! There!
C. WALLACE: Margo was born in 1938.
D. WALLACE: There! Tonsils.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: In 1938. In 1948, the doctors’ names I just gave you, presumably they
were there ten years before, also.
C. WALLACE: Okay.
D. WALLACE: Okay, you understand what I’m saying?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Were they the doctors?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Would you like to tell that story walking [about] over here?
D. WALLACE: No, because I don’t remember if my sister had her tonsils out at the same
time. Mother is not saying that.
C. WALLACE: Marian had her tonsils taken out at the same time you did in that
building there, and Marian was carried over by her father, and David
was carried over by the doctor.
D. WALLACE: Not over, back.
C. WALLACE: That backyard, through the 219 backyard and upstairs to their bedroom.
WILLIAMS: The same day?
C. WALLACE: The same day.
WILLIAMS: Just walked over, they did it, and came back?
C. WALLACE: They did the surgery and then took them over there to convalesce.
3
That’s when Frank Wallace got the big tub and put ice in it and turned a
fan on it—they were in the big bedroom over the living room—and
turned the fan on to make the room cooler for the little ones.
WILLIAMS: And you were about four?
D. WALLACE: Probably five.
C. WALLACE: About five.
WILLIAMS: And Marian was two?
D. WALLACE: Two.
C. WALLACE: Two, yes.
WILLIAMS: Why did you have it at the same time?
C. WALLACE: Because the doctors thought they both should have them out and decided
to do them both at the same time. I don’t know, but I guess he didn’t
have anything else to do that day. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Did you fill them up with ice cream and all those things you have when
your tonsils are out?
C. WALLACE: Yes. Not so much that day because they were still kind of . . . oh, I don’t
know, not in an ice cream spirit or whatever you want to say.
[chuckling] I guess they were still pretty sore.
WILLIAMS: This was during the summertime, then?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Was it ever!
WILLIAMS: Can you remember?
D. WALLACE: Some of the details.
C. WALLACE: Summertime, that’s why we had the ice in the tub.
4
D. WALLACE: If you look at your weather things, you’ll see that in those years it was
particularly hot in the summers here and really cold in the winters.
C. WALLACE: I have all that information in his baby book. Jim, after I go home, I’ll
look in his baby book and see what I said then.
D. WALLACE: That’s going to be a little hard since it’s in Los Angeles.
C. WALLACE: It is not.
D. WALLACE: Sure is.
C. WALLACE: Oh, I did leave it in Los Angeles. Well, then, would you look it up and
read it to me?
D. WALLACE: Well, unless I packed it—because I packed some of those books—I’ll
send it back.
WILLIAMS: While we’re here we should talk about the Bundschus, the house where
you’re staying. Did you know them very well?
C. WALLACE: No, not this Bundschu. I knew Ellen Bundschu, who was C.C.’s—
Bundschu Store—wife, and I knew Albert Bundschu, who was a friend
of Fred’s, and I can’t remember his wife’s name. But I knew them better
than I knew this part of the Bundschu family.
WILLIAMS: Did you have much contact with the people on Maple Street?
C. WALLACE: No, but there is . . . I think it’s that house there that there were two girls
that would come and visit.
WILLIAMS: The Ogdens?
D. WALLACE: That’s the name.
C. WALLACE: Ogdens? That was it. What were the girls’ first names?
WILLIAMS: Sue and Betty, I think.
5
C. WALLACE: And they would play with Margaret, and then also the Allen girls.
WILLIAMS: I think their house was in the vacant lot.
C. WALLACE: Was that it?
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Allen said it burned down.
C. WALLACE: Yes, well, this doesn’t quite look right, but it was over on that [north]
side. They would come right . . . you know, their backyard and our
backyard were just together. That’s before we had a Secret Service
house back there and a fence around everything, and that’s where the big
tree was back there, as I told you.
WILLIAMS: With the swing on it?
C. WALLACE: Yes, the swing, and later on a trapeze. That’s where they put on these
shows. Margaret and these girls, they’d put on these shows. I think that
Margaret has told that story in some book.
WILLIAMS: We have some pictures, I think. So it was the Ogdens and the Allen
girls.
C. WALLACE: Ogdens—that was it—and the Allens, yes.
WILLIAMS: Do you remember the Bush girls?
C. WALLACE: No, where did they live?
WILLIAMS: We’ll see their house on Delaware. They lived next to the Choplins.
C. WALLACE: They never came out. I mean, that one little group, you see, their
backyards were all more or less together.
D. WALLACE: That’s the Presbyterian church?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
D. WALLACE: That’s where Aunt Natalie went.
6
C. WALLACE: That’s where Aunt Natalie went to church.
WILLIAMS: Where did you go to church?
D. WALLACE: The Catholic church, Saint Mary’s.
C. WALLACE: Saint Mary’s.
WILLIAMS: So you were Catholic?
C. WALLACE: I’m Catholic.
WILLIAMS: Did Fred . . . ?
C. WALLACE: He converted.
WILLIAMS: Natalie was the only one who went to the Presbyterian church?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Frank Wallace went sometimes, and sometimes he went to the
Episcopal, but he . . .
D. WALLACE: He was raised Episcopalian.
C. WALLACE: He didn’t go by himself. I mean, he’d go with Natalie or stay home. Of
course, Mrs. Wallace never set foot out of that house for much, other
than taking a ride or going up to Platte City is about all she’d ever do.
D. WALLACE: Bess went to the Episcopal church.
C. WALLACE: I don’t think she ever went to see her sister on Gladstone. Was it
Gladstone? That’s where Aunt Myra lived. Also, her husband’s name
was Wallace, but not kin to our Wallace. But I don’t ever remember, not
during my time with the family. As I told you, Helen would come to see
her, but I don’t remember Grandmother ever going there.
WILLIAMS: Then you moved before you went to school. You would have gone to
school . . .
7
D. WALLACE: No, I went to Bryant.
C. WALLACE: He started school at Bryant.
WILLIAMS: This is the junior high [Palmer Junior High, at Maple and Pleasant]?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: So you didn’t ever go to this . . .
D. WALLACE: No, but that’s the new wing, yes. No, I left in the second grade.
WILLIAMS: What do you remember about the Memorial Building, anything?
C. WALLACE: No. But on up another block or so was that library. What is that? Is it
still there or not?
WILLIAMS: No, the public library has moved out by the Truman Library.
C. WALLACE: Yes, but there was a public library right up the street from us [northeast
corner of Osage and Maple].
WILLIAMS: This is Spring. There’s a filling station and the Methodist . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s been here for a long time. Mother, I just saw a sign for
Santa Caligon. Do you want to recall that and Dad and everything?
C. WALLACE: Santa Caligon?
WILLIAMS: That’s coming up this weekend.
D. WALLACE: That’s the festival, the trails festival.
WILLIAMS: Santa Caligon Days.
C. WALLACE: I know, but I don’t think they did anything when I was living here.
D. WALLACE: I don’t know, you said Dad grew a beard and the whole thing. You told
me all of that.
WILLIAMS: I heard that people would dress up.
C. WALLACE: I remember Fred growing a beard, but I have forgotten what it was for,
8
but it was probably for that. Do you happen to remember, David, who
Aunt B. and Uncle Harry knew, a woman that worked in this library that
was right up Van Horn?
D. WALLACE: No, I don’t know who that was.
C. WALLACE: I’ll ask Aunt May when I see her.
D. WALLACE: Well, don’t try and pull too much out of her, because she isn’t going to
remember much. We’ll be lucky if she remembers us.
C. WALLACE: Oh, she will.
D. WALLACE: Well, don’t count on it.
C. WALLACE: Well, she’s only ninety-six.
D. WALLACE: Don’t count on it, Mother.
WILLIAMS: As we go up east here on Maple, what’s different?
C. WALLACE: Everything. What was there where that vacant lot is?
D. WALLACE: Now, that was there before . . . I don’t know, I remember it’s been a
vacant lot for a long, long time. Roger Sermon’s store was right here,
wasn’t it?
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes.
WILLIAMS: Here on the north?
D. WALLACE: Yes, one of these stores.
WILLIAMS: It was a grocery store?
C. WALLACE: What was his partner’s name? Sermon and . . . ?
D. WALLACE: Right there, the jewelry store or one of these stores along here was
Sermon’s.
C. WALLACE: Who was in that store with him? Sermon and . . . ?
9
D. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Is it where you’d shop?
C. WALLACE: Yes. Oh, there’s the courthouse. That’s the one Fred helped design.
D. WALLACE: He did design it.
C. WALLACE: Well, there’s another group, it was on the plaque, who all did it.
D. WALLACE: See, this is all new. This has all been taken down.
C. WALLACE: Roger Sermon and . . . I wish I could remember his name.
WILLIAMS: It might be in that book [Cook and Sermon at 212 W. Maple].
C. WALLACE: See all these little specialty stores. I don’t remember them.
D. WALLACE: Well, none of this is real, you know, anymore.
C. WALLACE: Well, wasn’t that Bundschu’s over there?
D. WALLACE: That was the drugstore right there. Well, no, that right there, when
Vietta [Garr] quit, wasn’t that where she went to work?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, but there’s Bundschu’s.
D. WALLACE: Yes, you do Mother. Let’s finish this. We know where Bundschu’s is.
When Vietta quit, where did she go to work?
WILLIAMS: Was it the Crown Drugstore?
C. WALLACE: Crown.
WILLIAMS: And that was around . . . which way?
D. WALLACE: It was either that one or it was one of the others.
C. WALLACE: And who was the head of Crown?
D. WALLACE: Did she work here in town or did she go into Kansas City, Mother?
C. WALLACE: No, she worked here in town.
D. WALLACE: Yes, so that’s where she was, right there on the corner [northwest corner
10
of Maple and Main].
C. WALLACE: But who ran the Crown Drugstore? It was a good friend of Uncle
Harry’s.
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. Are we on the square now?
C. WALLACE: Now, they’ve put all those retaining walls up since I’ve been here, with
the flowers. That’s new.
WILLIAMS: What did it used to look like?
C. WALLACE: Just plain grass.
D. WALLACE: There wasn’t any setback or anything like that.
C. WALLACE: And none of this cement work. This makes it look nice.
WILLIAMS: Did it slope down from the courthouse?
C. WALLACE: Oh, what was his name?
D. WALLACE: Mother, we’ll find that, don’t worry.
WILLIAMS: Cook. D. W. Cook and Sermon.
C. WALLACE: Cook and Sermon.
WILLIAMS: Right, and you did your grocery shopping there.
C. WALLACE: Mrs. Wallace did; she did it on the phone.
D. WALLACE: Just called up and ordered it over the phone. And they bricked-up the
windows at Bundschu’s.
C. WALLACE: Yes. Is that empty now, Jim?
WILLIAMS: I think there are offices in there. Is this where you did most of the
department store shopping?
C. WALLACE: Yes, it was where we’d always come up to town. You could walk up.
And where was the picture show? We must have passed the corner
11
where it would have been.
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s been remodeled. It looks like frontier time.
WILLIAMS: And what was here on the south side of the square?
D. WALLACE: Basically the same buildings that are there now, only in different guise.
C. WALLACE: Just about like . . . they looked the way it is.
D. WALLACE: And the same cornices and all that sort of stuff; it’s just different stuff.
WILLIAMS: I’ve heard that way back when there were like thirteen saloons around
the square.
D. WALLACE: No, that’s a long, long time ago. That’s 1850, 1860.
C. WALLACE: No, that was before my time. On one of those panels [on the
courthouse] is . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, the one on the right.
C. WALLACE: Yes, your father’s name is on that. And the other, there was an
architectural firm . . .
D. WALLACE: It says right at the bottom on the right, Mother, the right panel on the
right bottom: Simpson and Wallace.
WILLIAMS: How did he get involved in the . . .
C. WALLACE: He was an architect.
D. WALLACE: How did he get involved?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Did it have anything to do with Harry being presiding judge?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. They kept those things to themselves.
D. WALLACE: Well, Mother, it wasn’t a lightning bolt, was it?
C. WALLACE: Well, he worked on it trying to get it.
12
D. WALLACE: He did?
C. WALLACE: Yes, like all architects do. Then he and Keene and Simpson and . . .
D. WALLACE: I just said Simpson, right there. Something and Simpson and . . .
C. WALLACE: Keene and Simpson.
D. WALLACE: . . . Fred Wallace, right there.
C. WALLACE: And he knew them, and they just got together on it.
WILLIAMS: Was that a pretty good job to get?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: How long did he work on it?
C. WALLACE: Oh, I don’t remember, David, the time.
D. WALLACE: I mean, like a year? Like a summer and a winter, or do you remember?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t even remember when it was built. Of course, this type of
architecture Fred liked.
WILLIAMS: I’ve heard it’s modeled after Williamsburg. He liked that?
C. WALLACE: Yes, he liked that colonial type of architecture.
WILLIAMS: Do you not like that? You’re kind of . . .
C. WALLACE: Oh, I’m very fond of it. I like it. I think it’s pretty, and I think it’s very
nice for Independence with all its history.
WILLIAMS: Was there a dedication ceremony?
C. WALLACE: That I don’t remember. There must have been. Yes, I’m sure there was.
WILLIAMS: Now, yesterday we mentioned the Chrisman-Sawyer Bank.
D. WALLACE: Yes, it was just a little, yellow-brick building.
WILLIAMS: Which bank was the family bank?
C. WALLACE: Well, Fred and I banked at Chrisman-Sawyer.
13
D. WALLACE: I still have my savings book, found it the other day. Nothing in it, or
they’d owe me a lot of money. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Where was the post office back then?
C. WALLACE: Somewhere along here [on Lexington west of Liberty].
D. WALLACE: It’s the same place that it is now, it was just a different building. It was
right there, and it was very much a gray stone, fake,
Greek/Roman/government building, probably a little better looking than
the one that’s there now, which is sort of the nadir of 1960’s government
architecture.
C. WALLACE: I think that’s kind of interesting, that one there, don’t you?
WILLIAMS: It’s an LBJ building.
C. WALLACE: I like that building.
D. WALLACE: Independence has never bothered with anything like zoning, you know.
WILLIAMS: Would you go to Kansas City much to shop?
C. WALLACE: Yes, we went every so often. We’d drive in. But Fred had his office in
Kansas City, and they had what they called a . . . Well, this man would
buy up old, big cars, and that’s what they would take—I mean, so much
a ride, and he’d take them in. In a certain place in Kansas City, a certain
time, he would pick them up and bring them back.
D. WALLACE: The only way to get in was Van Horn all the way in and Van Horn all
the way out, wasn’t it, Mother?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: None of the freeways or anything like that.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever ride the streetcars?
14
C. WALLACE: No, they had gone by the time I was here.
D. WALLACE: On Van Horn?
WILLIAMS: Now, we’re going west on Lexington, past the Presbyterian church again
from this side.
C. WALLACE: Jitney. That’s what they call it. It was a jitney service into Kansas City,
those cars. They had an old car with a jump seat, you know. They tried
to get one of those big old seven-passenger cars, and that’s what they
would ride. Fred would always take the jitney, and he’d get it up here
on the square somewhere.
WILLIAMS: William Chrisman High School. Does it look the same?
C. WALLACE: This one does, this part of the building does. I don’t know why.
D. WALLACE: That part wasn’t there then.
C. WALLACE: They’ve enlarged it a lot, haven’t they?
D. WALLACE: That’s the filling station where everybody had all their cars done right
there.
WILLIAMS: So that’s at Maple and [Union].
D. WALLACE: Yes, and it was a . . . whatever the flying red horse [was] . . .
WILLIAMS: Mobil.
D. WALLACE: Mobil. We’ll look up the name of the guy, because it was the same guy
for years who did everything on everybody’s car. That’s where they just
took them.
C. WALLACE: You know I told you that Blevins Davis taught here at the . . .
D. WALLACE: No, you said he was principal and taught English.
C. WALLACE: He was principal for a while and he taught English. Then he’d come
15
down to 219 [North Delaware] at noon and eat lunch.
WILLIAMS: I didn’t know that.
D. WALLACE: In the kitchen or where, Mother? He just ate in the kitchen where
everybody else ate, basically?
C. WALLACE: Well, in the summertime they’d go out on the back porch and eat.
D. WALLACE: And eat on the back porch.
WILLIAMS: That’s not right. That’s on Union, this is . . .
D. WALLACE: This is Union?
WILLIAMS: No, we’re on Truman, I think. [looking at maps] Ray Wills.
D. WALLACE: Yes, Ray Wills’s service station.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes, I remember that now.
D. WALLACE: How do you get all that? From the county abstracts?
WILLIAMS: It’s the city directory.
D. WALLACE: Yes, Ray Wills.
WILLIAMS: So you’d always take your car to the Mobil station and he’d . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, to Mr. Wills.
WILLIAMS: And you had the Fords?
D. WALLACE: We had a ’39 Ford.
C. WALLACE: Yes, when we were first married he bought a Ford . . . when you put
the top . . . Oh, what do you call it?
D. WALLACE: Convertible, Mother. It was a Chevy convertible.
C. WALLACE: A Chevy convertible, it was yellow, and then later on it was traded for a
Ford.
D. WALLACE: They kept the ’39 Ford until we bought a ’49 Ford.
16
WILLIAMS: How could you afford a convertible in the Depression years?
C. WALLACE: Oh, he got a good buy. I don’t know. We bought it right after we were
married. He had to have transportation. Prior to that, whenever he’d
come and see me before we were married, he used Harry and Bess’s car.
D. WALLACE: Which were endless Chryslers.
C. WALLACE: Well, that wasn’t a Chrysler in those days. I don’t know what it was. It
was just a small car.
D. WALLACE: Really?
WILLIAMS: I think they had some Dodges.
C. WALLACE: I think it was a Dodge.
WILLIAMS: Some of those two-door coupe things.
D. WALLACE: Frank had a ’36 or a ’39 Chevy for years, and every time I’d come back
he’d go for a ride in one of those awful mohair seat jobbies like the Ford
was, you know, the skin of a mouse. May had a big old Hudson, and
George drove a county highway department car, which changed
periodically.
C. WALLACE: He worked for the county.
D. WALLACE: That was definitely the fix in there, you understand?
WILLIAMS: George?
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes.
WILLIAMS: So everybody knew how to drive?
C. WALLACE: No, no, no. Natalie never drove.
WILLIAMS: Natalie never? And Mrs. Wallace, Madge Wallace?
D. WALLACE: No, never.
17
C. WALLACE: Mrs. Wallace, Sr., didn’t, and neither did Natalie. Frank drove, May
drove, George drove, I drove, Fred drove. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: How did Natalie get around, like to all the bridge club things?
C. WALLACE: On her feet, or somebody . . .
D. WALLACE: [Somebody] would pick her up? Why did she never learn to drive, do
you remember?
C. WALLACE: I guess she didn’t want to.
D. WALLACE: Vietta didn’t drive, either.
C. WALLACE: No. We used to take her home every now and then after work.
WILLIAMS: Was Natalie too small to drive?
C. WALLACE: No, she just never wanted to.
D. WALLACE: No, she wasn’t as small as you think she was, but she was small.
C. WALLACE: They all belonged to the same bridge club, Bess and May and Natalie,
so, when May and Bess went, they’d take Natalie, too.
WILLIAMS: Over on our left, on the south, is the new RLDS Temple.
C. WALLACE: Yes, I was looking at it.
D. WALLACE: What was there?
WILLIAMS: As long as I’ve been here it’s been a parking lot for the auditorium.
D. WALLACE: Yes. They still do the Messiah every Christmas, I guess, in the big
auditorium?
C. WALLACE: Well, where is the auditorium?
D. WALLACE: Right there, Mother.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes, there it is.
D. WALLACE: And we’d go to that periodically.
18
WILLIAMS: So it was here?
D. WALLACE: And they still do it every Christmas. And that’s Center Stake right there.
C. WALLACE: And that’s holy ground there, isn’t it?
WILLIAMS: So how much did you have to do with the Mormons and the RLDS?
D. WALLACE: Absolutely nothing.
C. WALLACE: Nothing. I was just telling . . . what’s her name, where we were? Peg?
That when David was a baby I had this woman come and help me. Her
name was Pauline.
D. WALLACE: At the house, yes.
C. WALLACE: And she’d come and help with taking care of him, and she belonged to
the . . . I don’t know whether it was the RLDS . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, it was this here.
C. WALLACE: Five dollars a week.
D. WALLACE: Now, did she live in the house?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: What was her name?
C. WALLACE: Pauline.
WILLIAMS: It was a young girl?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: There is a picture with me and either Pauline or her successor. What
was her successor’s name?
C. WALLACE: Katherine.
D. WALLACE: Katherine lived in the house.
C. WALLACE: She lived in the house, but I didn’t have her until after I had Marian.
19
WILLIAMS: Oh, I don’t think we knew that.
D. WALLACE: She lived upstairs in that room across the street across from Margaret.
C. WALLACE: She lived in the room where you said Uncle Harry took his naps.
D. WALLACE: That was sort of a rotating guest room. Because after we moved to
Denver in ’42, I started coming back and spending the summers here in
’45 because of the polio scare.
C. WALLACE: Yes, it was so bad that we had to send him . . .
D. WALLACE: It was terrible in Denver, and I don’t know why they decided it was
better here, which of course it wasn’t.
C. WALLACE: Look at how they’ve done all that planting.
D. WALLACE: But I was furious because I wanted to go swimming . . . I don’t know
if it’s still over there on that street, the big one that used to come down
here?
WILLIAMS: Chrisman?
D. WALLACE: Yes, and they wouldn’t let me.
C. WALLACE: There’s the station.
D. WALLACE: And that was the summers of ’45 and ’46, ’47 . . . It may have been ’46,
’47, and ’48. I was here all summer, and I stayed in the room upstairs,
with a fan at the bottom of the bed.
C. WALLACE: I can’t understand why we sent you here, and yet Marian was kept at
home.
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. This is primarily memorable for all of us, from after we
moved to Denver rather than before, because most of the time we took .
. . Well, half of the time we would take the Eagle back and forth, the
20
Missouri Pacific Eagle, and I was always terrified that it wouldn’t stop
long enough for us to get on. Because it literally stopped thirty seconds,
and you were on and it pulled right out.
C. WALLACE: Do you remember—you probably might not—when we took the train to
Denver and Marian screamed? I think the whole town heard her. She
was so petrified of that train.
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s a big thing that comes in here, you know, in this little station.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and it’s the old-fashioned train.
D. WALLACE: No, it wasn’t, it was a diesel. It was a streamliner, Mother, the Missouri
Pacific Eagle. Remember?
C. WALLACE: Yes, all right. That’s right. Yes, I remember, but it scared her.
WILLIAMS: Did you fly much back then?
C. WALLACE: No. We flew to Washington after . . .
D. WALLACE: We also flew a couple of times here on DC-3’s.
WILLIAMS: Into downtown?
D. WALLACE: Into downtown. But mostly we either drove . . .
C. WALLACE: We drove. Fred would come home . . .
D. WALLACE: Five hundred and fifty miles. It’s not bad.
C. WALLACE: Yes, we came every Christmas when they were here.
D. WALLACE: And I in the summer.
C. WALLACE: And David in the summer. He’d come home from work, and I’d always
have it all ready to go the next morning. Well, I finally learned, I was
ready to go at any minute and said, “Well, we’re leaving now,” at about
eight o’clock. I’d take all the toys and everything that Santa Claus was
21
to bring. He even shipped Marian’s bicycle back when she wanted a
bicycle from Santa Claus. [chuckling] And it was funny, though. I
mean, it was a nice drive and everything. Then we left Independence to
go home to Denver. The weather would be sunny and nice. Just let us
get out of town for a couple miles, and the worst snowstorm I have ever
seen in my life!
D. WALLACE: Well, that was in ’49, Mother. That wasn’t every time.
C. WALLACE: Well, I’ll bet we’d either have rain or something, but the snowstorm was
just terrible. There was a truck ahead of us. I’m sure that if the truck
went off the road we would, too, because we followed that light. We got
into Aurora and Fred stopped the car at a drugstore and went and called
the family, because they were frantic. Here were all these bulletins that
this awful snowstorm and so forth . . .
D. WALLACE: That was in 1949 and we were in the new Ford then, the blue Ford.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and Bess and Margaret were getting ready to take the train to
Washington, and they weren’t going to go until they knew where we
were. So Fred called them and said, “Well, we’re in Aurora.” Frank
Wallace got on the phone, and he said, “How long will it take you to get
home?” He said, “Oh, about thirty minutes, probably.” It wasn’t too
bad in town. So then Bess and Margaret got in a hurry and came on
down here and made the train back.
WILLIAMS: Would the Trumans meet you at the station here?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And see you off?
22
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Yes, always.
D. WALLACE: The whole big thing, and Frank and everybody came to the station.
C. WALLACE: All but Mrs. Wallace.
WILLIAMS: They all came down? Several cars?
C. WALLACE: Yes, but not Mrs. Wallace, no.
D. WALLACE: That certainly is a badly maintained right-of-way. Every track was . . .
Did you notice that? Every one of them. It makes for a rocky ride. No,
I remember this very well. Railway express right down there on this end
of the station.
WILLIAMS: Here comes the train.
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes, there it is.
WILLIAMS: That may be the Amtrak.
D. WALLACE: Oh, that’s freight.
C. WALLACE: Why do they need so many engines?
WILLIAMS: Probably pulling coal out from Wyoming.
C. WALLACE: Or oil.
D. WALLACE: What’s that street that goes over the tracks there?
C. WALLACE: Where the viaduct . . .
WILLIAMS: Lexington, I think.
D. WALLACE: So then it was up about a block that there was the swimming thing here.
I was furious. Basically, I mean, it’s pretty boring to spend all that time
just talking to Grandmother all day long. I had a very boring childhood.
I didn’t have to have it if I didn’t want it, I guess. But that’s all been
23
cleared out a lot up there.
WILLIAMS: Did you go much over into this neighborhood to the west?
D. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Down to . . . what’s it called, Englewood, that shopping area?
C. WALLACE: We, as a rule, would walk uptown to do our shopping, and as far as
groceries, they were delivered. Boy, that’s a long freight, isn’t it? I kind
of miss trains.
D. WALLACE: You’re not the only one. So then the mill is right over there?
WILLIAMS: Right. And we’ll be going by where the Swope mansion was.
C. WALLACE: It’s too bad they tore that down.
D. WALLACE: Why did they? Is that RLDS that bought the land?
WILLIAMS: Right, I think this is all their land.
D. WALLACE: There was something about that that Mary Paxton told me. I forget what
it was. I’ve got to find that tape for you, because she did the whole . . .
everything you . . . Just call and remind me sometime, because I know
the boxes that it will be in.
WILLIAMS: Was there always an Allis-Chalmers plant here?
D. WALLACE: Yes, I don’t know if it was Allis-Chalmers, but there was always this
sort of stuff down here. There was much more farming around here than
there is now.
C. WALLACE: It’s kind of junky now. Now, over here on the left is where the Swope
place was.
WILLIAMS: There, where the bandstands are?
D. WALLACE: Yes, at the top of the hill.
24
C. WALLACE: Do they have that whole story about the Swopes in your history?
D. WALLACE: Well, that isn’t really germane to the house.
WILLIAMS: I think it’s in the Independence history books.
C. WALLACE: Well, one of the girls there was a real good friend of Bess’s when she
was a young lady, we would say.
D. WALLACE: Oh, really? One of the daughters?
C. WALLACE: Yes, and she’d go to the Swope place. Now, this is just what I have read
in their history: they had a ballroom, and they’d have dances and so
forth.
WILLIAMS: Would people still talk about the Swope murders?
C. WALLACE: Not too much. Not as much as you think they would.
D. WALLACE: It doesn’t surprise me at all. Those things don’t happen. This is an
RLDS campground.
WILLIAMS: They may be here for that pageant. I’m not sure. Independence . . .
getting run out of the town.
C. WALLACE: Those trees, look how pretty that tree is!
D. WALLACE: Why did we move to Denver, Mother?
C. WALLACE: It was during the war, and Dad was with the War Production Board and
was transferred.
WILLIAMS: That explains that.
D. WALLACE: Well, there’s the mill.
WILLIAMS: Well, the mill was still the family business when you . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, as far as Frank Wallace is concerned.
D. WALLACE: And Grandmother.
25
C. WALLACE: And Grandmother. She got a certain sum from it.
D. WALLACE: Yes, and he ran it.
C. WALLACE: He and Waggoner Gates . . . the Waggoners, some of the Waggoners
were in with it.
WILLIAMS: Would you be down here very much?
C. WALLACE: No, we never came down here.
WILLIAMS: Not as a curious youngster?
D. WALLACE: Once in a while.
C. WALLACE: Frank Wallace was with the mill, and then he was with the ice plant.
D. WALLACE: Frank?
C. WALLACE: Frank Wallace.
D. WALLACE: He wasn’t with the ice plant.
C. WALLACE: He sure was. Where did he get the ice when you had your tonsils out?
D. WALLACE: He said George.
C. WALLACE: No, I thought he said Frank.
D. WALLACE: No, you said George yesterday. He was with the mill until he retired.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and with the ice plant then, too. Now, what he did with the ice
plant, I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Did George or Bess get any money from the mill?
C. WALLACE: That I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: And your family didn’t?
C. WALLACE: No, Fred didn’t.
WILLIAMS: So Fred didn’t have any shares?
C. WALLACE: No.
26
WILLIAMS: Is that, we presume, where Madge got most of her money through the
years to live?
C. WALLACE: No, she got her . . . Well, the story of the house is that it was built when
Mrs. Wallace was four years old, and her parents lived in it with the
family. Then, when she married their father, they lived down the street
on Delaware Street next to the . . . What was that family I told you that
lived next door? It started with a P. Proctors. Is that it, Proctors? And I
must have a funny story they used to tell about one of the Proctor boys
who would walk in his sleep. I don’t remember that. I wish I could
remember that story. It was funny. Anyway, then after their father died,
she moved back with her parents, and she lived there. Then, when the
parents died, the house was left to Mrs. Wallace, Myra, Maud, and I
think there was a boy. Wasn’t there a son that lived at the Springs, Fred,
or Frank, or something? It was a family name, I think it was. Look at
this. Now, whose house is that? I like this.
WILLIAMS: This is Bess’s birthplace, this house here on Ruby. Were you ever in
this part of town much?
C. WALLACE: Bess was born there?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: I thought she was born in 219. Ruby? Yes, they did live on Ruby.
That’s right, yes, and their house was left to the girls, okay? So then
Mrs. Wallace bought Myra’s share and Maud’s share, and anybody else
. . . Wasn’t there a boy?
WILLIAMS: There was Frank and then there was Walter. One lived out in Portland,
27
Oregon.
C. WALLACE: Yes, that’s G. Walter, and then the other one lived down in Colorado
Springs. Anyway, if they were alive, whatever . . . I know G. Walter
was, because he used to come back every now and then, and we’d see
him. And that’s how she got the house.
D. WALLACE: Well, dear, that wasn’t the question.
C. WALLACE: I know. Now, what she used to live on, I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: It didn’t come from the mill.
WILLIAMS: She was a widow for fifty years, and it seems like . . .
C. WALLACE: She must have gotten something from the mill, because that would be
the only source that she would have.
D. WALLACE: When you all lived at the house, how did you all split up household
expenses?
C. WALLACE: Fred gave his mother so much every month.
D. WALLACE: And that was for food, too?
C. WALLACE: Yes, and Bess’s arrangement with her mother I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Oh, I’m sure it was all the same, you know. They split it all up. You
don’t remember how much it was?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: That would be neat to know. I mean, that would certainly give you a
real handle on the costs of running a big house in the 1930s. Do you
remember how much they paid Vietta?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: That shouldn’t be hard to find.
28
C. WALLACE: That was out of Mrs. Truman’s business and Grandma’s.
D. WALLACE: No, Grandmother paid it.
C. WALLACE: Well, Bess helped her mother out a lot, I think.
D. WALLACE: I think it was a case of genteel semi-poverty, you know. She had the
house and, I mean, if you didn’t have a big income you didn’t really
have any taxes to pay, and help was cheap, and everybody was living
together. But whether it started for that reason or not would be very
interesting to figure out. If it started as a reason to help her out by
sharing the expenses, that may have been why it all started.
WILLIAMS: Well, she certainly didn’t need the big house all by herself.
D. WALLACE: No.
C. WALLACE: No, but she loved it. She never wanted to leave it.
WILLIAMS: We’re back on Main Street, up near the courthouse again. I thought we
could stop and you could look into our ticket center and see the slide
program of the Trumans, and you all, too.
D. WALLACE: That would be wonderful.
WILLIAMS: Get an idea of what the visitors who come to the home have to do before
they get tickets.
D. WALLACE: So they can’t just go to the home? They’ve got to come here and buy
the tickets, and then get down there on their own?
WILLIAMS: Yes, they have a certain time.
C. WALLACE: What is that store?
D. WALLACE: The movie house is probably the same one that was there.
C. WALLACE: [unintelligible] is about the only store they have here in town.
29
D. WALLACE: But this is the main drugstore, and then there was a smaller drugstore on
this corner, too. Do you remember which this one was? If this was
Crown, what was that, Mother?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember, dear.
D. WALLACE: Well, what were some of the drugstore names at the time?
C. WALLACE: I haven’t the slightest idea.
D. WALLACE: Oh, look here. If I just use my brain and realize this history genius has
done everything.
WILLIAMS: If you can figure it out in there.
C. WALLACE: Now where are we? We’re at Truman Road and what?
WILLIAMS: Main. This is Main and that’s Truman.
C. WALLACE: Well, I know I sound like a broken record. Now, where was that library
I keep talking about?
D. WALLACE: Crown was on that corner; Katz was on this corner. So it was Katz that
Vietta went to work for.
C. WALLACE: Katz, it was.
D. WALLACE: Katz Drugstore was the one on this corner and Crown was the little one
on this corner.
WILLIAMS: So Katz was at 201.
D. WALLACE: That’s the movie house where the . . . No, the movie house then was on
the other . . .
C. WALLACE: It was down the street.
D. WALLACE: Yes, but that movie house now is where the beauty salon and the
cleaners and Royal . . .
30
WILLIAMS: That’s right here.
D. WALLACE: No, I’m looking here.
WILLIAMS: We’re right here.
D. WALLACE: We’re right here? Oh. Oh, I see. Well, then what I’m looking at is this
street.
WILLIAMS: Maple?
D. WALLACE: So Woolworth’s was where the movie house is now.
WILLIAMS: Woolworth’s was in this block.
D. WALLACE: That right over there, on the north side of the street.
WILLIAMS: Was that the main dime store?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: What kinds of things would you buy there?
C. WALLACE: Oh, they had pretty good things, just like the dime stores are today, only
a lot cheaper.
WILLIAMS: They were actually dime stores, huh?
C. WALLACE: Yes, they were. They weren’t all these . . . like you go into a dime store
now and it’s just like going in a department store. No, it was just a
regular, good old dime store.
D. WALLACE: No, there were two dime stores. There was Woolworth’s and then there
was Kresge’s on the corner up here.
C. WALLACE: Kresge’s.
WILLIAMS: That was a 25-cent to a dollar store.
D. WALLACE: Yes, and that literally was true.
WILLIAMS: So dime store were little things?
31
C. WALLACE: Yes, you could buy shoelaces and some cosmetics, if you wanted those
kind, and school supplies for the kids.
D. WALLACE: What was Bradley Motors’ mark, what cars?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Where would you get your hair done?
C. WALLACE: In the bathroom. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: You didn’t go to the beauty parlor?
C. WALLACE: No, but . . .
D. WALLACE: Bess did.
C. WALLACE: Bess did, and Natalie did.
D. WALLACE: That’s why their hair was always blue—literally, always bright blue, the
two of them.
C. WALLACE: Well, she changed it when Harry and Margaret said she was trying to
match her hair to her eyes. She had such pretty blue eyes. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Where did they go, Mother? What beauty shop?
C. WALLACE: I never went to it, so I never paid any attention. It was up . . .
D. WALLACE: It was up here on the square.
C. WALLACE: Well, they walked up. Everybody walked up to the square. What was it,
four blocks?
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes, and on the south side of the square was Brown Drug. Was that
still there then, Mother? Singer Sewing Machine, Bunting Hardware.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, David. I can’t remember.
D. WALLACE: Penney’s was on the south side of the square. Westward Ho is new; that
wasn’t there then. Cochran Music, First National Bank, and then
32
Chrisman-Sawyer on the far corner.
WILLIAMS: Tasty Ice Cream Store. Did you ever go there?
C. WALLACE: No, we went to Raytown.
WILLIAMS: Where would you get shoes?
C. WALLACE: In Kansas City, as a rule.
WILLIAMS: Not here?
C. WALLACE: No, they bought real stuff. Bundschu’s they went to like people go to
Pic ’N Save now, right? Their underwear and stockings and what . . .
C. WALLACE: Yes, if you needed something like that.
D. WALLACE: But real clothes you went to Kansas City for.
C. WALLACE: You went to Kansas City.
WILLIAMS: Which stores down there?
C. WALLACE: Oh, we’d go to Harzfeld’s and they go . . . Where was it? Chasnoff’s.
That’s where a friend . . . somebody lived up Truman Road, up around
where I’m talking about that library. That’s where Aunt Nat’s aunt lived
who raised her. Aunt Nat had a sister, and I think when one of them was
born they lost their mother. And an aunt took one sister and an aunt took
Natalie, and the one that took Natalie lived up this street. The sister
moved to Oklahoma. Remember little Natalie Ott? No, Natalie
something or other that lived . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, Ott, but they weren’t both named Natalie.
C. WALLACE: No, her sister had a daughter, and they called her Little Natalie. I don’t
know what her name was.
D. WALLACE: But what was her sister’s name?
33
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember.
D. WALLACE: What did the Otts do here, remember?
C. WALLACE: I think all the Otts were gone, because they were mixed up with the
Bundschus.
WILLIAMS: There’s an Ott-Mitchell Funeral Home. Was that the same Otts?
C. WALLACE: That’s it. Yes, I think so. I think it’s all the same Otts, and in some way
they’re intermarried or mixed up with the Bundschus. That’s all I know.
WILLIAMS: Would you ever go to Emery Bird Thayer?
C. WALLACE: Yes, Emery Bird Thayer and Harzfeld’s?
[End #4388; Begin #4389]
C. WALLACE: . . . this is another one. The one that raised Natalie just never worked.
WILLIAMS: Where would you get men’s clothing?
D. WALLACE: Emery Bird’s.
C. WALLACE: No, what was the men’s store in Kansas City?
WILLIAMS: Was it the Wolff Brothers.
C. WALLACE: Wolff Brothers, and wasn’t there a Robinson’s or . . .
WILLIAMS: That’s shoes.
C. WALLACE: No, down on the main street there. Well, it was Wolff Brothers, yes.
WILLIAMS: And this was in downtown Kansas City?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Would you ever go to the Plaza?
D. WALLACE: Oh, we went out there all the time.
C. WALLACE: Yes, I did before I was married. I didn’t too much after Fred died.
D. WALLACE: Mother, you all would go in and you and Bess and everybody would
34
have lunch at what’s-his-name’s in the plaza.
C. WALLACE: No, it was downtown at Wolferman’s.
D. WALLACE: At Wolferman’s? You didn’t go out to the Plaza?
C. WALLACE: No, not for a long time. I did before I was married, but afterwards I
didn’t.
WILLIAMS: Did they have Putsch’s cafeterias back then?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember it.
WILLIAMS: But you’d go to Wolferman’s?
C. WALLACE: Wolferman’s and have lunch.
WILLIAMS: With Bess?
C. WALLACE: Yes, but we didn’t do it too much. We didn’t have that kind of money.
But I can remember, though was this before I was married, a bunch of us
would go to Wolferman’s and get lunch, and then we’d hurry real
quickly and run to the movie and get in before one o’clock. It just cost
us twenty-five cents.
WILLIAMS: Well, this is the old jail.
C. WALLACE: Well, I never had any experience with the jail.
D. WALLACE: That’s the Charlie Ross story I told you about.
WILLIAMS: Well, I’ll just back up.
C. WALLACE: I wish you’d tell me where that library is. I know I sound like a broken
record.
D. WALLACE: Well, Mother, just drop it for now. We’ll find it.
WILLIAMS: We’ll find it here on the map.
[return to car after visitor center]
35
C.WALLACE: Do these stores do pretty well?
D. WALLACE: We’re going down toward Maple. What do we want?
WILLIAMS: It was on Spring.
DAGE:Especially summer vacation trade.
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes, there was the Ward’s ordering office. Jackson County Free
Public Library right there.
WILLIAMS: Where?
D. WALLACE: Mother!
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Jackson County Free Public Library, Maple and Osage. Next to the
Ward’s catalogue store. Oh, a catalogue store, not order office, across
from Western Auto.
WILLIAMS: That’s where the library was.
D. WALLACE: In other words, down the block from Cook and Sermon’s.
WILLIAMS: Would you go to the library much?
C. WALLACE: Yes, if we wanted a book, that’s where we’d go.
WILLIAMS: Did you like to read as much as the Trumans?
C. WALLACE: Oh, everybody liked to read in that family.
D. WALLACE: See that block, Mother, coming down . . . Bank of Independence and a
bookstore, then Cook’s Paint and Varnish. Remember? Stewart Electric
and Noel Insurance, Cook and Sermon, Smith’s Bakery, and Army-
Navy Store, Maple Cafe . . . What is that, Shussers?
WILLIAMS: Slusher’s Shoes, shoe store. Johnson and Son Monuments. Uptown
Cleaners and Laundry.
36
C. WALLACE: I think that Johnson Monument is where I got that marker for your
father’s grave.
D. WALLACE: Yes, sure. Uptown Cleaners, and then the Ward’s catalogue office, and
then the library on the corner, two blocks down.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and who was it that worked there?
D. WALLACE: Well, there’s Choplin and Hood Real Estate, remember?
WILLIAMS: Where would you get your prescriptions?
D. WALLACE: Oh, yes, what drugstore? Well, Katz.
C. WALLACE: Katz or the Crown. I think the Crown.
D. WALLACE: Katz or Crown.
WILLIAMS: You wouldn’t use Petey Childers?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Well, let’s get out and . . . [tape is turned off]
C. WALLACE: What’s that?
WILLIAMS: That’s the police headquarters and jail, I guess.
C. WALLACE: And what street are we going to now?
WILLIAMS: Noland Road.
D. WALLACE: What was this originally over here by the side?
C. WALLACE: Is this Noland?
DAGE:Yes.
C. WALLACE: And what are we on?
DAGE:This is Truman Road.
D. WALLACE: Do you remember how they always had big windows so you could see
all the machinery inside? You know, the industrial age pride. But it was
37
the power plant. Wasn’t that, Mother?
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: The power plant.
C. WALLACE: Yes, I think so.
D. WALLACE: I mean, there’s only the facade left, but . . .
WILLIAMS: Now a gymnasium.
D. WALLACE: That’s exactly what that was. [long pause] So did you flip all of your
flash cards this morning again?
WILLIAMS: I tried.
D. WALLACE: I pulled off a couple of real coups this morning, names, I must say.
WILLIAMS: I pulled out your article to read over again.
D. WALLACE: Oh, good. The only unedited story that’s ever appeared in the magazine.
I told them they couldn’t mess around with it. Probably a price they
could get cheap.
WILLIAMS: Don’t you just love editors?
D. WALLACE: I hate them. They have a good one at the Times. But what happens
when things like the Times does it, it was supposed to be a Sunday story
for this coming Sunday, and then the movie’s grosses are dropping so
fast they had to move it back. But we missed last Sunday, so they threw
it in on Tuesday, because they’d already gotten the Wednesday color
piece. So then you had to chop like 600 or 700 words out of the story.
And use a meat cleaver because you still have to crank out a paper every
day, not re-edit what’s already been edited.
WILLIAMS: My year at William and Mary, I was in an editorial apprenticeship at the
38
William and Mary Quarterly, so I got the perspective.
C. WALLACE: There’s the cemetery!
WILLIAMS: We’ll stop there on the way back.
C. WALLACE: All right.
WILLIAMS: Did you know anybody out in this part of town?
C. WALLACE: I am trying to remember. I think Mary Bostian . . . didn’t she live out
this way, over on that side of the street?
WILLIAMS: Was she on Main Street?
C. WALLACE: No, aren’t we on Noland Road?
WILLIAMS: We’re on Noland.
C. WALLACE: I think she was on Noland Road.
WILLIAMS: They had a big house, didn’t they?
C. WALLACE: I can’t remember that.
WILLIAMS: And he was a car dealer?
C. WALLACE: Yes, for Chevys. And wasn’t that other house of Blevins Davis out here
on Noland Road? And it was over on this side on a corner.
WILLIAMS: The farm?
C. WALLACE: No, the farm . . .
WILLIAMS: The in-town house?
C. WALLACE: The in-town. Now, what’s this street here? Is that a highway?
WILLIAMS: This is Twenty-third Street. Where did Independence end when you
came out here?
C. WALLACE: That I don’t remember.
D. WALLACE: Well, sort of here. Because they had a lot of new buildings there, and all
39
this is country, you see, out here. Everything sort of was here.
WILLIAMS: Was there much east of Noland Road?
D. WALLACE: It was a very small town then; it was like 20,000. Then it was sometime
in the fifties that they annexed all of Jackson County that Kansas City
didn’t have, before Kansas City could do it is the reason. You know,
there’s always been a lot of trouble there. Pride of place, sort of.
C. WALLACE: You know, there is one person I have kept up with that used to live here,
and that’s Marjorie Nicks. She married Balfour, and she was Linda
King’s niece, and we do Christmas cards. She’s married again, and I
think she’s been living mostly in Arizona—Phoenix—at least that’s the
last address I’ve had for her.
WILLIAMS: Her name has come up when I have interviewed people.
C. WALLACE: Forrest Martin now, Mrs. Forrest Martin.
WILLIAMS: So you were friends with her back here?
C. WALLACE: Yes. Well, she married Balfour. And I think that’s an old Independence
family, Balfours. Then I think he died—yes, he died—and then I think
she lived here and helped take care of Linda and Oscar until they passed
away. Oscar sold coffins, and Marian used to tease him and said,
“King’s comfy, cozy caskets.” [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: That is so depressing. That is the worst junk food in America.
C. WALLACE: What is?
D. WALLACE: Sonic.
WILLIAMS: Sonic?
D. WALLACE: And the worst one is in Espaniola, New Mexico, where you get your
40
extra very bad jalapeno for five cents more—five cents more, not fifteen.
C. WALLACE: What is the name of this nursing home that she’s in?
WILLIAMS: It’s Independence Manor.
C. WALLACE: Is this Kings Road here?
WILLIAMS: Kings Highway. Why on earth it’s called that, I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: It’s where it went. It must have gone somewhere at one time. It must
have been related to Oscar’s family.
WILLIAMS: Well, I wonder if we passed it.
D. WALLACE: It’s 1600. I think we’re south of that. No, we’re 1351, 1356. No, it’s
still farther down.
WILLIAMS: They’re getting smaller or getting bigger, the numbers?
D. WALLACE: No, they’re getting bigger.
C. WALLACE: It’s 1358 over here, 1400 there. This looks like a nursing home here.
Nice looking one. Yes, there’s the sign, “Independence Manor.”
D. WALLACE: And you’ve got a place to park right there, or does that mean both
places?
C. WALLACE: Well, that means for handicapped. I have a cane. [chuckling] [tape is
turned off while the Wallaces visit May Wallace]
D. WALLACE: Well, now, how are you going to follow that up?
WILLIAMS: [unintelligible].
D. WALLACE: Oh, wonderful! Oh, boy!
WILLIAMS: Yes, it’s nothing . . .
D. WALLACE: This is terrific! Well, it’s all in the [unintelligible]. It just worked out
that way. No, I think it’s all organized that way.
41
C. WALLACE: Now what do we do?
WILLIAMS: Well, we’re going to go by the Woodlawn and drive up Delaware Street.
You wanted to go to the library?
C. WALLACE: No, I just was wondering where it was.
D. WALLACE: Which library?
WILLIAMS: The Truman Library.
C. WALLACE: Oh, that library. Yes, sure.
WILLIAMS: Did you want to stop there?
C. WALLACE: Well . . .
D. WALLACE: I think it depends on what you all need to do.
C. WALLACE: I think it’s what your time and what your . . .
WILLIAMS: Well, as long as we’re finished by about noon.
C. WALLACE: What time do we go to the house?
WILLIAMS: If we stop, did you want to go and just look at the graves? Is that the
idea?
D. WALLACE: Where? At the library?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
D. WALLACE: I think Woodlawn is more important.
WILLIAMS: Well, as we’re going to Woodlawn, maybe you could explain why
Madge and David are not buried together, Madge Wallace and David
Wallace.
C. WALLACE: Oh, you mean . . . and David Wallace, the father? Because she is buried
in her family . . . her mother and father’s plot. I imagine she would
rather be with them, because I think underneath it all she resented what
42
happened.
D. WALLACE: It seems rather pretty cold-blooded.
C. WALLACE: Well, he’s buried on a Wallace plot. There is a Wallace plot other than
the one where Fred is. Now, originally that was for Frank and George
and May and Natalie and Fred and me. And even Harry and Bess
originally were going to be buried there until the circumstances changed
his way of life.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever hear this directly from her or Bess, that she resented . . .
C. WALLACE: But I always had a feeling. Why else would she just get to the point she
wouldn’t go out? She felt embarrassed that it was probably her fault or
something. You never know, but when you assume that if somebody
went through what she went through might underneath sort of feel,
“Well, what have I done that’s wrong?”
WILLIAMS: Are we going the right way?
D. WALLACE: No.
C. WALLACE: You go straight and . . .
D. WALLACE: No. Well, it’s sort of the right way.
WILLIAMS: Down here?
D. WALLACE: Yes. Etzenhouser, Russell Etzenhouser. That was your friend,
remember?
C. WALLACE: Etzenhouser, she was the first-grade teacher.
D. WALLACE: Yes, at Bryant. Come to the cemetery, you might remember a lot of
people then.
C. WALLACE: It’s right at a corner.
43
WILLIAMS: So we presume that Madge decided where she would be buried?
C. WALLACE: I guess so. A lot of those things she discussed with Bess. See, the Gates
. . . Now, Grandmother is buried here on the Gates plot.
WILLIAMS: Are we getting out?
D. WALLACE: Whatever you want. Mother, do you want to get out?
C. WALLACE: Yes. Well, can we pull up just a little bit? Maybe I can see what I want
to see. Now, Fred is buried down here with a flat stone.
D. WALLACE: Yes, right there.
C. WALLACE: Right there. Well, it is maintained somewhat.
WILLIAMS: You can get out if you want.
C. WALLACE: No. I can see everything I want to see. I had a real flat stone. Isn’t that
flat stone right there Dad?
D. WALLACE: Who’s down in the hole, I wonder, in the crypt down there? Neat, huh?
See down there?
WILLIAMS: So all the Gateses are here.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: All of Madge’s brothers and sisters.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and herself, and her mother and father. And that’s Fred there.
WILLIAMS: Right there?
C. WALLACE: Behind David. Then there’s George Wallace, and Natalie and Frank,
and there’s a place there next to George where it says “Mary S.” So
Aunt May will go there. Then there’s Fred. And at the time I got that
stone for Fred, Frank Wallace told me that’s the kind they were going to
get, and then they show up with this thing, so . . . Some places won’t let
44
you have anything more than a flat one, and somehow I think it’s best.
WILLIAMS: So are there vacant spots for the Trumans that they never used?
C. WALLACE: Yes, right.
WILLIAMS: And would those be right along here, then?
C. WALLACE: Yes, I guess so, or they . . . I don’t know how they divided it up, but
then there’s a place next to Fred where they’re supposed to put me. I’m
not sure whether I want to go there or not yet. I have a friend who wants
to be cremated and have her ashes sprinkled over the mountain of the
Holy Cross. Where is that?
WILLIAMS: I don’t know.
C. WALLACE: And I have another friend who wants to have her ashes scattered in the
Pacific Ocean. People have a lot of strange ideas.
WILLIAMS: So did Madge own these lots all through the years?
C. WALLACE: These lots were owned, I think, by . . .
D. WALLACE: I didn’t realize G. Walter and Frank died within two years of each other.
Frank Gates is the one you’re trying to think of.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: And who was Tillie and Theodore and all these others?
WILLIAMS: Theodore was Myra’s husband.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and I think Tillie might have been a . . .
D. WALLACE: But they had a lot of babies that are dead in there.
C. WALLACE: Well, Grandmother Wallace had a baby that died young.
D. WALLACE: Really?
C. WALLACE: Yes, it’s in that little [unintelligible].
45
WILLIAMS: That was between Fred and . . .
C. WALLACE: Between Fred and George, that’s right.
D. WALLACE: Oh, really? A boy?
WILLIAMS: Eighteen ninety-eight.
C. WALLACE: No, a girl. I think it’s unnamed.
D. WALLACE: Really? Well, because there’s nothing up there about that.
C. WALLACE: Well, maybe they didn’t bury them in those days. I don’t know how old
the baby . . .
D. WALLACE: Her headstone is sure chipped. Grandmother’s headstone is all chipped
over there.
C. WALLACE: She was about three years old, wasn’t she? Two or three years old.
WILLIAMS: That burgundy one?
D. WALLACE: No, right there is Dad’s, the flat one.
WILLIAMS: Yes, and is Madge’s . . .
D. WALLACE: Right there, on the other side of the column.
WILLIAMS: Oh, okay.
D. WALLACE: Just on the other side. Frank and G. Walter were her brothers?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: But wasn’t there another brother?
C. WALLACE: Not that I know of.
D. WALLACE: So there were just the three of them?
C. WALLACE: No, there were two sisters.
WILLIAMS: Three girls, two boys.
C. WALLACE: Three girls and two boys.
46
D. WALLACE: Where are they?
WILLIAMS: And Tillie and Bessie are . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, I think Myra is . . .
D. WALLACE: Here we are right here. Here are some more Gateses.
WILLIAMS: That’s George P. and Elizabeth.
C. WALLACE: That’s her mother and father. George P. is George Porterfield, and the
other is . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, and then all those little teeny stones must be the babies, right.
WILLIAMS: Yes, there’s Tillie and Bessie and . . . I think one says just “Our Baby.”
D. WALLACE: The thing is on the column, you see.
C. WALLACE: They would be her parents’ kids.
WILLIAMS: Right.
C. WALLACE: But Mrs. Wallace’s, Madge, the child that she lost, I think she was about
two or three years old, wasn’t she? They had a lot of scarlet fever and
diphtheria and stuff in those days.
WILLIAMS: I think Myra . . . they’re in Kansas City in a cemetery.
C. WALLACE: I think Myra is there, and I imagine . . .
WILLIAMS: And Maud . . .
C. WALLACE: Maud is up at Platte City.
WILLIAMS: In the Wells area. I remember that now.
D. WALLACE: Then where is the Wallace [plot]?
C. WALLACE: I think he’s way over on the other side, isn’t he?
WILLIAMS: That’s near the entrance, more toward the gate.
C. WALLACE: Yes, you go in the entrance and turn to the right.
47
WILLIAMS: We occasionally come out here and look at the . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, you need to.
C. WALLACE: Oh, a lot of people do when they write history. I mean, they go through
these old . . .
D. WALLACE: Who are the Minors we just drove by, Mother?
C. WALLACE: Minors? They were good friends of Aunt B.’s.
WILLIAMS: The Minor sisters? [long pause]
C. WALLACE: Yes. Well, anyway, I never did know why she didn’t want to be over
here, and . . .
WILLIAMS: It’s right down here somewhere.
D. WALLACE: Right here?
WILLIAMS: Is this the one you think is Blevins Davis?
D. WALLACE: No, it’s not Blevins. It’s over here somewhere, maybe the white one.
That’s the Pryors there. I think the white one is Blevins and his mother.
WILLIAMS: It says Davis.
D. WALLACE: It does? Well, that’s it then.
C. WALLACE: Where?
D. WALLACE: The white box, I said.
C. WALLACE: Where?
WILLIAMS: Can you see, over to the right?
D. WALLACE: With the drawers in it.
WILLIAMS: Beyond that green . . .
C. WALLACE: Oh, way over there?
WILLIAMS: Yes, with the drawers.
48
D. WALLACE: The one with the doors. Unscrew it and shove them in.
C. WALLACE: Why would they have three doors?
D. WALLACE: He had a mother and a father, presumably.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Where would the Wallace one be?
WILLIAMS: I think they’re up here on the right.
C. WALLACE: Some of these monuments are cracking, don’t you think?
WILLIAMS: They’re not as easy to pick out as the big Gates obelisk. Is this it, the
Wallaces, that white . . . ?
D. WALLACE: Where? There?
WILLIAMS: Right here.
D. WALLACE: Yes, it sure is. Yes, there he is, right there.
WILLIAMS: David W. Wallace.
D. WALLACE: They’ve got a little baby here again, too.
C. WALLACE: Well, maybe that’s the baby they lost.
D. WALLACE: It says “Infant” right there. Yes, that would make sense, doesn’t it?
C. WALLACE: Yes, wasn’t she about two or three years old?
D. WALLACE: Then who is next to him?
WILLIAMS: Virginia. That’s his mother.
C. WALLACE: Virginia Willock is his Mother Wallace, and then where is his father?
WILLIAMS: That was Benjamin.
D. WALLACE: Next to it.
WILLIAMS: That may be the big . . .
C. WALLACE: The big one?
WILLIAMS: No, here’s a Benjamin back here. And Carrie and Nannie Stamper.
49
C. WALLACE: Yes, and look how they’re all the same. I wonder why that one has that
metal cross. Do you think he was military?
D. WALLACE: Probably [unintelligible].
WILLIAMS: They had a baby named Albina, I remember that.
D. WALLACE: Is that who is there? Baby Albina, is that what it says?
WILLIAMS: Mary Albina.
D. WALLACE: [reading] “Mary Albina, only child of . . .”
WILLIAMS: That’s not true. [chuckling]
C. WALLACE: Only child of who?
WILLIAMS: B. F. and Virginia, David’s parents. It certainly wasn’t their only child.
C. WALLACE: Well, they lost a lot of kids back in those days.
WILLIAMS: There are the Wallaces.
D. WALLACE: Now, who are those up there? [reading] “Thomas. Mary, wife of
Thomas.”
WILLIAMS: I think that’s the generation before Benjamin and . . .
D. WALLACE: And there’s Thomas, 1770-something to 1858. That was a long time
ago then.
WILLIAMS: Right, Thomas was the father of Benjamin, who was the father of David
Willock Wallace. They go way back.
C. WALLACE: I don’t like those funny kind of . . . Don’t you think they’re funnyshaped
things? They look like little trunks.
D. WALLACE: Latimer, whatever happened to them?
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes, the Latimers.
D. WALLACE: What was my friend’s name, the Latimer kid? There’s a birthday party
50
picture of me in that god-awful sailor suit—another one—which I have.
C. WALLACE: Well, you have that little sailor suit, and you put it on Christopher.
D. WALLACE: Like a third or fourth birthday. I have all those pictures. I’ll send them
to you.
WILLIAMS: Carol would like those.
C. WALLACE: Do you hear that?
DAGE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: And your name is Carol?
DAGE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Why do I think of Cindy?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know, it’s even nailed to her chest, Mother: Carol.
C. WALLACE: I don’t go around looking at her chest. [chuckling] Who was Cindy?
WILLIAMS: You met a Cinda at the ticket counter.
C. WALLACE: I met a Cindy somewhere, didn’t I? Okay.
WILLIAMS: She’s a volunteer.
C. WALLACE: Yes, I remember now, thanks. I should remember it because I have a
granddaughter Cindy. I do think Aunt May is well. Is she well?
D. WALLACE: Sure. She’s [unintelligible].
C. WALLACE: And you’ve never talked to Bill Carnes?
WILLIAMS: No, I’ve seen him drive in and out of her house. I was going to call him
this summer until I heard that he has been ill.
C. WALLACE: Oh? He lives over on Proctor Place. I think it’s where the old Southern
home . . . I think that’s where Mr. Southern lived, Mr. and Mrs.
Southern. Now what do we do?
51
WILLIAMS: Heading toward the library on Liberty and . . . Here’s Trinity Episcopal.
C. WALLACE: That’s where they were married, yes.
WILLIAMS: Were you in here very much through the years?
C. WALLACE: No, I’ve only been in there once, and that’s when Bess was . . . had her
funeral. As I understand it, they were all Presbyterians to begin with.
D. WALLACE: Who?
C. WALLACE: Grandmother and all the kids, and that a young Episcopalian minister
came to Independence. I don’t know, he just got to know all the young
people, and he got them to become Episcopalians. So I think Bess went
Episcopal and then the rest of them followed, except Natalie, she stayed
a Presbyterian. Well, Natalie wasn’t around when those . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, of course not, and what about Grandmother?
C. WALLACE: She became an Episcopalian.
D. WALLACE: Well, she wasn’t a young person.
C. WALLACE: No, well, anyway, Bess started, and George and Frank became
Episcopalians, and so then Grandmother did. Now, that’s how I got it.
Now, whether she went . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, and Dad did, too.
C. WALLACE: Well, yes, Fred.
WILLIAMS: And you were Catholic?
C. WALLACE: I wasn’t even around in those days. Fred was just a little kid. Why your
father was called Fred, because that was his first name. Then, when his
father died, she tagged on David. Instead of saying Fred David, she
made it David Fred, in his effigy.
52
WILLIAMS: Oh, I didn’t know that he wasn’t originally David Frederick.
C. WALLACE: Not originally. Now, this is what I was told. I wasn’t around.
WILLIAMS: Right.
D. WALLACE: Well, I think that would be right on the baptismal record. You have all
of them.
C. WALLACE: Well, when they went around to baptize him, I think then he was David.
But they didn’t baptize right at first in the Episcopal Church. Sometimes
they weren’t baptized until they were eight, nine years old. Remember
at Saint Matthew’s with you, David? They had some baptismal
ceremonies and some of the kids were . . .
D. WALLACE: That has nothing to do with being born into it and changing it.
WILLIAMS: All the time you were married, you went to the Catholic church here,
when you lived here?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Saint Mary’s?
C. WALLACE: Yes, and we had the priest here conduct the ceremony at the grave.
WILLIAMS: Was that any controversy there of him marrying a Catholic?
C. WALLACE: Not that I know of.
WILLIAMS: Mother Wallace didn’t object?
C. WALLACE: She never said anything to me. I don’t think anything Freddie would do
she’d object to, anyway. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: He was the cat’s meow, huh?
C. WALLACE: He was the baby boy. [chuckling] No, I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: I am, too, so . . .
53
C. WALLACE: He was very close to his mother.
D. WALLACE: You mean there are more of you?
WILLIAMS: I’m the youngest of five, so . . .
D. WALLACE: Really?
C. WALLACE: And aren’t you the baby boy?
WILLIAMS: Yes, I’m the big, tallest . . .
C. WALLACE: But you understand what I mean. No, he and his mother were very
close. Well, I read something in that book of Margaret’s I never knew
all these years, that when he went down to the University of Missouri in
Columbia she went down there and kept house for him. Now, that’s in
Margaret’s book. I never knew that. Now, I was always told he lived at
the fraternity house.
WILLIAMS: And he was an SAE?
C. WALLACE: SAE, but I could see her doing it.
WILLIAMS: But that was before your time.
C. WALLACE: That was much before my time. [Inaudible conversation takes place
between D. Wallace and J. Williams]
C. WALLACE: Your father was never drafted.
WILLIAMS: We were wondering why he wasn’t.
C. WALLACE: Because he was eighteen and he was in college, and they weren’t taking
them from school. He was planning to go, so I’m told, and then the war
was over.
WILLIAMS: How come George and Frank didn’t go?
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know, unless . . .
54
D. WALLACE: When did George lose his eye?
C. WALLACE: I didn’t know he lost an eye.
D. WALLACE: Mother, he had one eye. You know that.
C. WALLACE: I’ve forgotten.
WILLIAMS: He had a glass eye?
D. WALLACE: A glass eye, yes.
C. WALLACE: I’d think that Frank would be his health. God, he was never well.
George, I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Oh, well, he was so sick he [unintelligible].
C. WALLACE: Well, you know how he was always heaving and . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, wheezing and then reaching for another cigarette.
C. WALLACE: Yes, he smoked too much.
WILLIAMS: Now, this used to be Slover Park. Is that right?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Did you come down here very much?
C. WALLACE: No, never did.
WILLIAMS: Where would you go to play?
C. WALLACE: We had a big backyard, and it had a swing and a teeter-totter. I don’t
think children ran around much to parks and so forth then.
D. WALLACE: They sure did. We didn’t.
C. WALLACE: David was barely allowed to walk home from school. Grandmother
Wallace would be at the window looking for him thirty minutes before
he was even out of school.
D. WALLACE: Which window?
55
C. WALLACE: Well, the bay, the little north window.
D. WALLACE: Oh, in the den, yes.
C. WALLACE: No, not in the den, in the living room.
D. WALLACE: There’s no north bay in the living room.
WILLIAMS: In the parlor.
C. WALLACE: There is a bay in the living room.
D. WALLACE: Not on the north.
C. WALLACE: There’s a little window there, isn’t there?
D. WALLACE: Way up at the front?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Oh, I see. So she could look farthest up Delaware that way toward
Bryant.
C. WALLACE: Yes, waiting for you.
WILLIAMS: Did you want to see anything while we’re here at the library?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t think so. [David Wallace leaves the car.] I have learned
more things from him coming. I wonder how he ever knew a lot of
these things he comes up with.
WILLIAMS: He must have asked or something.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I never even knew George had a glass eye; and if I did,
I’ve forgotten. And you know, you can forget things so that you think
you never knew. Maybe I’m having amnesia.
WILLIAMS: So would it be correct to say that Madge was a doting grandmother?
C. WALLACE: She was a doting mother. As for a grandmother, yes, I think more
Margaret though. Just like they say, she was horrified when Margaret
56
wanted to go on the stage or be an opera singer. Margaret played the
piano. I thought she played it well, but I wouldn’t know. I’m not a
musician. But she would play the piano lots of times in the evening.
Grandmother enjoyed it. Grandmother . . . I think she played a piano
one time, because she went to the conservatory. Where is that, the
conservatory in . . .
WILLIAMS: Kansas City? [David Wallace returns]
C. WALLACE: No. What conservatory did Grandmother Wallace go to? What? What
did he say?
CAROL DAGE: Dr. Zobrist is still away.
C. WALLACE: David, what conservatory did Grandmother go to? Cincinnati
Conservatory of Music.
WILLIAMS: So she was a musician?
C. WALLACE: Oh, evidently. I never heard her play or anything, but evidently she
must have done something when she went there.
WILLIAMS: What did she do for leisure time? Did she sew?
D. WALLACE: She’d stand at the window and watch for us to come home.
C. WALLACE: She always got up first in the morning, and she went to the kitchen, and
there was always wood there to put in the stove and start a fire. Then
she would make the coffee, and she would make the oatmeal. Freddie
always ate oatmeal.
WILLIAMS: Did they call him Freddie?
C. WALLACE: Yes, Margaret did.
D. WALLACE: Grandmother didn’t.
57
C. WALLACE: No, Grandmother called him Fred, I guess. I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Why did you just call him Freddie?
C. WALLACE: Oh, just to be dumb. Then Fred would come down and drink his coffee,
eat his oatmeal. Sometimes he’d fix himself an egg or something.
Anyway, people gradually put in an appearance. Then Bess would
come.
WILLIAMS: Did you know anyone this far up Delaware Street?
C. WALLACE: The Eisen . . . Didn’t they live along here? The teacher, David?
D. WALLACE: Etzenhousers.
C. WALLACE: Etzenhousers lived along here.
WILLIAMS: There’s an Eisenhower house, too.
C. WALLACE: Etzenhouser. Whose house is that? My, that’s pretty.
WILLIAMS: Does it look different?
C. WALLACE: Then Mize Peters lived along here in one of these small houses,
something more like this one that’s for sale.
WILLIAMS: Now this, I understand, is where David and Madge’s house was, where
that big tree is.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: The house isn’t here, but . . .
C. WALLACE: Now, whose house was that? Was that the people that lived next door
that they played with all the time?
WILLIAMS: That’s a relative of Dwight Eisenhower somehow.
C. WALLACE: Oh, no!
WILLIAMS: That’s what the plaque up there . . .
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D. WALLACE: Really? Interesting.
WILLIAMS: Or an aide to Eisenhower, somehow connected with the Eisenhower
administration.
C. WALLACE: I didn’t know that.
WILLIAMS: Did you know the Jennings, the Sawyer-Jennings house?
C. WALLACE: Kind of pretty, aren’t they, the old houses?
WILLIAMS: Sue Gentry lives down that way [on Waldo].
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Rufus Burrus.
C. WALLACE: Yes. Attorney.
WILLIAMS: Was he the family attorney?
C. WALLACE: Yes, he was Frank and . . . I don’t know whether he was George’s, and I
think Harry went to him, too. Whose house is this? It’s a big one.
D. WALLACE: One of those new ones.
WILLIAMS: One of these is the Etzenhousers.
C. WALLACE: This one. This one is Etzenhousers, I think.
WILLIAMS: The Twymans live along here somewhere.
C. WALLACE: Twymans, I forgot them. And whose house is this? This is an oldie. I
haven’t seen some of these . . . There’s a house down there, or a lot,
where they certainly need to cut the grass. Look at it down there.
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s that side, right? [looking at maps]
WILLIAMS: This is north, so we’re on this side. 416 . . .
D. WALLACE: Adelaide Twyman.
[End #4389; Begin #4390]
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WILLIAMS: And on this side [east side of Delaware, south from Farmer], it goes
Lillian Horn, Joseph Bridges . . .
D. WALLACE: Henry Wurtzel, Lavinia Records, Mary Charlton, and Van Triplett, and
then Lawrence Proctor and Paul Bischoff on the corner.
WILLIAMS: They were ministers.
D. WALLACE: Yes, three were, Proctor, Bischoff, and Hunt right around the corner.
C. WALLACE: I didn’t know any of them.
WILLIAMS: So none of those names struck a bell?
C. WALLACE: No, except Choplin. What are they doing here?
WILLIAMS: This is another bed and breakfast over here.
C. WALLACE: Well, I think they need to cut their grass. It looks kind of messy, don’t
you think?
WILLIAMS: This was the Compton house [318], the Bushes [310].
C. WALLACE: And the Choplins. And you say she died?
WILLIAMS: August 5.
D. WALLACE: In poverty, from the looks of the house, huh?
WILLIAMS: She was coming back from work, and she was eighty-four, had a parttime
job. The Secret Service house [224]. The Luffs lived there, I think,
when you were around.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: John Major [220].
WILLIAMS: John Major? Did you know them?
D. WALLACE: Does it ring a bell, Mother?
C. WALLACE: Yes, sort of.
60
WILLIAMS: Mary O’Reilly?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Nellie Noland?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And this one was Mrs. Madge Wallace and Harry S. Truman, 1948.
C. WALLACE: Yes, and then who was next door there?
D. WALLACE: Charles Kellogg.
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s been in and out of . . .
WILLIAMS: That’s Mrs. Allen’s son, and one that Harriet, I think . . .
C. WALLACE: Oh, you mean the son-in-law?
WILLIAMS: Right, she was a Kellogg for a while. While we’re here, when you look
at the Truman-Wallace house . . . Does the yard look thinner, thicker?
C. WALLACE: No, just about the same.
D. WALLACE: Except for the pergola.
WILLIAMS: More trees, less trees?
C. WALLACE: The pergola is gone!
D. WALLACE: Yes, we talked about that last night.
C. WALLACE: Why?
D. WALLACE: The stone base is still there for it.
WILLIAMS: And the Secret Service hut, was that . . . ?
D. WALLACE: Right there [southeast quadrant of 219 yard].
WILLIAMS: Right here? And this is where the big tree was, where the swing . . .
D. WALLACE: A little bit in there.
C. WALLACE: It would be sort of out into the middle more.
61
WILLIAMS: Out towards the house?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: You said you usually wouldn’t use this driveway?
D. WALLACE: Well, they never had to.
C. WALLACE: We didn’t have to.
D. WALLACE: This wasn’t a driveway.
C. WALLACE: It was just an alley.
D. WALLACE: This was all open alley. Remember, there was no fence here until 1949,
according to your own presentation, which means the first four years of
the presidency there was no fence or anything, just a little electric eye
thing.
C. WALLACE: See, all this was open, Jim.
D. WALLACE: There were no fences. We used to run back and forth, up and down.
WILLIAMS: The fences came up after you moved to Denver?
D. WALLACE: No, the fences came up after . . .
C. WALLACE: Harry was president.
D. WALLACE: No, that was done before, and they didn’t fence it. The fence here came
after Frank’s house was sold, that fence.
WILLIAMS: The chain-link fence.
D. WALLACE: Because, you see, this is the old fence right here.
WILLIAMS: Were these houses always green and red?
D. WALLACE: Hers was exactly the same color, always.
C. WALLACE: Yes, exactly.
WILLIAMS: And they still have awnings on Frank’s.
62
D. WALLACE: Always had awnings.
C. WALLACE: Yes, Frank would . . .
WILLIAMS: And that’s similar to . . .
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Would those come down in the winter?
C. WALLACE: No, sometimes you’d pull them up.
D. WALLACE: I don’t think they ever took them down.
C. WALLACE: I don’t think they ever took them down.
WILLIAMS: They were just pulled up into the house?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: The roses are a new addition there. They used to have . . .
C. WALLACE: Yes, peonies.
D. WALLACE: Peonies, like billions of them.
C. WALLACE: On each side of the driveway. They’ve got . . . it looks like grass
growing in the driveways.
WILLIAMS: Where were Bess’s roses? Because we understand she had them.
C. WALLACE: Around the pergola.
D. WALLACE: Which you see the base of it right over there, the brick. The sundial was
farther out into the yard, I think. Are you all trying to save water, or is
there something there?
WILLIAMS: We don’t water the grass.
D. WALLACE: Oh? Why?
WILLIAMS: Because the Trumans supposedly did not.
D. WALLACE: I never saw it look like this whenever I was here. They had a gardener
63
here all the time working in the yard.
C. WALLACE: Well, you know who cut the grass, don’t you, all the years . . .
D. WALLACE: See, that’s where the pergola was on the bricks, on the base there.
C. WALLACE: Right. And all before, what did Aunt May say? “Oh, today the preacher
is coming to cut the grass.” And he was one of the black preachers, and
then he would, I guess during the week, cut people’s grass.
WILLIAMS: But that was after you were . . . That wasn’t while you were here?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.
WILLIAMS: Who took care of the yard when you were living here?
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s what I’m trying to think.
D. WALLACE: I think everybody did. I even cut the grass.
C. WALLACE: I think everybody. Well, I think Fred went out and pushed a lawn
mower.
D. WALLACE: Yes, I can remember cutting the grass. And then the summers I was
back here, I was always cutting the grass.
C. WALLACE: And everybody used to sit right around on the other side of this peony
bush, between that and that bush there, in the summertime. Then the
tree was . . . That tree sure has grown. It wasn’t that big.
WILLIAMS: The big shingle oak.
C. WALLACE: Yes, well, it was over this way.
D. WALLACE: See, you know all those things I don’t even know about it.
C. WALLACE: Anyway, they used to play croquet a lot.
WILLIAMS: On the south?
D. WALLACE: Grass, right over there.
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WILLIAMS: East?
C. WALLACE: Over by where the steps go up to the living room, that door, and out a
little bit and down this way.
D. WALLACE: Right there.
WILLIAMS: Where it’s relatively flat, no bushes.
C. WALLACE: Yes. And because right there, David, is where that big tree was with the
swing on it.
D. WALLACE: Over there.
WILLIAMS: Where it’s clear now.
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Was this overgrown as much over here?
D. WALLACE: More.
WILLIAMS: More? Why did they do it that way?
C. WALLACE: Well, the bushes have grown bigger. We went in there by a house we
used to live in, and it used to have a white picket fence around it.
They’ve taken it down and put a brown fence, and it had big trees. We
thought they were big. You should see them now. They’re enormous! I
wouldn’t have known the place. So these trees do grow in twenty years.
D. WALLACE: It’s been a little more than that here.
C. WALLACE: No, this tree has always been here. That’s the tree Uncle George always
parked his car under.
WILLIAMS: That’s the one on the east side of the driveway.
D. WALLACE: And it wasn’t that big.
WILLIAMS: And you said last night the Trumans parked their car . . .
65
C. WALLACE: In here.
WILLIAMS: In the garage. Did they have one specific side?
D. WALLACE: Well, they changed. When you all lived here, Mother, where did you
park?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. There comes a policeman looking you over.
D. WALLACE: No, he isn’t, Mother, he’s a ranger and you met him. Which side did
you all park on, do you remember?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t. And Frank Wallace . . .
D. WALLACE: I think on the left, and they parked on the right. I have that feeling.
C. WALLACE: Frank parked in there, too, with us.
D. WALLACE: On the same side as you?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: And then they parked their car on the other side.
C. WALLACE: And they parked their car on the other side. And then May went in her
garage and George parked under this tree.
WILLIAMS: So May and George had separate cars?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: He had a county car, and she had the Hudson.
WILLIAMS: So there were several cars back here.
C. WALLACE: Yes, there’d be one, two, three, four, five.
WILLIAMS: And, of course, the screened-in back porch wasn’t like that when you
lived here.
C. WALLACE: No, it was just a little narrow one, like it was on the side. It came all
around the same . . .
66
WILLIAMS: Now, that fenced-in area where you played, it was over right here?
C. WALLACE: It was right where that bush is.
WILLIAMS: So it would kind of end where the brick . . .
C. WALLACE: It came out here a little way, and then went that way a little way, and
that way a little way, and back. It wasn’t as big as it looked. And you
see again a good view of the sleeping porch up there.
WILLIAMS: We have windows over it now, but . . .
C. WALLACE: I know you do. It was just screens, and Harry and Bess always used to
sleep out there. Then, from there, this way in the house, was Margaret’s
room.
WILLIAMS: Did you have much to do with the yard? Did you like flowers and
piddle around that way?
C. WALLACE: Nothing would grow for me. No, I don’t remember doing it. Fred was
never much for digging in the yard.
WILLIAMS: What about Mother Wallace?
C. WALLACE: Well, she liked what she had.
WILLIAMS: Which was . . . ?
C. WALLACE: Well, she had some roses, and these peonies, and then on the north side
of the house was a big thing of lilies of the valley, lots of lilies of the
valley.
WILLIAMS: Along the house, or the fence, or . . . ?
C. WALLACE: Well, go to the north side of the house, and from that, from the house
toward the street, right close to the house . . . They need a lot of shade
and dampness and so forth. Then, on this side, she had some . . . a funny
67
little pink flower—I don’t know what it was—and she had some
morning glories, and that was fine. Nobody was much of a gardener.
WILLIAMS: Were there flowers in the house a lot, fresh . . . ?
C. WALLACE: If anybody had enough energy to go out and pick them. But we did pick
a lot of the flowers, and the peonies were just beautiful! But they have
ants in them. Did you know peonies have ants in them? So we never
brought those in the house too often, but they were pretty. We’d sit out
here and look at them.
WILLIAMS: Do you remember any storms or occasions where the trees came down
or limbs would fall?
C. WALLACE: We never had any trees or limbs fall down. There have been storms. I
know one storm, Fred was coming home from Kansas City on the jitney
and there’s some . . . What’s the little town between here and Kansas
City if you went out Truman Road? Well, anyway . . .
WILLIAMS: Blue Summit?
C. WALLACE: No, it’s just an area where this street is Independence and then this street
is something else, and then there’s Kansas City along there. We had an
electric storm . . . No, it wasn’t an electric storm. I think it was a . . .
they blew down a lot of things. That would be a small tornado or a
cyclone or something. Oh, it did a mess! And I remember we got in the
car after Fred got home, and George—no, it was Frank Wallace—and
we went over there and everything was just down. They really didn’t
want people walking around too much because there were a lot of wires
down. Now, that’s the only real bad storm I remember. That didn’t
68
affect us any, but it was between here and Kansas City, and it could have
been bad.
WILLIAMS: What did taking care of the lawn involve?
D. WALLACE: Cutting the grass and watering it.
C. WALLACE: We didn’t water very much.
D. WALLACE: We watered all the time, and they watered constantly down there. It was
a green jungle, and, of course, on the other side of Frank’s house was a
whole hedge.
WILLIAMS: I’ve heard that Frank had . . . like bushes all the way around.
D. WALLACE: Well, not there, not in the middle; not where the fence is, but on the east
side and the south side.
WILLIAMS: Why was that?
D. WALLACE: Privacy, only I never knew there was anything on the other side until
now.
WILLIAMS: Would these things . . .
D. WALLACE: Those were always there. Those things were always there.
WILLIAMS: On the east side of the garage . . .
C. WALLACE: That’s where the trash barrel was, right over there.
D. WALLACE: No, it was right in the middle here, for burning the trash.
WILLIAMS: What was it, just a barrel?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Was this concrete slab . . .
D. WALLACE: Yes, just like that. I think it was like that; just so you could come in and
burn it.
69
WILLIAMS: Whose job was that?
D. WALLACE: I did it a lot in those summers I was here. I don’t know where the
garbage went; I never figured that out. I guess they just wrapped it up,
and it was picked up.
WILLIAMS: Like the food?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know what happened to the garbage. Maybe they had somebody
come and pick it up. I don’t know. That’s a good question. I never
thought about it.
WILLIAMS: Did May or Natalie bother much with the yard, as far as flowers?
D. WALLACE: No, nobody really grew flowers . . . Just a minute. Something is ringing
a bell about Natalie. She had some flowers along the side of the house
there, the west side of the house. I was much closer to them than to May
and George. I don’t know why. The minute I got here, then, you know,
how fast can you get down and say hello to them, you know?
C. WALLACE: Well, May and George had Margaret. They didn’t need you.
D. WALLACE: That’s nice.
C. WALLACE: Well, isn’t that true?
D. WALLACE: Not particularly. I didn’t know that they had her.
C. WALLACE: Well, Margaret had them then.
D. WALLACE: The bushes have overgrown a lot there now. You know, they’re
covering up the foot path.
WILLIAMS: But it was always spirea?
D. WALLACE: Always that, yes.
70
C. WALLACE: Spirea? There was a lot of spirea around 219.
D. WALLACE: Yes, you saw it in the pictures last night.
WILLIAMS: Would they keep it trimmed or just . . .
D. WALLACE: No, it was just like in those pictures, sort of wild.
C. WALLACE: Nobody worked in the yard much or trimmed. We cut the grass when
you had to and put water in it.
WILLIAMS: I heard somewhere that Frank liked to sunbathe in the backyard.
D. WALLACE: Yes, he sat out there all the time.
C. WALLACE: In one of those lounge chairs.
D. WALLACE: He was always sitting in the backyard. Canvas, you know, canvas and
wood sling chairs, striped, blue and red, green and red. You tell me how
he got a 1939 Hudson and that. [chuckling] I’ll tell you, it takes a lot of
concentration.
WILLIAMS: So you walked through here to the pediatrician.
D. WALLACE: Yes, right there. Yes, but you didn’t cut around that corner.
C. WALLACE: Well, you cut right through here where this gate is.
D. WALLACE: Now, what’s that old gate from there? Oh, that was the gate back there
then. Very strange.
WILLIAMS: Did they ever tell you about putting this fence up, why they did it, or
who paid for it?
D. WALLACE: Yes, the government paid for it.
C. WALLACE: The government did.
D. WALLACE: Yes, it was put up in 1949 or 1950.
C. WALLACE: To keep people from taking the house apart for samples.
71
D. WALLACE: Well, no, that was not the reason. The reason was security.
C. WALLACE: Well, it was security, too.
D. WALLACE: The assassination attempt, it came right after that.
WILLIAMS: Well, why did they wait so long?
D. WALLACE: Why did he walk back and forth from Blair House to the White House?
He’d just walk over to his office.
WILLIAMS: So the assassination was the real . . .
D. WALLACE: That was the thing that triggered all the security stuff, but nobody really
paid much attention before that.
C. WALLACE: I thought they thought they would take samples. The house looks
awfully nice, doesn’t it, David?
D. WALLACE: Well, pretty good.
WILLIAMS: And there was never any kind of picket fence along here?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: So was this solid hedge?
D. WALLACE: No, it was just about like it is now.
C. WALLACE: Just like it is, so the kids could walk through.
D. WALLACE: It was all just sort of wide-open. And that line about the American flag
was there when he was here is completely fallacious. The American flag
was put up every morning by the Secret Service, whoever was here,
when no one was here.
C. WALLACE: Are these people waiting to go through?
DAGE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: We’ve trimmed the bushes.
72
D. WALLACE: You’ve put new ugly curb in there.
WILLIAMS: Well, that’s the city.
D. WALLACE: I know, see, that’s the curb that used to be . . .
WILLIAMS: We trimmed the spirea last year. Before that, they were much more
overgrown. Should they be thicker, in your memory?
C. WALLACE: Yes, much thicker.
D. WALLACE: Take a look at those winter pictures with all of us out there in the snow,
and you’ll see how big they were then.
WILLIAMS: That was on the northwest corner right there, at the curb.
D. WALLACE: Right there, yes. New tree?
WILLIAMS: Yes. We had to remove and replace a few that were dead or dying.
D. WALLACE: The trees are really too big from what they used to be, but that’s
inevitable.
WILLIAMS: What about this side of the house [north]?
C. WALLACE: Yes, it looks just the same.
D. WALLACE: We never were over here much.
C. WALLACE: Well, Uncle Harry . . . that first window there is where he sat and read,
downstairs there.
WILLIAMS: Did you climb trees?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: I was not allowed to do anything.
C. WALLACE: Well, they weren’t the trees that grow enough branches for kids to be
able to climb.
D. WALLACE: Somehow they can manage.
73
WILLIAMS: The Hunts lived over here.
D. WALLACE: Yes. Who lived there, Mother, in the stone house?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: These bushes are much too big in front of May’s house.
WILLIAMS: Well, you see she’s trimming . . . This is our maintenance man, who’s a
woman.
C. WALLACE: Where?
WILLIAMS: There in the bushes, trimming Natalie and Frank’s . . .
D. WALLACE: I’ve got to tell you, you’ve really done a lovely job on this book—I
mean, really sensational. Did they teach you how to do this at school,
how to run your own little history hoohaw?
WILLIAMS: No, I did this on my own several years ago, and I don’t think anyone
uses it much, but it comes in handy.
D. WALLACE: No, it’s really sensational. Am I looking for something else?
WILLIAMS: Up here, block sixteen.
D. WALLACE: Where do you number those?
WILLIAMS: Ray Stewart.
D. WALLACE: Yes, Ray Stewart. Anna Jackson.
WILLIAMS: Did you know the Jacksons?
D. WALLACE: We didn’t know these people. Danielson, Whetstone, and Smith,
Mother, did we know them?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: So it really was true: nothing existed beyond the fence or the hedges.
C. WALLACE: And you see that right there? The reason it looks like a driveway is they
74
used a . . . Well, like when a friend of mine came to see me, she’d park
there. You couldn’t park on this street. There was a fence around
everything, and you couldn’t get in, so they used that for parking, I
guess.
D. WALLACE: What are you talking about? There was no fence here when you lived
here.
C. WALLACE: No, I know, David.
D. WALLACE: You just said there was a fence around there.
C. WALLACE: I said there had been a fence there.
D. WALLACE: When who came to visit you?
C. WALLACE: Well, when Millicent Gilpatrick came from Kansas City to see me when
I was . . .
D. WALLACE: She couldn’t park in the driveway at the house?
C. WALLACE: They still had the fence up.
D. WALLACE: I think you ought to date what you’re saying.
C. WALLACE: The fence was still up. She couldn’t drive in and she . . .
D. WALLACE: There was no fence here in the thirties and forties.
C. WALLACE: I’m talking when Aunt B. died.
D. WALLACE: You didn’t say that.
C. WALLACE: Well, when she died, Millicent came from Kansas City to see me, and I
was down here at Aunt May’s.
D. WALLACE: You could park there after the fence was put up.
C. WALLACE: And that’s where they would . . .
WILLIAMS: I see. So, while you were visiting here . . .
75
C. WALLACE: Guests would park there, because where else would they park? They
couldn’t come down the alley and around; they weren’t allowed to do
that.
D. WALLACE: And, you know, Van Horn was much narrower. It was two lanes.
C. WALLACE: And so that’s why it looks like it does, like a driveway.
WILLIAMS: Well, her bushes are getting thinned-out. We’ll do the same to George’s
house once we own it.
C. WALLACE: A lot of people have their houses for sale.
D. WALLACE: That’s just in escrow now is all? I mean, nobody is in there?
WILLIAMS: Nobody lives there. They had an estate sale earlier this year.
D. WALLACE: Did you grab anything?
WILLIAMS: Well, no, not from the sale. They returned some things that had come
from the big house. Well, I think we’ve about run out of neighborhood
to drive through. You’re probably tired of all of this driving around.
C. WALLACE: No, I like it because I haven’t seen this part of Independence for a long
time, a lot of these parts.
WILLIAMS: It’s lunchtime. Are you hungry?
C. WALLACE: Not a bit.
D. WALLACE: Yes, why not? Then we’ll go over to the house and do the other stuff.
Mother, you said you didn’t remember anything. You were absolutely a
treasure trove.
C. WALLACE: Thank you.
WILLIAMS: You were.
D. WALLACE: You’re sounding tired. Are you all right?
76
C. WALLACE: Yes, I’m fine.
WILLIAMS: Where would you like to go to lunch?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. Where would you like to go to lunch, Mother?
C. WALLACE: Where I can get a good chocolate milkshake.
WILLIAMS: Raytown? [chuckling]
C. WALLACE: I’d just as soon go to a quickie.
WILLIAMS: There’s Sonic.
C. WALLACE: I’ve never heard of them.
WILLIAMS: HiBoy.
C. WALLACE: Where do you all want to go to lunch?
D. WALLACE: Is there a McDonald’s where we can get a milkshake?
C. WALLACE: I’d just as soon go to McDonald’s. Do you like McDonald’s, Jim?
D. WALLACE: No, you like it. You’re the one who wants the milkshake.
WILLIAMS: There’s Clinton’s down here and they make old-fashioned sodas.
D. WALLACE: Oh, good.
WILLIAMS: The food is not very good.
D. WALLACE: Well, whatever.
WILLIAMS: They have like hamburgers and hot dogs.
D. WALLACE: That’s fine.
C. WALLACE: That’s fine. I’d just as soon have a hamburger and a milkshake. What
would you like?
DAGE: That sounds good to me.
WILLIAMS: We sometimes eat there, but I don’t . . .
C. WALLACE: There are two of us back here for . . .
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WILLIAMS: They make Cokes the old-fashioned way, and they have sodas and . . .
D. WALLACE: Oh, Clinton’s Ice Cream, you mean?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
D. WALLACE: Yes, that’s all right.
C. WALLACE: I think that would be fun.
WILLIAMS: Where Harry Truman had his first job.
C. WALLACE: Well, good.
D. WALLACE: But it wasn’t in that building though. Was it the same one? I don’t
think so.
WILLIAMS: It’s changed. It was Crown and then . . .
D. WALLACE: It was on the corner, Crown Drug.
WILLIAMS: Right. Is this the hardware store?
D. WALLACE: Not looking like that.
C. WALLACE: Not looking like that.
WILLIAMS: Who would take care of the . . . if something needed to be fixed-up in the
house?
C. WALLACE: George.
D. WALLACE: Well, surely they had to have maintenance, Mother, beyond George.
C. WALLACE: Yes, but George did a lot of things.
D. WALLACE: He did?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: That was the library right there on the corner.
WILLIAMS: Yes, that’s where the library was, on that corner.
D. WALLACE: And that was the grocery store right there, with the yellow bricks—
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Sermon’s.
WILLIAMS: And this is in the middle of the block on Maple.
D. WALLACE: Yes. You’ve got all that in your wonderful little maps.
WILLIAMS: Well, we have to go around the block.
D. WALLACE: You can’t make a U-turn across painted yellow lines? Who’s going to
stop you? Your boss is in the car, right?
WILLIAMS: The lady who signed my driver’s license.
D. WALLACE: Thirty days without appeal?
C. WALLACE: They’re a real toughie on them, aren’t they.
END OF INTERVIEW

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE & DAVID F. WALLACE, JR.
PART III—SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW & HOUSE WALK-THROUGH

AUGUST 26, 1991
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

INTERVIEWED BY JIM WILLIAMS
ORAL HISTORY #1991-26
This transcript corresponds to audiotapes DAV-AR #4391-4400

HARRY S TRUMAN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

EDITORIAL NOTICE

This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for Harry S Truman National Historic Site. After a draft of this transcript was made, the park provided a copy to the interviewee and requested that he or she return the transcript with any corrections or modifications that he or she wished to be included in the final transcript. The interviewer, or in some cases another qualified staff member, also reviewed the draft and compared it to the tape recordings. The corrections and other changes suggested by the interviewee and interviewer have been incorporated into this final transcript. The transcript follows as closely as possible the recorded interview, including the usual starts, stops, and other rough spots in typical conversation. The reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written, word. Stylistic matters, such as punctuation and capitalization, follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition. The transcript includes bracketed notices at the end of one tape and the beginning of the next so that, if desired, the reader can find a section of tape more easily by using this transcript.
Christine Wallace, David Frederick Wallace, and Jim Williams reviewed the draft of this transcript. Their corrections were incorporated into this final transcript by Perky Beisel in summer 2000. A grant from Eastern National Park and Monument Association funded the transcription and final editing of this interview.

RESTRICTION

ABSTRACT

Christine Wallace, sister-in-law of Bess W. Truman, and her son David F. Wallace, Jr., reveal in detail the inner workings of the extended Wallace family during the 1930s to early 1940s. For several years the Wallace siblings (Bess, George, Frank, and Fred) and their families lived together at 219 N. Delaware St. with their mother, Madge Gates Wallace. In this part of the interview, the Christine Wallace discusses her family history and how she became involved with the Wallace family in Independence. Then both Wallaces relate their experience at 219 N. Delaware St. and other family events in Denver, Albuquerque, and Washington, D.C. Their two-day interview concludes with a walk-through of the Truman home, with the Wallaces’s recollections of what the home was like in the 1930s and 1940s during the time of their residence and later visits.

Persons mentioned: D. Frederick Wallace, Marian Christine Wallace Brasher, Christina Anna Reisch, Charles Martin Meyer, Martin Meier, Mary Stigert Meier, Frank Sales Reisch, Anna Reisch, Frank Martin Meyer, Charles Edmund Meyer, Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Nancy Smith, Bob Smith, Madge Gates Wallace, Harry S Truman, Sue Hudspeth, Jack Lepage, Julie Lepage, J. C. Nichols, Bess W. Truman, Frank Gates Wallace, George Porterfield Wallace, Natalie Ott Wallace, May Wallace, Margaret Truman Daniel, Margo Wallace, David Willock Wallace, George Porterfield Gates, Elizabeth Emery Gates, Myra Gates Wallace, John Wallace, Helen Wallace, Marian Wallace, Myra Sue Wallace, T. B.Wallace, Maud Gates Wells, Gates Wells, Annie Wells, Louise Wells Hull, Lee Wells Hull, Oscar Wells, Bob Wells, Frank Gates, G. Walter Gates, Mary Loveland, Mary Paxton Keeley, Helen Bryant, Julia Ott, Margaret Louise Ott, Charles C. Bundschu, Helen Souter, Louisa Maria Ott, Fred Bacon, Christian Ott, Virginia Ott, George Henkes, Natalie Henkes, Natalie Elizabeth Henkes, Paul Buchdahl, Julia Elizabeth Buchdahl, Albert Moore Ott, Frederick Paige Barnes, Peter Crane Barnes, George Bryant Barnes, Rose Ott, Anna Barbara Ott Bundschu, Anton Joseph Bundschu, Henry Bundschu, Paul Bundschu, Anton Joseph Bundschu, Jr., Ellen Frances O’Leary Bundschu, Barbara Bundschu, Charles Bundschu, C. C. Bundschu, Jr., Helen Bundschu, Frances Bundschu, William Bundschu, Albert Jerome Bundschu, Ethel Wakefield Bundschu, Kristen Ott Bacon, Sandra Hall Bergon, Edwin Benony Hall, Jr., Peter Armstrong Hall, Edwin Bacon Hall, Rose Bacon, Mary Bostian, Caroline Southern Carnes, Bill Carnes, Victor Carnes, Sally Rogers, Ethel Southern, Rowland T. Proctor, Mary Thompson, Grace Minor, Elizabeth McCoy, Temple Buehl, Blevins Davis, Denny Chavez, Richard Jamon Brasher, Norine Allen, Lloyd Stark, Charlotte Margaret Wallace, Cheryl Ann Brasher, Richard Jamon Brasher, Jr., Elizabeth Marian Brasher, Lynne Frances Brasher, Pamela Sue Brasher, Jamon Brasher, Kristi Marie Brasher, Margaret Ann Wallace, Charles Gates Wallace, Johnny Porter, Knute Rockne, Carol Sutter, Polly Merritt, May Hardwood, Vietta Garr, Tommy Caskey, Lucy Peters, Linda King, Oscar King, Mize Peters, Marjorie Nicks, Tom Twyman, Adelaide Twyman, Mell Palette, Thelma Palette, Mary Shaw Branton, Ernest L. Capps, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mamie Eisenhower, David Eisenhower, Julie Nixon, Gene Cervi, Eulalia Cervi, Oscar Brannon, Clint Anderson, Clark Clifford, Reathel Odum, Tommy Dorsey, Ralph Zimmerman, Gretchen Zimmerman, Leola Estes, Charlie Brandon, Oscar Chapman, William C. Westmoreland, E. Clifton Daniel, Jr., Harrison Gates Daniel, William Wallace Daniel, Thomas Washington Daniel, Dean Acheson, Mary Jane Truman, and Martha Ellen Truman.

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE AND DAVID F. WALLACE, JR. PART III – SIT DOWN INTERVIEW

HSTR INTERVIEW #1991-26
JIM WILLIAMS: This is a continuation of the oral history interview with Christine Wallace and David Wallace. We’re at Arthur’s Bed and Breakfast on Maple, on the afternoon of August 26, 1991, in Independence, Missouri. Jim Williams from the park service is asking the questions, and Carol Dage from the National Park Service is here also, and Scott Stone from the National Park Service is running the recording equipment.
Well, we’ve been talking about things kind of hit-and-miss until now, and I wanted just to sit down and have a chance to go through chronologically as much as possible and find out more about your family and how you became related to the Wallaces. Could you start out by telling me where and when you were born?
CHRISTINE WALLACE: Well, I was born in Springfield, Illinois, on May 18, 1908.
WILLIAMS: How long did you live in Illinois?
C. WALLACE: I lived there until I was about . . . oh, I think I was about three years old, and then we moved to Oak Park, Illinois—my father was in business in Chicago—and we lived there until I was about ten, when we moved into Kansas City, Missouri. My father had a business there, and there I stayed until I married my husband, Fred Wallace. We lived in Independence with his family for about eight years, and from there we
2
moved to Denver, Colorado, and I’ve been there . . . Well, we were in Colorado, Denver, Colorado, when he passed away in 1957, and I was working for the Colorado Department of Highways, and I stayed there until I retired. We were told that we had to retire at sixty-five, which I did. And from there on I have lived with my daughter in Maryland for a while, and I lived in Los Angeles, California, with my son for a while. I am now living in a retirement residence or apartment in Denver, Colorado.
I have a lot of grandchildren there because I had another daughter, Marian Brasher, and she passed away in ’84 from cancer. She had seven children, and they are all living in Denver. Some are married—oh, except one, who is with her husband now in England. He’s with IBM and he was sent there for . . . I don’t know how long, but they’ll be there a while. And I have some great-grandchildren, six. Seven. No, there’s seven. One of them just had a baby. [chuckling] Seven. And I am now in Independence, Missouri, speaking to you.
WILLIAMS: Okay. What were your parents’ names?
C. WALLACE: My mother’s name was Christine Reisch, R-E-I-S-C-H, and my father’s name was Charles Meyer, M-E-Y-E-R. And they were both . . . Let me see, my father was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and my mother was born in Springfield, Illinois, and they had always lived there until they married. And as I said, we lived in Springfield for a while and then on, as I said earlier.
3
WILLIAMS: Do those families go back into Illinois history several generations?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I really don’t know too much about it. I know my father’s . . . well, my Grandfather Meier came from Switzerland, Bern, Switzerland. It was spelled M-E-I-E-R at that time. Now, when he came to the United States, I don’t know. I have no record of it. And then he married, and that’s my grandfather, his name was Martin Meier, and he married my grandmother, whose name was Mary Stigert. And I don’t know where she came from or what, but I think they were all from probably some German . . . the names sound kind of German. And as for my mother’s family, her father was Frank Reisch, and my grandmother was Anna Reisch. And as far as I know, they were born in and around that area, Springfield.
WILLIAMS: Did you know both sets of grandparents?
C. WALLACE: I knew my Grandmother Reisch. I did not know my Grandfather Reisch, because he died before my mother was married. And as for my father’s mother, I was just a baby, I think, when she died. And my grandfather—his name was Martin Meier, as I said—and I vaguely remember him, but he didn’t live long after I was born.
WILLIAMS: How long did your parents live?
C. WALLACE: Well, my father passed away in the sixties. Where’s my notebook?
WILLIAMS: Well, it’s in on the . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And he had diabetes. And my mother passed away when she was ninety-seven years old. She died in California. She lived with me
4
for a while after my father died, and then she went out to California and lived . . . I had two brothers, Frank and Charles. Charles lived in Dallas, and my brother Frank lived in California, and she was with them.
WILLIAMS: Were you the youngest?
C. WALLACE: I was the youngest.
WILLIAMS: How much older were Frank and Charles?
C. WALLACE: Well, Frank was quite a bit older. He was about eight . . . Let me see, he was born in 1901, and he died . . . [whispering] I don’t have my book. She took it up to my room. [speaking normally] And then after he died, my mother came—
DAVID WALLACE: You had it downstairs this morning.
C. WALLACE: Well, I think I told—
D. WALLACE: It’s not in your purse?
C. WALLACE: No, I told Pat about it, and I think she took it upstairs. And where were we?
WILLIAMS: Frank was born in 1901.
C. WALLACE: In 1901.
WILLIAMS: And died . . .?
C. WALLACE: And he was about . . . How old was Uncle Frank when he died?
DAVID WALLACE: Fifty-seven, fifty-six?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, he was about Fred’s age, about fifty-seven, and he had . . . What did he die of? Hepatitis. And he was married and he had two children, and they lived in California. And then my mother—
5
D. WALLACE: He died about ’59.
C. WALLACE: Hmm?
D. WALLACE: He died about ’59, ’58.
C. WALLACE: About ’59.
WILLIAMS: So you had two Uncle Franks?
C. WALLACE: Two Uncle Franks. [The missing book is brought downstairs.] And then, let me see, I’ll look this up. January . . . Now who are we on? Frank? January 1st . . . Well, I don’t see . . . Oh, yeah, he’s December. No, he was January 1st. No, he was December. And then December 11th, 12th, 13th . . . I ought to have David looking these up. I need a secretary.
WILLIAMS: So he was about seven years older than you.
C. WALLACE: And my brother Charles was thirteen months older than me. Frank Sales Reisch. Well, what happened to him? Here he is, Frank Reisch, and he died January 4, 1961. So, if he was born in 1901, he was sixty years old, wouldn’t you say?
D. WALLACE: Fifty-nine.
C. WALLACE: Fifty-nine.
WILLIAMS: His name is Frank M. Meier.
C. WALLACE: Frank Martin Meier. And my brother was born April 4th—my other brother—March, April . . . April 4th. See how I like this book?
WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
C. WALLACE: For somebody that can’t remember anything it’s fine. Charles Edmund
6
Meier. He was born in 1907, and he died on November 30, 1984. Is that ’84?
WILLIAMS: Eighty-nine?
C. WALLACE: Eighty-nine.
WILLIAMS: Not too long ago.
C. WALLACE: And he had been living in Dallas, Texas, and he has one daughter who’s married and lives in . . . Dallas? Fort . . . What is it?
WILLIAMS: Fort Worth?
C. WALLACE: In Fort Worth.
WILLIAMS: How much did you see your brothers through the years?
C. WALLACE: Well, not too much. I would go to Dallas once in a while, but not too often.
WILLIAMS: Would you visit that side of the family?
D. WALLACE: No.
C. WALLACE: No, they all kind of stayed in their own place.
WILLIAMS: So you had one living in Texas?
C. WALLACE: And one in California.
WILLIAMS: So Frank lived in California?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Frank lived in California. And he had been living here in Kansas City at one time, and so had my brother Charles, but then Charles moved to Dallas and Frank moved to California.
WILLIAMS: Where did you go to school?
C. WALLACE: I went to school in Kansas City. I went to a French convent, Notre
7
Dame de Sion, is the best I can do.
WILLIAMS: It’s still there.
C. WALLACE: It’s still there, and the mother house is over in Paris, and we had to speak French all the time. Oh, then I went to Finch after I graduated from there. I graduated from “Si” and I went to Finch, and that was in New York City. And I went there—it was a two-year program—and the first year was in New York and the second year was in Versailles, France. They had a school over there, which was a lot of fun, and then my mother came over and met me, and we saw some of Europe before we returned home. By that time, you went on a boat; you didn’t fly in those days.
WILLIAMS: What were you being trained for at Finch?
C. WALLACE: That’s a good question.
WILLIAMS: What kind of courses did you have?
C. WALLACE: Well, we had languages, and of course I had French, and we had art appreciation.
D. WALLACE: Tell them what kind of a school Finch was.
C. WALLACE: It was a finishing school. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: It wasn’t a real school.
C. WALLACE: Well, it was, and we had history, and we had . . . We’d go to the Metropolitan Museum, and we had a very good teacher, and we’d look at the pictures, and she’d explain different techniques that the artists had used and so forth. And then we’d look at some of the furniture they had
8
and show the different things that meant something when . . . Anyway, it was educational. And then when we were in France, why, we did a lot of museum business. We went down to the chateaux country to see all the buildings. Anyway, that’s what we did. What did I come out knowing?
WILLIAMS: You knew French. You were using some of that last night.
C. WALLACE: Oh, I could speak French very well at one time, but after you get married and you never hear it for twenty-some-odd years, you get kind of forgetful. I have a French dictionary I had when I was in school there, and it’s just . . . Well, one part of it is English-French, and another part is French-English, and it’s very helpful. When I couldn’t find my English dictionary, I’d look it up in the French, on the English side, so I could see how they spelled it so I’d know. And then you can use things. And by the way, I found a new dictionary at the King Supermarket.
D. WALLACE: Well, you showed it to me and told me it was ninety-nine cents.
C. WALLACE: So, anyway . . . well, you just forget words. I mean, I notice myself trying to think something in French, and I have to go to the dictionary to look it up. I can’t remember it anymore. Silly words like . . . Well, I know window, but . . . Oh, I don’t know, things on the table or in a room and so forth.
WILLIAMS: What business was your father in?
C. WALLACE: He had a business of office supplies and printing and so forth.
WILLIAMS: Did he do pretty well with that?
9
C. WALLACE: No, he didn’t. He lost his business during the . . . well, in the thirties. Wasn’t that when it was so . . . everything—
D. WALLACE: In the Depression, wasn’t it?
C. WALLACE: The Depression, yeah.
D. WALLACE: Well, somehow they managed to live pretty damn well, though.
C. WALLACE: Well, my mother was left some money by her father.
WILLIAMS: So that’s how they could afford to send you—
D. WALLACE: From the big brewery.
C. WALLACE: And he had a brewery.
D. WALLACE: He was smart enough to switch to soda pop during Prohibition.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, in fact, here it tells something about—well, let me get my glasses on—the brewery and when it started.
WILLIAMS: This is the Reisch side?
C. WALLACE: Reisch, mm-hmm. His name is Frank Sales, S-A-L-E-S, Reisch. [reading] “He came to Springfield from Niederhausen, Germany, in 1832. . . . Work for building the first brewery was started in 1848.”
WILLIAMS: So there was beer money.
D. WALLACE: He used to have a statue of Stephen Douglas on the landing of their stairway.
WILLIAMS: Oh, really? Stephen Douglas was a family friend?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know about that. [chuckling] I didn’t know too much about that in those days.
D. WALLACE: Well, how would I if you hadn’t told me?
10
C. WALLACE: Well, I think you were there a lot more than I was.
D. WALLACE: In 1850?
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] Well, I wasn’t there in 1850.
D. WALLACE: No, but your mother would have told you that.
C. WALLACE: No, my mother didn’t tell me anything.
D. WALLACE: Anyway, they were on that side of the Lincoln-Douglas debate.
WILLIAMS: So your family—we talked about this earlier—was traditionally Catholic?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: All the way through?
C. WALLACE: As far as I know.
WILLIAMS: What were you doing, and when was it that you met Fred Wallace?
C. WALLACE: Well, I was in Kansas City, Missouri, and it was January, and I had a date with a boy—I can’t remember his name—and we went over to friends of mine, some friends I had, a house, and their name was Nancy and Bob Smith, and Fred was there and other people. We had a little group that would get together, and we’d play blackjack. So that’s when I met Fred. It was on the 17th of January, which was, by the way, his birthday.
WILLIAMS: What year?
C. WALLACE: Nineteen thirty-three. Thirty-three, yeah. And then in April, that’s when I started dating him. In April I went to Carmel, California, with my family. We went out there quite often. Ever been to Carmel?
11
WILLIAMS: No.
C. WALLACE: It’s a nice place. Anyway, then in July he came out, and we got married.
WILLIAMS: So you had about a six-month romance, courtship?
C. WALLACE: Well, yeah, but I was away most of it. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Got married at the Carmel mission, which is one of the historic missions.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, the Carmel mission. We had our wedding breakfast at Del Monte Lodge, and we went on a wedding trip to Banff and Lake Louise. And then we came home, and for a while we had a place of our own, but eventually we went out and lived in Independence with the family.
WILLIAMS: Did you know when you went out to Carmel that he was going to come out and you were going to get married?
C. WALLACE: Oh, it was all planned ahead, yeah.
WILLIAMS: So it wasn’t a surprise when he showed up?
C. WALLACE: No, no, no.
D. WALLACE: It was a hell of a surprise for your mother, I’ll bet.
C. WALLACE: Yes, it was. I remember the day she got the letter. He was very proper. He went in to see my father and said that we wanted to get married, and then my father wrote my mother. And I will never forget the expression on her face.
D. WALLACE: Well, he was still in Kansas City.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
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WILLIAMS: Your father?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, your father.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and Fred.
WILLIAMS: And you and your mother—
C. WALLACE: Were in California.
WILLIAMS: And your brothers?
C. WALLACE: No, just one brother. One always would stay there. They worked in the business with my father. And so he wrote my mother that we had planned to get married, and it was okay by him, I guess. [chuckling] Anyway . . .
WILLIAMS: What did your mother think?
C. WALLACE: Well, I sometimes wonder what she was thinking, because I don’t think it was very nice. [chuckling] She was very surprised.
WILLIAMS: And you were twenty-three or twenty-five?
C. WALLACE: Twenty-five.
WILLIAMS: And he was thirty-three.
C. WALLACE: Well, we were born—
D. WALLACE: Yeah, thirty-three.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, thirty-three. He was eight years older than me.
WILLIAMS: Did the age matter too much?
C. WALLACE: No, it didn’t have anything to do with it.
WILLIAMS: What did you like about him?
C. WALLACE: Well, he was a nice person. I don’t know, we just . . . What do you
13
think about? [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Was it love at first sight?
C. WALLACE: Not exactly. No, we got along real well, and he was . . . I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to say.
D. WALLACE: Swept her off her feet.
WILLIAMS: Were you considered in the same kind of social category?
C. WALLACE: I guess so. Yeah, we sort of all had the same friends.
WILLIAMS: Do you know why he was down in Kansas City at the Smiths?
C. WALLACE: Yes, he was a very good friend of the Smiths, and I guess Nancy and Bob just . . . I don’t know how it happened that he happened to be there, except they probably asked him to, because he’s not the kind that would come barging in. And then he had all of us out to the house in Independence one time for one of our little get-togethers, and I’d have them another time, and so it was kind of fun.
WILLIAMS: Was he the first person you met from Independence?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, by the way, he was. Yeah, I didn’t know too many people in— Well, I didn’t know anybody, really.
WILLIAMS: So he had the group out to the house here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Did you meet his mother at that time?
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes, she would be right there, but then she went and sat in the rocking chair in the living room, because we played our little blackjack game on the dining room table. And Nancy and Bob had been out there
14
before. They had known Fred a long time, and knew Mrs. Wallace too.
WILLIAMS: What was her reaction to your wedding?
C. WALLACE: I wasn’t there to see it, so I don’t know. I have no idea. But I think Grandmother Wallace was the kind of person that . . . I don’t know, she wouldn’t show her feelings much. Do you think she did?
D. WALLACE: Everybody else thinks she did—I mean, “the dragon lady.”
C. WALLACE: Oh, I don’t think that.
D. WALLACE: She sure said some negative things about Harry, and you know.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but Fred was her baby boy.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, but he never told you that she hit the ceiling or anything like that?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t think she did.
WILLIAMS: Did they wonder why he went out to California, why you couldn’t wait to get back here?
C. WALLACE: Oh, no, no, no, it was all . . . It was nothing behind anybody’s back. They were told just exactly—
D. WALLACE: Why didn’t they come out for the wedding?
C. WALLACE: Well, people just didn’t have that kind of money in those days. I didn’t have a big wedding. I just wore a suit, and we went to the mission and got married and went to the Del Monte Lodge and had a nice breakfast, and then we went on our trip.
D. WALLACE: Well, did you take a train up or did you drive up?
C. WALLACE: Oh, a train.
WILLIAMS: Who was at your wedding?
15
C. WALLACE: Oh, my mother and David. No! not David. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: [unintelligible]
WILLIAMS: Now we know the truth.
D. WALLACE: You’d better erase all of that and start over again. Now you’ll see how accurate it is.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] My mother and my brother Charles, and Sue Hudspeth, who, by the way, Charles married eventually. And I had these friends, Jack and Julie . . . What was their last name? Jack Lepage and Julie. And she was my maid of honor, and Jack was Fred’s best man, and my brother Charles walked me down the aisle.
WILLIAMS: Were these all people from the Kansas City area?
C. WALLACE: No. Jack was in the service, and he came from . . . you know, what they call Fort Ord was called the Presidio in Monterey, and he was stationed there. She was a . . . oh, what was she, a niece or something of a Mrs. Hamlin who lived in Carmel, and we always stayed . . . Mrs. Hamlin had apartments and so forth for rent, and we always stayed with her whenever we went to California, to Carmel.
WILLIAMS: Would you go there every year?
C. WALLACE: Well, we went there quite often, and so that’s how I happened to know Julie, and we got to be real good friends. And then there was another couple, and I can’t remember . . . Snow, two girls, they were twins, and their last name was Snow. Well, they were some kin of Julie’s. And it wasn’t big, it was just . . . that was about it.
16
WILLIAMS: And it was in the mission?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, at the mission. The mission has the big altar here, and then off to the side there was a small chapel, and we were married in the chapel. And the priest was Father Murphy. [chuckling] I asked him to come to the breakfast, and he said, “Well, I’ll come if you have something soft, because I’m having trouble with my teeth.”
WILLIAMS: Did you have something soft?
C. WALLACE: Yes. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: So none of the Wallaces were there except Fred?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Did you have any kind of reception when you came back here?
C. WALLACE: No, nothing.
WILLIAMS: Were there announcements sent out?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, we had engraved announcements sent out.
WILLIAMS: Did you get gifts?
C. WALLACE: Yes, we got some gifts.
WILLIAMS: How much did you know about Fred before you married him?
C. WALLACE: Married him?
WILLIAMS: Or before you got to know him, how much of his past were you familiar with?
C. WALLACE: Not too much.
WILLIAMS: Once you got to know him better, I guess, being married, heard the family stories from his side—
17
C. WALLACE: Well, we didn’t . . . You see, we didn’t live with them right away. We had an apartment, and then we were having a little trouble financially, [chuckling] so we moved out to Independence. Fred was an architect, and it was kind of rough going.
WILLIAMS: How long had he been in business then?
C. WALLACE: Well, now, let me see, you’d have to figure that one out, because he had two years of college. Now, if he was born in 1900, and he was thirty-three, so it was 1933 . . .
WILLIAMS: So he probably finished college about ’20?
C. WALLACE: What would that be, about? Wait a minute, I’m trying to figure it out. Nineteen hundred, and he was eighteen. When he was eighteen it would be 1918, so he must have gone to college then. So it would be 1920. Would that be about right?
WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
C. WALLACE: After two years? And then he had an office downtown on Tenth Street across near the Schubert Theater. Wasn’t there a Schubert Theater on . . . Anybody know anything about Kansas City?
WILLIAMS: No, I don’t. [chuckling]
C. WALLACE: Anyway, somewhere. And he had a friend that was in the office with him, his last name was Brown. I can’t remember his first name—I’ve been trying to—but . . . Anyway, so they had this office together and everything was kind of a struggle in those days.
WILLIAMS: Was it just the two of them?
18
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And had he done work somewhere else before that?
C. WALLACE: Yes, I guess so. I can’t really remember what, but . . .
WILLIAMS: Somewhere we got this newspaper article from 1929, and it says, “Do you know Fred Wallace?”
C. WALLACE: Can we put that through here? [adjusting the microphone around her neck] Well, I know what I’ll do. There we are. Of course, these fall off of my nose. [chuckling] What does that do? Oh, that makes it work, huh? Where is this article [see appendix, item 1]?
WILLIAMS: This was before you even knew him, and he was already in the Missouri Democrat, Kansas City, Missouri, Friday, May 17, 1929.
C. WALLACE: I didn’t know he was with the J.C. Nichols firm. Frederick Apartment Hotel at Columbia. Well, I wouldn’t know that building. [reading] “A credit to his skill as a [designer] . . .” Well, where did that all come from?
DAVID WALLACE: He just told you.
WILLIAMS: It was a Kansas City newspaper. It says he designed the SAE house at Columbia.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and was supervisor of construction. And it said that he did things up here. Frederick Apartment Hotel at Columbia, Missouri. I wonder if he named it after himself? [chuckling] Jackson County Negro Girls’ Home and Jackson County Hospital.
WILLIAMS: Did you know that?
19
C. WALLACE: No, I didn’t know any of this. I probably did, but I’ve forgotten. Oh, well. [reading] “He has very ambitious plans for the future . . . lives with his mother.”
WILLIAMS: It says he was a member of the board of trustees of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, “also a member of the Board of Governors of the Missouri University Alumni Association.” Well, that’s fine. Thank you.
WILLIAMS: You didn’t know that?
C. WALLACE: I didn’t know a lot of that. I probably did, but I just . . . You know, I told you I knew about the SAE faternity. I didn’t know they had built a new house.
WILLIAMS: We need to change tapes.
C. WALLACE: Oh, good, I [unintelligible].
WILLIAMS: For a few minutes.
[End #4391; Begin #4392]
WILLIAMS: It’s funny how we’ve stumbled across these things.
D. WALLACE: [unintelligible] building [unintelligible] by the [unintelligible] theater.
WILLIAMS: That might have been in the home that the library removed. Mrs. Truman [unintelligible] say things or maybe Mother Wallace [unintelligible] building.
C. WALLACE: [unintelligible]
WILLIAMS: Did we talk about your parents? When they . . .?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
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WILLIAMS: . . . were born?
C. WALLACE: We might do that.
WILLIAMS: I got your brothers.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, my parents. Three children.
WILLIAMS: I don’t think we got the years.
C. WALLACE: Well, my mother.
WILLIAMS: You said she was ninety-seven, but . . .
C. WALLACE: [unintelligible] May 15. May 15. I don’t know where my other grandparents were. I don’t know. May 15th. Well, her name was . . .
WILLIAMS: This is your mother.
C. WALLACE: She was born in 1866. Her name was Christina, but they called them Tina in those days. Her name was Christina Anna Reisch, R-E-I-S-C-H, and she was born May 15, 1866, and she died September 2, 1963. Well, six from thirteen is seven, so that makes her ninety-seven.
All right, now who else? My father, his birthday was September 23rd. Was it the 23rd or was it the 21st? Well, we’ll get around there and we’ll see. [counting quietly to herself] Twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth . . . No. Twenty-fourth? Here it is. Charles Martin Meier. He was born September 23, 1868. He was a little younger than my mother. And he died May 8, 1947. Seven from eight is one . . . Well, that doesn’t work out, does it?
WILLIAMS: Forty-seven to . . .
C. WALLACE: Eight from seventeen is nine.
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WILLIAMS: So he would have been eighty-nine? Seventy-nine.
C. WALLACE: Seventy-nine, yeah. Now, who else did we need?
WILLIAMS: I think that was all. Got your brothers and your parents.
C. WALLACE: You have both of them now?
WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm, and you.
C. WALLACE: I gave you me.
WILLIAMS: Right.
C. WALLACE: Now, you want my mother’s parents. Frank Reisch. I don’t know when his birthday was.
WILLIAMS: Well, that’s far enough back.
C. WALLACE: I really don’t know. I mean, I could look through here one . . . [interview interrupted—cold drinks served] Oh, how did you know I was thirsty? Thank you.
WILLIAMS: Because I’ve been making you talk.
C. WALLACE: Oh, that water’s so nice and cold.
WILLIAMS: How did your husband get along with your parents through the years?
C. WALLACE: Well, they just kind of went each other’s way.
WILLIAMS: I didn’t hear you.
C. WALLACE: They kind of went their own way.
WILLIAMS: Which means they avoided each other?
C. WALLACE: No, but they didn’t go out of their way to . . . I don’t know, how would you say, David?
DAVID WALLACE: I don’t think they liked him very much, and I think you resented
22
it and reacted accordingly.
WILLIAMS: Why wouldn’t they like him?
D. WALLACE: Martin Meier was born January 9, 1843, and died December 19, 1921. That’s her paternal grandfather. Well, I don’t know, I guess never good enough for their daughter, sort of thing.
WILLIAMS: Sounds like Madge Wallace and Harry Truman.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. But there were a lot of problems, just put it that way.
WILLIAMS: But they were living in Kansas City all those years that you were out. . .
C. WALLACE: No, they were living in Kansas City, but after my father lost his business, they went to California. And my father never drove a car, neither did my mother, so Frankie was there. I’ve got to stop doing that. My brother Frank was at home, and he would take them back and forth.
D. WALLACE: Don’t you love that? She signed her name in old German usage: Christine Reisch, 1830, and died in 1902.
C. WALLACE: That was my grandmother.
WILLIAMS: Did she give you that book?
C. WALLACE: No, that was my mother’s book. I showed it to you. It’s a hundred years old. It’s on the flyleaf. No, it’s on the cover.
D. WALLACE: She got it on May 19, 1891.
C. WALLACE: The book.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: And, oh, we just all had family problems.
WILLIAMS: Okay.
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C. WALLACE: I think we’ll leave it that way.
WILLIAMS: But since they were in California a good part of the time, was that not a problem, really, that you didn’t see them?
C. WALLACE: No, no, no, we wrote and so forth.
WILLIAMS: Would you visit them?
C. WALLACE: I went out a couple times and visited them, yeah.
WILLIAMS: By yourself?
C. WALLACE: By myself. Yeah, I didn’t even take the kids. But we were living in Independence, though, when I went out. Prior to that, no. Well, Fred and I were really only by ourselves maybe two to three years after we were married.
WILLIAMS: When you moved to Denver, did that mean you visited them more often in California?
C. WALLACE: I didn’t visit them. We were too busy coming to Independence.
WILLIAMS: And Washington.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Well, and my grandfather died in 1947, too, so we were only in Colorado for six years.
C. WALLACE: And then she came to . . . My mother came to live with me for a while—when were in Denver, not before then, of course. Then she spent some time with me, and then she’d spend some time with my brother in Dallas. Because Frank had gotten married, and he and his wife then went to California. They had twins, a boy and a girl, and my
24
mother enjoyed them. And so my brother came and got her and took her to California, because she’d rather be with . . . Well, like Fred was Mrs. Wallace’s boy, Frank was my mother’s boy. He could make her believe black was white and white was black. Don’t you think so, David?
D. WALLACE: Mm-hmm. That isn’t very specific, but that’s true.
C. WALLACE: Well, it’s specific enough. So they just showed up one day and said, “I’m taking her to California, and goodbye.”
WILLIAMS: What are your first memories of Bess, Frank, and George Wallace?
C. WALLACE: Well, I remember walking through that Union Station in Kansas City as we returned from our wedding trip, and there stood Bess and Margaret waiting for us. [chuckling] I thought, “Oh! I wonder what that’s going to be like.” [chuckling] And I think they were thinking the same thing, but we all got along well.
WILLIAMS: So you really didn’t know them before you were married?
C. WALLACE: I didn’t. No, I had met them, and that’s all. I didn’t know them at all.
D. WALLACE: Margaret was nine years old, though.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and I had never met Frank and George and Natalie and May until after.
WILLIAMS: Did it matter to you that Bess’s husband was a county judge, politician?
C. WALLACE: No, I didn’t care. No, fine. I always liked Harry. He was always very nice.
WILLIAMS: Was that considered something of a celebrity back then?
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C. WALLACE: Well, I wouldn’t say “celebrity.” Well, you didn’t think he was out digging ditches or anything. You know what I mean? It was a pretty good job, wouldn’t it be? And he was such a nice person.
WILLIAMS: Well, he was living with his mother-in-law, just like you ended up.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Did you share that experience with him?
C. WALLACE: No, no, no, we never talked about our personal feelings with him. No, when he was there, we’d all have dinner together, and then sometimes Harry would sit down in the living room for a little while. But generally he went on upstairs to their room, and he’d read, and Bess would sit down . . . and eventually she would go upstairs. Lots of times she’d just sit downstairs and read, too. We’re a reading family, let me tell you. [chuckling]
And then I do remember, though, something that . . . We finally got to the point we were all playing canasta. You ever play canasta? And we put up some card tables—
D. WALLACE: Not in the forties. The game wasn’t invented until the fifties.
C. WALLACE: Well, I’m talking about we got so we were playing canasta. Now, wait a minute. I was there, and Fred was there. Now, I don’t know whether we were visiting there or what, but we were there, and we put up these card tables just as you would go out of the living room. All right, here’s a . . . like this, and here’s an . . . All right, you’d put them across there. And Frank and George and Natalie and May and Fred and myself, and
26
Bess, and sometimes Harry, would get around those [chuckling] tables and play canasta, and we’d just have a marvelous time, all the women against the men, and we always beat them to death. But that’s the only time I can ever remember Harry sitting in and playing a game like that with us. But he was always going, always away, always talking on the phone. He was a busy man. And he was so nice. Never, never, as I told you, did I ever hear him raise his voice to anybody. He was a perfect gentleman. Never did I hear him say a “damn” or a “hell.” I’ll bet I said more than he did. He was just nice.
I think one of the nicest things he ever did that I’ll always remember, is Christmas was coming, and he had been away. And this was the Christmas of . . . Let’s see, Margo, Marian was born March 2, 1937. So it would be Christmas of ’36, wouldn’t it? Yeah. And he came home for Christmas, and he gave me a Christmas present—I mean, generally we gave it together—and it was a white afghan, a baby afghan, because I was expecting a baby, you know, shortly. And I thought it was such a . . . I thought it was just wonderful of him. [chuckling] It was such a nice thing for him to do.
WILLIAMS: How would you describe your mother-in-law?
C. WALLACE: She was always very kind and very nice, and tried to do everything on earth to make everybody happy. I don’t know, I always felt kind of sorry for her.
WILLIAMS: Why?
27
C. WALLACE: Well, I think in many ways she was lonesome, and in many ways she was hurt from her experience. And I don’t think . . . That’s a hard thing to live down. Because I have been told that she was very extravagant, and I guess he had run up a lot of debts and so forth trying to meet the expenses. So basically, up to a point, she was a little bit responsible.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever hear anything about how David Willock Wallace died?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Was that ever talked about?
C. WALLACE: No. No, it’s—
WILLIAMS: How did you find out?
C. WALLACE: I think Natalie told me. And even Margaret didn’t know it for a long time. I don’t know whether it’s May or Natalie, and it’s one of those books Margaret wrote, and I think it was the one called Bess [W. Truman], where she said that Bess found out that Natalie had told her. And it wasn’t very well received. I don’t know. They didn’t talk about those things. In those days, that was something you kept locked up in a closet.
WILLIAMS: In one of the articles in the newspaper when he died—
C. WALLACE: I never saw them.
WILLIAMS: Well, it says that he had a disease that was creeping over him, and some people read that as if he had an alcohol problem.
C. WALLACE: He did.
WILLIAMS: So that was one of the problems?
28
C. WALLACE: He had that, and then he had . . . Oh, he had terrible debts, and I think Grandfather Gates had loaned him money after . . . time and time again. Of course, you don’t know how much of some of this you read now—whether Grandmother was extravagant or what—I don’t know, but he had a house to maintain, a wife. By that time they had one, two, three, four children. Even those days that cost money. And I don’t know. And of course Fred doesn’t even remember his father, never did, so . . .
WILLIAMS: But you eventually found out these things?
C. WALLACE: Well, Natalie had told me. Natalie told me.
WILLIAMS: Was it quite a while after you had been in the family?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, quite a while. Yeah, but it never occurred to me to ask or anything. I mean, it was one of those things.
WILLIAMS: And you didn’t know the Gates family, George P. and Elizabeth?
C. WALLACE: No. I never knew anybody at all, and I met Fred and I knew none of his background or anything. And gradually you meet them and . . .
WILLIAMS: Did Madge talk about her parents?
C. WALLACE: She never did to me, no.
WILLIAMS: She wouldn’t make references to them about . . . in the house?
C. WALLACE: No. No, not that I remember.
WILLIAMS: Where did you hear some of these stories about them and what the house had been like when it was built?
C. WALLACE: Well, mostly from Natalie or May, yeah. And somebody told me then, or maybe I read it, that the house had been built when Grandmother
29
Wallace was four years old, but . . . And then it was remodeled. Now that, I don’t know when that was done. And I do know they lived down the street—just hearsay, you know.
WILLIAMS: Things you pick up through the years.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and Natalie would tell me a little bit. I was very fond of Natalie. And I liked May, too; she was fun. They were completely different people, but you could like them both, you know. May was just . . . I just couldn’t believe it today. We saw her. She didn’t respond too much to us. Her face was always fuller. That’s what bothered me this morning, and it’s so thin, and she just sort of sat there like this most of the time.
WILLIAMS: How would you describe her personality?
C. WALLACE: May? Oh, just a lot of fun, happy-go-lucky. She was a great person. Was. I shouldn’t say “was,” but it’s sad to see somebody change like that. And Natalie was a very down-to-earth person—well, so was May. Oh, we used to, at Christmas time, write little poems or something and give everybody a silly little gift. What did we do? Natalie was always sort of penny-pinching a little bit, and we used to tease her about it. She was a good sport; she’d take it. And one Christmas we gave her . . . How did we get it? Something for . . . soles for your shoes, because she was always walking rather than riding because it saved her money. And said, “Well, you’ll probably be needing to have your shoes resoled.” Just dumb, silly things. I can’t even remember what I got, [chuckling] but I guess it was something good. But it was fun. That’s the only one
30
I remember what we gave. I can’t remember what we gave Harry or Bess or anybody.
WILLIAMS: How much did you know Madge’s sisters and brothers, Myra . . .?
C. WALLACE: I never knew the brothers. They were all gone when I came into the family, and I think Myra was gone, too. Now, I knew John and Helen, and as I told you—
WILLIAMS: Wallace?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, which were Myra’s children. And as I told you, when John was married to Marian and they had this baby girl, which they named Myra Sue, and we went out to their house to see the baby and visit with Marian and John. And then the next thing, they were living on the farm outside of Liberty. John had a farm out there, you know. And Helen, I guess she was still living in the house. I think even he was gone.
WILLIAMS: T.B.?
C. WALLACE: Boulware Wallace, or whatever his name was. I guess she was living there by herself. I don’t think she moved in . . . Maybe she was living with John. I don’t know, but John and Marian broke up, because the next thing you knew, there was no Marian there. And as I think you told me, she’s living in Canoga Park, California.
WILLIAMS: And that’s John’s daughter, Myra?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but she went out there with her mother. So I don’t know whether that means Marian’s dead or whether they didn’t elaborate on who was living there, or what.
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WILLIAMS: So you were familiar with John and Helen Wallace.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Helen came often, often, often to the house to visit Grandmother Wallace. She was so good to her. Yes, I liked Helen. She was a nice person.
WILLIAMS: She never married. Is that right?
C. WALLACE: No, she never married. And as for Auntie Maud, I never did know her.
WILLIAMS: You knew her children?
C. WALLACE: I knew some of them, the boys, and I think I knew Gates Wells better than any of them. And did you ever find that out about Annie?
WILLIAMS: Well, I have . . . no, their daughter was Louise Wells. Did you know—
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s true, and she married a Hull.
WILLIAMS: Right.
C. WALLACE: Or she was a Hull and married a Wells. Now which is it?
WILLIAMS: She married a Hull, Lee.
C. WALLACE: Lee Wells Hull.
WILLIAMS: They had two sons.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that much . . . I don’t know what they did.
WILLIAMS: And then there was Gates Wells.
C. WALLACE: Gates Wells. I knew him. Now he was the banker.
WILLIAMS: He had three daughters.
C. WALLACE: And he’s the one I said was married to Annie, and that she was killed as she was crossing a street. Now, you don’t have that?
WILLIAMS: I don’t remember that. Do you remember?
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C. WALLACE: And I think he’s remarried. I mean, he remarried, but Annie Wells—I mean Hull, or whatever her last name was—everybody liked her. She was great.
WILLIAMS: And then there was Oscar.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Oscar. Good old Oscar. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Why do you laugh?
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know. He was just so funny. [chuckling] I don’t know, he was nice. Sort of a ne’er-do-well sort. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Oh. He’s the one who went from job to job, sort of?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. A little heavy on the drinking, too.
WILLIAMS: And then there was Bobby. Did you know the youngest one?
C. WALLACE: Bob, yeah. I didn’t know him too well. You know, when somebody like a relative comes to visit their mother, and it’s just not a . . . just some old lady, they aren’t going to hang around. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: I know I’ve asked you this before, but I don’t know if it’s been on tape. Were you in Platte City very much?
C. WALLACE: No. We didn’t go up too often, but . . .
WILLIAMS: But you would go?
C. WALLACE: We’d go once in a while, and they’d come down once in a while, but I never, never did know . . . Well, I don’t think I ever knew Louise’s mother, Auntie Maud. No, I think she was gone, or . . . I don’t know. See, there was a time in there we didn’t go too much. I mean, I was so busy having babies.
33
D. WALLACE: You had some help [unintelligible].
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] I don’t know, it’s just—
D. WALLACE: You certainly had enough help around the house.
C. WALLACE: Having babies?
D. WALLACE: No, I mean, there were people all over the house.
WILLIAMS: To baby-sit.
C. WALLACE: I know, but you just kind of hated to ask them to. Grandmother was always glad to. But she would go to Platte City.
WILLIAMS: Madge would?
C. WALLACE: Oh, yeah, that’s her sister. That was a little different than, just . . . Well, it was just different. She’d go do that, or take a ride with Frank and Natalie or George and May, but that was about it. But she wouldn’t . . . oh, like . . . well, I don’t think she ever went to a movie in her life.
D. WALLACE: Well, at the White House.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s right.
D. WALLACE: She went downstairs to the movie there. She didn’t go out to movies there either.
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: And you said that you didn’t know Frank Gates or G. Walter Gates.
C. WALLACE: I knew G. Walter, but . . .
D. WALLACE: Yeah, he was around.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, G. Walter Gates, and he’s from Portland, Oregon. Did he get married? I can’t remember. He did, didn’t he?
34
WILLIAMS: He had a son named Walter, I think.
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s the one we knew, wasn’t it, G. Walter Gates?
WILLIAMS: Here he is.
D. WALLACE: We knew G. Walter, not Walter.
WILLIAMS: He died in ’23, so you must have known the son.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, the son, because . . . Is he still alive, or is he gone by now?
WILLIAMS: I don’t think we know.
C. WALLACE: I think everybody lost track of him completely. I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Well, I have a few newspaper clippings about—
D. WALLACE: All these reasons for people dying. [reading] “He was stricken with paralysis two years ago.” I mean, you know, there were no real reasons given why anybody died.
C. WALLACE: What did you say?
WILLIAMS: I know this was before your time.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: But I wondered if you’d ever heard of things like this? [reading] “Mrs. D.W. Wallace and Miss Bess Wallace entertained with a bridge luncheon on Friday, April 23, 1915, in honor of Mrs. Frank Gates Wallace. The house was beautifully decorated with spring flowers. In the center of each table was a glass basket of pink sweet peas and ferns.”
C. WALLACE: Was that when Natalie and Frank were married?
WILLIAMS: It was 1915, so it was soon thereafter.
35
C. WALLACE: It could be, yeah.
WILLIAMS: But it says: [reading] “Prizes were won by Mrs. Frank Wallace and Miss Mary Loveland.”
C. WALLACE: I don’t know her.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “Those assisting Mrs. Wallace and Miss Wallace were Miss Mary Paxton—”
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Mary Paxton Keeley.
WILLIAMS: “Miss Helen Bryant.”
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: No? “Miss Julia Ott.”
C. WALLACE: Well, Julia Ott—
D. WALLACE: There you are.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Julia Ott was Natalie’s sister.
D. WALLACE: That’s the sister we were talking about.
C. WALLACE: That went to Oklahoma, and young Natalie had a daughter named Julia Ott. I’m so glad we got that name.
D. WALLACE: Ponca City, Oklahoma.
C. WALLACE: Where?
D. WALLACE: Ponca City.
WILLIAMS: Ponca?
D. WALLACE: Ponca, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Ponca City. Okay.
C. WALLACE: And little Natalie would come and visit, and we’d see her sometimes.
36
[speaking to D. Wallace] You remember her a little bit.
D. WALLACE: Yes, sure.
WILLIAMS: So Natalie had a sister named Julia who had a daughter named Natalie.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and Natalie had a sister . . . Well, anyway, Natalie never had any children.
D. WALLACE: Twelve Davids in a row.
WILLIAMS: But Natalie had some half-sisters, didn’t she?
C. WALLACE: Not that I know of.
WILLIAMS: Okay. Maybe this was—
C. WALLACE: Half-sisters?
WILLIAMS: I think they had different mothers or something, I’ve heard from someone.
C. WALLACE: No, Julia Ott and Natalie had the same mother. I always heard, if you go by anything you hear, that . . . I think Julia was the youngest one, Natalie was the oldest, but anyhow, when Julia was—I think I told you—born, they lost their mother. She died.
WILLIAMS: When Julia was born?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, their mother died. And that, they tell me—I don’t know—that’s why Natalie never wanted any kids.
WILLIAMS: Okay. Well, I think that whoever their father was married someone else and—
C. WALLACE: Well, if that’s true, I don’t know anything about that.
WILLIAMS: Because there’s a Margaret Louise Ott that—
37
C. WALLACE: Oh, Margaret Louise Ott? They live right next to C.C. Yeah.
WILLIAMS: The Bundschus.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, you’re right, they did! Is that how that happened?
WILLIAMS: I think that was Natalie’s half-sister.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Margaret Louise and Helen Souter. Have you got Helen Souter anywhere?
WILLIAMS: Souter?
C. WALLACE: S-O-U-T-E-R, Souter.
D. WALLACE: Souter. Yeah, I remember her. Helen Souter.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and she, I think, was a sister of Margaret Louise Ott. And Helen S-O-U-T-E-R was a very good friend of Bess’s. And they lived over here . . . You know where C.C. lived? Where am I? [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: The other way.
C. WALLACE: That way.
WILLIAMS: That’s east.
D. WALLACE: Well, Louise Maria Ott died in 1927, in Los Angeles.
C. WALLACE: Louise?
D. WALLACE: Maria Ott.
C. WALLACE: Who are they?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. She was born here in 1867. She married someone named Fred Bacon, and that’s children of Christian Ott and Louise Maria.
C. WALLACE: Did they have any ages ? [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: There are a lot of Otts around.
38
D. WALLACE: Yeah, I’m trying to catch up to the generation.
WILLIAMS: They may be cousins of Natalie.
C. WALLACE: But you know where the C.C. Bundschu house is, and then right on down there and down here around the corner is the old Bryant School.
WILLIAMS: So that’s up on College?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, here’s Julia and Virginia Ott.
CAROL DAGE: Waldo.
WILLIAMS: Waldo.
C. WALLACE: That way, yeah, and it’s kind of back from the street.
D. WALLACE: Henryetta, Oklahoma.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Henryetta, that’s right.
D. WALLACE: And she married George Henkes.
C. WALLACE: Henkes. Yes, Natalie Henkes. Oh, I’m so glad!
D. WALLACE: And their kids, their daughter was Natalie Elizabeth Henkes, born in 1928 in Henryetta, Oklahoma. And she had a child, and she married someone name Paul Buchdahl. They had Julia Elizabeth Buchdahl, born in 1953, in Fort Worth.
C. WALLACE: Oh, I forgot all about Souter. Yeah.
WILLIAMS: So the Bundschus lived up near Bryant School?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. That’s C.C.’s family.
WILLIAMS: The one that you were friends with.
C. WALLACE: Well, yeah, and he ran the store.
WILLIAMS: And you were friends with his wife.
39
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and I can’t even remember her name. E—It’s not Ellen.
D. WALLACE: Boy, here’s a scary one. Albert Moore—
WILLIAMS: What is this you’re looking at?
D. WALLACE: It’s the Ott family history. Albert Moore Ott’s daughter married Frederick Paige Barnes.
WILLIAMS: That’s the Barnes.
D. WALLACE: So the Otts and the Barnes, May and Natalie, were related, third or fourth cousins probably.
C. WALLACE: Who are the Barneses?
D. WALLACE: Frederick Paige Barnes in Kansas City, and their kids were Peter Crane Barnes and George Bryant Barnes.
WILLIAMS: Now, one of those I’m supposed to interview, one of Natalie’s—
D. WALLACE: Now, that’s then how the Bundschu . . . The three daughters of Christian Ott and Louise Moore were Rose, Anna Barbara, and Louise. Anna Barbara married Anton Joseph Bundschu, and their kids were Henry, Paul, and Anton Joseph, Jr., who died at two years old.
C. WALLACE: Do you get any C.C. Bundschu in there?
D. WALLACE: Well, yeah.
C. WALLACE: What was his wife?
D. WALLACE: Charles Christian Bundschu.
C. WALLACE: And who did he marry?
D. WALLACE: Ellen Frances O’Leary.
C. WALLACE: Ellen. Ellen Bundschu.
40
D. WALLACE: And their kids were Barbara, Charles, C.C., Jr., Helen, Frances, and William.
WILLIAMS: When Natalie died, it said her survivors were a sister, Mrs. George [Julia] Henkes, from Henryetta, Oklahoma; a half-brother, Albert M. Ott, Jr.
C. WALLACE: Oh, Albert M., yeah.
WILLIAMS: 804 West Waldo.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s that friend of Fred’s, Albert, on Waldo. Would that be . . .?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, that’s up . . .
C. WALLACE: That way.
WILLIAMS: [chuckling] That way.
D. WALLACE: [reading] “Albert Jerome Bundschu, born June 3, 1902.”
C. WALLACE: That’s Fred’s friend.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, and he married Ethel Wakefield.
C. WALLACE: Ethel! Thank goodness I’m getting these names.
D. WALLACE: Ethel Bundschu. In 1932. That was the year just before you married Dad.
C. WALLACE: Albert and Ethel were friends of Fred and me. And when Fred died, Albert was one of his pallbearers.
WILLIAMS: Okay. We’re about out of tape.
D. WALLACE: And they had no kids.
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: See, so there he is right there. Well thank you Vic, let’s drag this out.
41
WILLIAMS: [unintelligible] right over there.
D. WALLACE: Ah. The Otts of Independence, Missouri. And this is a Christmas present.
C. WALLACE: Oh, isn’t that wonderful.
D. WALLACE: “Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Ellen and C. C. Bundschu, 1948,” they did this whole thing with a pen.
SCOTT STONE: You might want to identify this on the tape.
C. WALLACE: Ah, isn’t that wonderful. We’ve got all [unintelligible] and we have names.
D. WALLACE: Well, you have no idea how terrifying this is then. Cousins! Kristen Ott Bacon, that’s the one who died in Los Angeles, 1938. Ah, more. Another married in Ventura, California. Sandra Hall Bergon, 1943. I’m gonna walk into a cousin here, you know some day. Edwin Benony Hall, Jr., and his—Peter Armstrong Hall is his son. Twins. Edwin Bacon Hall, Rose Bacon. Los Angeles. All live in Los Angeles. The whole damn clan. And here are like one hundred cousins.
C. WALLACE: Ethel, Ethel, Ethel, Ethel.
D. WALLACE: It was the 1948 Christmas present. From the Bundschus to the Ott family.
C. WALLACE: Where did, uh, [unintelligible].
D. WALLACE: It goes with the house, Mother.
WILLIAMS: Oh, OK. Bundschus. That makes since. You know, everybody in Independence is somehow connected with [unintelligible].
42
C. WALLACE: Well, you should have a copy of that.
D. WALLACE: We do now.
[End #4392; Begin #4393]
WILLIAMS: Well, we were looking at a book, I guess it is, called Ott of Independence, Missouri, apparently put together by Ellen and C.C. Bundschu in 1948. And Ellen was your friend.
C. WALLACE: C.C. Bundschu’s—
D. WALLACE: Albert.
C. WALLACE: Albert was my friend, but I knew Ellen real well.
D. WALLACE: Albert and Ethel Bundschu.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but I knew Ellen real well.
D. WALLACE: Their sister-in-law or mother-in-law.
WILLIAMS: Albert and Ethel?
C. WALLACE: Her sister-in-law. C.C.’s wife’s name was Ethel, and Albert’s wife’s name was Ellen, so that would make Ellen and Ethel sister-in-laws.
D. WALLACE: Sisters-in-law.
C. WALLACE: Sisters-in-law. And the last I saw Ellen, C.C.’s wife, was Aunt B.’s funeral when they had that reception, or whatever it was, at the house. And she was with Mary Bostian, and they were in some kind of retirement place that I keep harping about.
D. WALLACE: So we don’t need to deal with that.
WILLIAMS: Now, also at this party was Miss Caroline Southern.
D. WALLACE: This is the one in 1915?
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C. WALLACE: Now, Caroline Southern is Aunt May’s sister, and she had two sons. She married a Carnes.
WILLIAMS: Bill?
C. WALLACE: Bill Carnes, and it’s something else Carnes, and I can’t remember his name.
WILLIAMS: Victor?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Victor Carnes. Vic. How did you know that?
WILLIAMS: Well, he’s an attorney, or . . . Well, we know them from trying to buy her house. Let’s just put it that way.
C. WALLACE: Vic, yeah.
D. WALLACE: Boy, is that a euphemism for . . .
C. WALLACE: Bill and Vic would inherit whatever money because Caroline is dead. Aunt May, I don’t know what they’re going to do about her, money-wise, but . . .
WILLIAMS: So those were Caroline’s, and she must have married a Carnes.
C. WALLACE: Caroline is dead. She married a Carnes, and it’s Bill Carnes and Vic. Oh, gosh, the names are all coming through!
D. WALLACE: Well, they ought to. That what we’re doing this for.
WILLIAMS: So, were Bill and Vic around May’s house?
C. WALLACE: I knew Bill. I knew Bill, but I didn’t know Vic. And I knew Bill when I came here for Aunt May’s funeral—no, I mean Aunt Bess’s funeral. And I stayed. After everybody left, I stayed a week with May, and I had them all for lunch out at that Stephenson’s Farm.
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D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: And I had May and . . . Who did I have?
D. WALLACE: Margaret.
C. WALLACE: Margaret who?
D. WALLACE: Truman Daniel.
C. WALLACE: I didn’t have her for lunch. She’d gone back to New York.
WILLIAMS: She came down for dinner, you said, one time with her sons.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I told you about the dinner the night of the funeral.
WILLIAMS: And that was at May’s house.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: I was there for that.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but you had left.
WILLIAMS: So, later in the week you had a luncheon.
C. WALLACE: It was later in the week, and I had . . . Well, anyway, Bill Carnes’s wife—and I don’t remember her name—and I had somebody else and somebody . . . Well, they wouldn’t mean anything to you.
WILLIAMS: Okay. And also at this party was Miss Mary Southern—that’s May.
C. WALLACE: That’s May. She was Mary Frances, her name is.
WILLIAMS: And Frederick Wallace was there.
C. WALLACE: He was?
D. WALLACE: When he was fifteen. That’s in his house.
WILLIAMS: He’s helping them entertain. I was kind of that way as a baby brother, always in the way.
45
C. WALLACE: And had to help.
WILLIAMS: With my older sisters, I think. And in June 1916, they had the Monday Morning Bible Study Class at the home of Mrs. Frank Wallace.
C. WALLACE: They always had studies. They had study classes. They had them all the time.
WILLIAMS: It sounds like you didn’t get involved in those.
C. WALLACE: I didn’t. No, they were a different generation, as far as I was concerned.
D. WALLACE: Natalie?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, they had their own little group here in Independence.
D. WALLACE: It was the same generation, though.
C. WALLACE: Not necessarily. They were a lot older than I was.
D. WALLACE: Oh, I see.
C. WALLACE: And I had friends from Kansas City.
WILLIAMS: So you did feel like you were younger?
C. WALLACE: A baby, a younger sister, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Almost of a different time.
C. WALLACE: Well, I was eight years younger than Fred.
D. WALLACE: Oh, and he was like a year younger than Frank, so yeah. So there is a big gap.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: So you didn’t get involved in the Mary Paxton Study Club?
C. WALLACE: Oh, no. They didn’t think I was bright enough, I think. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Well, you went to Finch, didn’t you?
46
C. WALLACE: They had no children. I had two brats by that time. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Was there any resentment in the family that you and Fred were the only ones who made kids, besides the Trumans, and they didn’t have any children?
C. WALLACE: No, they thought it was great. We had all the responsibility, and they could enjoy you.
D. WALLACE: No doubt.
WILLIAMS: We have heard that back when Bess was in that generation, it was the fashion only to have one child. Did you ever know anything like that?
C. WALLACE: No, I never heard that. And I know she would have liked to have had more, and she tried, and she had several miscarriages. Now, that I have been told. I think it upset her a lot because she was afraid never would she have a child, and then all of a sudden she had Margaret. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: And as far as you know, Natalie and May just didn’t want children?
C. WALLACE: I heard Natalie didn’t want any, and I don’t know about May. Maybe she couldn’t.
C. WALLACE: You didn’t talk about those things in those days.
D. WALLACE: But if you’re all living under one roof, you’d think the subject might come up.
C. WALLACE: No, you didn’t discuss those things in those days.
WILLIAMS: Even when you were pregnant, they wouldn’t sound envious or anything?
D. WALLACE: And say, “Golly, I wish we could have a kid”?
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C. WALLACE: No, no, no, I felt very embarrassed most of the time. [chuckling] I thought I was doing something wrong. And poor little Margaret, I think she was beginning to learn the facts of life, and I don’t think up till that time she had been. [chuckling] Well, at ten, she was a little young in those days, but nowadays they start at five.
WILLIAMS: In 1916, Miss Julia Ott entertained with a dance in the Battery Hall. Do you know where that would have been?
C. WALLACE: I never even heard of it.
WILLIAMS: Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gates Wallace—
D. WALLACE: The National Guard.
C. WALLACE: The National Guard.
D. WALLACE: Remember, Harry was Battery D.
WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. Well, Julia Ott was one of the Otts.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, a sister.
WILLIAMS: Natalie’s sister.
C. WALLACE: It was Natalie’s sister.
D. WALLACE: From Henryetta, Oklahoma.
C. WALLACE: Henryetta, Oklahoma. Henkes. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Okay. And that’s H-E-N-K-E-S, I think.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And Henryetta is H-E-R-N-
D. WALLACE: H-E-N-R-Y-
WILLIAMS: R-Y-E-T-T-A. There’s a Y in there instead of an I.
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C. WALLACE: There’s a Y instead of an I.
WILLIAMS: Just for the record. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gates Wallace were there, Miss Rose Ott—another Ott.
C. WALLACE: Rose Ott?
D. WALLACE: It’s in that book.
C. WALLACE: I think Rose Ott was Julia’s . . .
D. WALLACE: Now, we went through all that. Don’t make me go through it all again.
WILLIAMS: No, please. Miss Sally Rogers?
C. WALLACE: Sally Rogers was the aunt that took care of Nellie.
D. WALLACE: Oh, the one you were looking . . .
C. WALLACE: And she lived on up the street, I kept saying there’s some aunt, or aunt [pronouncing awnt]. I say aunt, and Marilyn my—
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Ethel? Ellen.
CONNIE ODOM-SOPER: No, no, it was the cousin. She’s still there, and Mrs. Barnes is still there.
C. WALLACE: Who is Barnes?
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Frederick Barnes.
C. WALLACE: Oh!
WILLIAMS: A half-sister. She was a half-sister of Natalie.
C. WALLACE: Barnes, right. Frederick Barnes. Frederick Barnes. I can’t put a face to her.
WILLIAMS: Half-sister of Mrs. Frederick P. Barnes of Kansas City, and a niece, Mrs. Paul Buchdahl of Amarillo, Texas.
49
C. WALLACE: Frederick Barnes? I’ll bet in the middle of the night this is going to come through, this Frederick Barnes.
WILLIAMS: I think that was Margaret Louise.
C. WALLACE: Margaret Louise Barnes.
WILLIAMS: She married Frank.
C. WALLACE: Thanks. How did you know so much?
WILLIAMS: Well, because somebody has told me, “You ought to interview her, because she was related to Natalie.”
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And I wish I had time to do that, but anyway . . .
C. WALLACE: Can’t you make it?
WILLIAMS: This is my last week.
C. WALLACE: Well, where are you going then?
WILLIAMS: Back to school.
C. WALLACE: Oh.
WILLIAMS: The guests at this dance at the Battery Hall were Mr. Fred Wallace, Mr. John Wallace, Mr. Frank Gates, and some other people.
C. WALLACE: Fred and Margaret Louise Barnes. Yeah, we used to see quite a bit of her at one time. And they’re still alive. Well, I’m still alive, so they’d be about my age. [chuckling] Would they?
WILLIAMS: I know that you weren’t around when May married George.
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: But this was their wedding reception, and I’d like to read a few names
50
and see if they were still around, too, and what you know about them. Let’s see, Miss Ethel Southern—there are all these Southerns that I assume were family—Mr. and Mrs. George P. Gates, Mrs. D.W. Wallace, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gates Wallace, Miss Bess Wallace, Mrs. Rowland T. Proctor.
C. WALLACE: That’s the Proctor family.
D. WALLACE: Well, just a minute. This is whose wedding?
WILLIAMS: May and George.
D. WALLACE: Then why is it “Miss Bess Wallace”?
WILLIAMS: Because it was 1916.
D. WALLACE: Oh, they weren’t married till ’19.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Mary Thompson, Mrs. J.H. Montague. Okay, Miss Grace Minor.
C. WALLACE: Well, the Minors were good friends of Bess and Natalie and all of them. Are there any Minors left around here?
WILLIAMS: Miss Elizabeth McCoy.
C. WALLACE: Well, the McCoys, too. The Minors and the McCoys. [chuckling] Yeah, they were good friends. I think some of them were in that bridge club. You know when Bess had the bridge club back in Washington?
WILLIAMS: Why did George and Frank build houses right next door there?
C. WALLACE: Because their Grandfather Gates gave them the land.
WILLIAMS: Was that a device to keep them nearby?
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t around then. But I know they were given the ground and the house, I think, and I know Mrs. Wallace always said,
51
“Well, Fred, I think you should build a house.” I don’t know where we would have built it if we had built it, in the back yard or out on the side or what. It’s just as well we didn’t.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever feel slighted that you didn’t have a house of your own?
C. WALLACE: No. Well, I always wished I had a house of my own, but not at that location. It was a little close, but . . . Of course, it would have been nice now, wouldn’t it?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know, if you want to live in Independence.
WILLIAMS: You’d have the government trying to buy your house.
C. WALLACE: I know. I was thinking about that. I always thought if I had to have one . . . Well, Grandmother was always going to put us over where the pergola was; then we might be right by the driveway. But I used to . . . you know how you think about things in the middle of the night? I thought, “Well, maybe it would be better between the house and the alley, right close to the alley.” But then I couldn’t figure out what they’d do about the fence. [chuckling] See, they take the fence right up to the house, and they take the fence here, but what’s going to keep people from jumping over the roof and down into the yard?
D. WALLACE: There wasn’t a fence then.
C. WALLACE: Well, this is in later years when there was a fence. I kept thinking, “Gee, it’s just as well we didn’t build.”
WILLIAMS: So you wanted a house near where the Secret Service built their little hut?
52
C. WALLACE: I never thought about going down there by the barn.
WILLIAMS: Oh, you were further . . .
C. WALLACE: I was up across from the—
WILLIAMS: Toward Delaware.
C. WALLACE: Geez, I’m all turned around. Right here, next to the Allens, and then a house, and then the alley.
WILLIAMS: Oh, okay, I see.
C. WALLACE: I was going to use the alley as my driveway, but they wouldn’t let me, probably. Do you ever do that, sit and think of all those silly things that maybe could have been?
D. WALLACE: Well, I would have thought about it in the 1930s, but I wouldn’t have thought about it now.
C. WALLACE: Well, they sometimes need some things to think about.
WILLIAMS: So the topic did come up of you maybe building a house nearby?
C. WALLACE: Grandmother Wallace would every now and then say something about it.
WILLIAMS: Was she going to give you money to do it?
C. WALLACE: She was going to give us the ground.
WILLIAMS: Which is probably about all she had to give.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, she didn’t have any money. It took all of what she had, I guess, just keeping everything going.
D. WALLACE: So why didn’t you do it?
C. WALLACE: Why didn’t I do it?
53
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: Well, in those days I didn’t want to be that close to my mother-in-law.
D. WALLACE: No, but you already gave up the option of living in California to go back to Missouri. You know what I mean?
C. WALLACE: Option of living in California?
D. WALLACE: “Why didn’t we stay in Carmel?” you have said, but your father wanted to go back to Missouri. You know, your parents were living in California in the summertime.
C. WALLACE: I was never asked to stay. I was asked to come and visit.
D. WALLACE: Well, you had the option to move there if you wanted to.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but they didn’t offer to help me get there.
WILLIAMS: So how long was it between your marriage in July of ’33 until you moved out here at Independence?
C. WALLACE: About three years. Thirty-three, thirty-four. I had David in ’34.
D. WALLACE: It couldn’t have been that long, because you’ve got me at about three months old in the house out here.
C. WALLACE: Well, I guess that was it.
D. WALLACE: It wasn’t three years. You were out here, and then you moved back to Kansas City for a while with your parents, and then back. I don’t think you lived for more than a year in your place in Kansas City before you moved out here.
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s about right.
WILLIAMS: And you had an apartment in Kansas City?
54
C. WALLACE: No, I just went and lived with my folks for a while. We had a lot of problems at that time.
WILLIAMS: So that’s why you decided to move out here?
C. WALLACE: Well, was I going to make a go of it, or was I going to just say “forget it”? So we came out here to try to make a go of it.
WILLIAMS: The Trumans were there with Margaret.
C. WALLACE: They always were there.
WILLIAMS: Did it seem a bit crowded?
C. WALLACE: No, not a bit. Not a bit. The house was big enough to take care of us, and there was a lot of ground and . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, by ’34 he was in the senate.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, when he was in the senate, you see—
WILLIAMS: He was elected—
D. WALLACE: In ’34, a month after I was born.
C. WALLACE: You see, when he was in the senate, Margaret would start school here, and then they’d go back when the senate would convene in January to be there. So it was a split thing. So they’d get in the car and drive back to Washington then in . . . When did they start? In January? Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And they just went for half of the year?
C. WALLACE: Margaret went to school half a year here and half a year in Washington. She went to Gunston Hall—you probably have that in your records. And they got an apartment. In this one book titled Bess—you should get that and read it.
55
WILLIAMS: I have it.
C. WALLACE: You have?
WILLIAMS: Margaret’s book?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, you know how they were always looking for an apartment that they could afford?
WILLIAMS: Furnished.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, furnished. Because their furniture was . . . Where was their furniture? No, they took their furniture. They took their furniture.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, because that’s when you furnished the house.
C. WALLACE: That’s when our furniture was in the house, and their furniture was with them in Washington, and they had that apartment on Connecticut Avenue. Well, they had it on other places, but it was Connecticut Avenue when FDR died.
WILLIAMS: Why did they need furniture when they moved in with Mrs. Wallace? Or when Harry moved in, wouldn’t the house have already been furnished? In 1919?
C. WALLACE: No, now wait a minute. Nineteen nineteen? Gee, I was only . . .
D. WALLACE: Mother, that isn’t the question.
WILLIAMS: You weren’t around, but I’m just asking you—
D. WALLACE: What was the furniture in the house before you moved in?
C. WALLACE: Well, I think it was sort of . . . Well, the secretary I have.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that was a Gates or Wallace piece.
C. WALLACE: And the drop-leaf table that was in the hall, Marian has. Then those
56
two chairs on each side of the clock, and the clock, and they had a gate-leg table in the living room—What is that called? I’ve been doing this—
D. WALLACE: Bay, Mother.
C. WALLACE: Bay. Thank you. Grandmother’s rocker.
WILLIAMS: Is it basically then Madge’s furniture from . . . Victorian-style furniture?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, it’s just the furniture that they had accumulated over the years. I guess some of it must have been Grandfather Gates’s and Grandmother Gates’s and all that stuff.
WILLIAMS: So why would the Trumans have bought more furniture?
C. WALLACE: Because when they went to Washington to live, they had to have furniture.
WILLIAMS: So it wasn’t furniture they brought from Independence. They bought it in Washington.
C. WALLACE: No. No, they never brought that . . . They never brought that.
D. WALLACE: Well, they had to take something, because—
C. WALLACE: They took some of it.
D. WALLACE: You had to fit all of your furniture into the house.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, they took some of it, I think.
WILLIAMS: But they’d leave enough for Mrs. Wallace.
D. WALLACE: Well, like their bedroom upstairs.
C. WALLACE: Their bedrooms were never changed. When they left and we moved in, then we used my furniture.
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WILLIAMS: Which you had had from your parents’ house?
C. WALLACE: No, Fred and I bought some furniture when we were married. We had an apartment for a while, and we had to have furniture. We had a dining room set, and we had a—
D. WALLACE: Well, they must have taken the dining room set to Washington then.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. We had a sofa and some side tables, and we had a wing chair. And then that, with what Mrs. Wallace had, we were able to have enough for everything. Margaret never did take the . . . The piano wasn’t there, was it?
D. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: She was eight when she got it, in ’32.
D. WALLACE: There was a piano in there, though.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: I don’t think it was that one. I think that was the one from her own place in the White House. I don’t think that Steinway was the one she was given.
C. WALLACE: No, it wasn’t a Steinway.
D. WALLACE: That’s another thing that’s wrong with that slide thing.
C. WALLACE: My mother had the Steinway.
D. WALLACE: No, this Steinway came much later in Margaret’s thing, the one that’s in the parlor in there now. I don’t know where that piano was that was there before, but it was like a Kimball or something. It wasn’t a Steinway.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, a Kimball.
WILLIAMS: So you moved in not too long before the Trumans moved to Washington for the first time. And half of the year they were gone—
D. WALLACE: Not long after. Not long after, yeah.
WILLIAMS: They wouldn’t have moved until the end of ’34, right?
D. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, he would have been sworn in January of ’35.
WILLIAMS: So you were there with Mrs. Wallace for about half of the year, just you and your family with her.
C. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
WILLIAMS: Would she ever go to Washington to live with them?
C. WALLACE: Not at that time she didn’t. She had her own home.
WILLIAMS: So she would stay there year round.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s what she wanted to do. And there was one time that . . . Where had we gone? I think we had our own place somewhere. And they left, and Grandmother Wallace couldn’t stay in that house by herself. And she went down here on Maple—
WILLIAMS: To the apartments?
C. WALLACE: To the apartments, and had an apartment. And I think they all kind of glared at me every time because I didn’t have her come live with me. But she did come to Denver a couple of times and stay with us.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s later.
C. WALLACE: Because you remember that house we had at 1200 East Third?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, I remember it. This is much later than we’re talking here.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, but there was a half-bath down there, and then there was sort of like a room like that. We put Grandmother in there because she couldn’t go up the steps.
WILLIAMS: So did you live in the Wallace home from ’34 to ’42 straight, or was there a time when you moved out and then came back?
C. WALLACE: If it was about eight years, it would be straight.
D. WALLACE: Well, she was out for about . . . How long did you live in Kansas City with your parents?
C. WALLACE: Oh, about six months.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, except for about six months.
WILLIAMS: In that period? And is that when Mrs. Wallace would have had to go to the apartment?
C. WALLACE: No. No, that was later.
D. WALLACE: That’s after you went to Denver.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And they thought that you should have taken care of her.
C. WALLACE: I was supposed to—
D. WALLACE: She could have gone to Washington.
C. WALLACE: I think I was supposed to have moved in here and stayed there, just like Bess did, forever.
WILLIAMS: When Bess was gone, did you assume that role of taking care of Mrs. Wallace?
C. WALLACE: She didn’t need any care. She just needed somebody in the house. I
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think she took care of herself pretty well. She had that bedroom and bath downstairs there off the living room, and then every fall Fred would get . . . She’d buy a lot of Floor-lac, and Fred would get the paintbrush and paint all the floors. We didn’t have carpeting on the floor at that time.
D. WALLACE: Every fall? Every fall? He painted it every fall?
C. WALLACE: Well, wherever Grandmother wanted him. I remember doing it—
D. WALLACE: It’s an awful, red-brown color.
C. WALLACE: Fred did it in his bedroom, and I just made him . . . [chuckling] I didn’t know how to sew, and I struggled over these little rompers. I put it on him. They were yellow. [chuckling] He ran in to see his father. [makes sliding sound] Whoosh!
WILLIAMS: No more yellow.
C. WALLACE: No more yellow. [chuckling] I never saw a kid scoot along his . . . [chuckling] This is being taped. I’d better be careful.
WILLIAMS: Was this like a stain?
D. WALLACE: No, paint.
C. WALLACE: It was paint.
WILLIAMS: Just paint?
C. WALLACE: No, it was kind of a stain.
D. WALLACE: Like barn paint. No, I mean, it was paint. Paint. The downstairs floors were painted black.
C. WALLACE: They were Floor-lac, and it has a certain amount of varnish in them.
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Now, don’t tell me! [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Well, I’m sure, Mother, but it looks like paint.
WILLIAMS: Gives it a shine?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: So it wasn’t like these floors where you can see the wood?
C. WALLACE: No. Anyhow, they were bigger.
D. WALLACE: Big planks.
WILLIAMS: Didn’t have carpet, wall-to-wall carpeting?
C. WALLACE: No. We had a good-sized rug in the living room that we had brought out. It had been in my bedroom.
WILLIAMS: Was it a rug like this, or more Oriental?
C. WALLACE: No, it was a plain brown rug that had sort of a little blue in it. [speaking to David Wallace] I don’t think you ever saw it. I mean, you would never have seen it.
WILLIAMS: Is it still around?
C. WALLACE: If it is, I don’t know where it is.
WILLIAMS: But would that have covered most of the room, or just there by the fireplace?
C. WALLACE: The living room. It covered most of the room. And then where the bay was, then that was where the gate-leg table was, and then Grandmother’s rocker, and then the clock.
WILLIAMS: The clock was on the south, and the rocker was on the north.
C. WALLACE: And then there were those two chairs I just loved. I’d loved to have
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gotten them. They’re like the ones you have, you know, these antique chairs. God, they were pretty. And then, where are we here? And then here’s the fireplace, and then here we had a wing chair. We had a big wing chair there with a table by it, and then was the door out to the porch, and then a door into Grandmother’s room. And then along here we had the secretary, and then there were openings, and then we had a . . . Oh, we had that chair with the white cover on it that you . . . that we have in storage.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, the green velvet chair?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, it was green velvet. Here, and then—A brown table here, and then the sofa here. And then we had a little coffee table in front of the . . . I don’t know why I do this.
WILLIAMS: Was it much different when the Trumans were there and when they weren’t there, as far as the routine?
C. WALLACE: No, it was the same routine.
WILLIAMS: Who made the decisions around the house?
C. WALLACE: I think it was discussed between Mrs. Truman and her mother. I don’t know. Well, we never had any. What would we have? You mean, “What should we have for dinner?” or something like that?
WILLIAMS: Well, that, and like, “Should we repair the roof?” or “Should we paint the house?”
C. WALLACE: Oh, that was between Mrs. Wallace and Bess, and as far as food, I think Grandmother always did it. And one thing she always did is, in those
63
days, Catholics had to eat fish on Friday, and she’d always have fish on Friday and then a little meat for the non-fish-eaters. [chuckling] She was very good about that. I mean, she took care of things well.
WILLIAMS: You were talking in the car earlier about sharing the bills.
C. WALLACE: That was between Fred and his mother, and I never got involved in it.
D. WALLACE: He never said how much he gave her?
C. WALLACE: No, and I never asked him.
WILLIAMS: And all this time, he was an architect in Kansas City?
C. WALLACE: Well, for a while he had a . . . yeah, for a while, and then things weren’t going too good, so then he got several other jobs in the meantime. One time he was with a cement company, and another time he was with the FHA. And then we moved to Denver, as I told you, during the war, because he was with the War Production Board. And then after the war was over, he was with Temple Buehl who’s an architect in Kansas City. And then we moved to Albuquerque, and Blevins Davis asked him to go down there. He had made an investment and he got a little bit sort of . . . Well, I wonder if it was too smart, because he made it with Denny Chavez who . . . [chuckling] He didn’t make it. Well, anyway . . .
D. WALLACE: He was the son of a senator.
C. WALLACE: He was the son of Senator Chavez, but then he was sort of questionable. Then that was sold and we came back to Denver. Fred was sick then, too.
WILLIAMS: How long were you in Albuquerque?
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C. WALLACE: Five years.
WILLIAMS: So that’s how you ended up in Albuquerque for those five years?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and that’s where Marian met Dick, and they were married. And the grandchildren I’m enjoying now in Denver.
WILLIAMS: What did an architect do for the War Production Board?
C. WALLACE: Well, you know something? I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: You don’t know what he did?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. What would he do with the War Production . . .?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. You were married to him. He didn’t tell you what his job was?
C. WALLACE: Well, he wouldn’t tell me. No, I didn’t ask him.
D. WALLACE: He just went off every day to something you didn’t even know what it was?
WILLIAMS: It wasn’t secret or anything?
C. WALLACE: Well, it was a war thing.
D. WALLACE: I’m sure it had a lot to do with a lot of junk like building temporary barracks and things.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: How did the Depression affect you when you were here in Independence?
C. WALLACE: Well, it didn’t bother me any. We just did without.
WILLIAMS: What kind of leisure activities were you involved in? You said you didn’t go to the study clubs. Did you play cards?
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C. WALLACE: Well, I had a group of friends. Oh, and Mrs. Allen was one. We tried to start a little bridge group, and then it got so I couldn’t do it because I had other things that I had to look after, and so did somebody else in the group, so we just broke up.
WILLIAMS: Were you involved in any church activities?
C. WALLACE: No, I wasn’t that kind of a person. I had some friends we used to bum around with and go shopping. I’d go with Natalie or May. We were all very close in doing things together. I mean, they had some outside things. Especially May and George, they played a lot of bridge with other friends. And Natalie, she was more involved in some church work and so forth. But I had two children to look after.
WILLIAMS: David came along in 1934?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: In October.
C. WALLACE: October the 30th.
WILLIAMS: Did you have any problem with the pregnancy or delivering, any problem?
C. WALLACE: No, not to my knowledge. They just put me out; when I woke up, I had a baby.
WILLIAMS: Okay. On that note, we’ll take a break.
[End #4393; Begin #4394]
WILLIAMS: Well, I was getting kind of lost there on the Otts, but . . . [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: So did everybody else, let me tell you. Nobody ever figured them out.
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WILLIAMS: Well, what was David—This was almost before Halloween.
C. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
D. WALLACE: How about almost after? Oh, no, it was before, one day before.
WILLIAMS: It was.
D. WALLACE: See? God, you even know when I was born better than me. That’s terrible.
WILLIAMS: Was it a cold day? A warm day?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I was inside. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Were you born at the house?
C. WALLACE: No, we were in the hospital. Things had progressed from house births.
WILLIAMS: Well, Margaret was born in the house.
C. WALLACE: Well, that was in those days.
D. WALLACE: It was only ten years before, in those days.
C. WALLACE: Well, a lot can happen in ten years.
D. WALLACE: I think it’s that your parents wouldn’t hear of it.
C. WALLACE: I don’t think they would either.
WILLIAMS: So you went to Kansas City?
D. WALLACE: I had no choice in the matter.
C. WALLACE: I was living in Kansas City. Oh, no, I wasn’t. I was out . . . Where was I?
D. WALLACE: Had you moved out and were you living back at your parents’ then?
C. WALLACE: No, we had our apartment at the . . . that apartment next—
D. WALLACE: The Sombart.
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C. WALLACE: No, next to the Sombart.
D. WALLACE: So you all were living there then.
C. WALLACE: We were living . . . had our little apartment, yeah. My mother was sure I was going to have the baby on the floor of the apartment [chuckling] because I was always trying to get extension cords. And I was crawling around, because we were just moving in this apartment, and I had to hook up the lamps so we could see. [chuckling] Oh, geez!
WILLIAMS: So how did you get to the hospital?
C. WALLACE: In a car.
WILLIAMS: Who drove?
C. WALLACE: Fred.
WILLIAMS: So was he at home, or did you call him?
C. WALLACE: What time were you born? No, I went to the hospital, I think, after he got home. You were born just after midnight on the 30th.
WILLIAMS: So it was in the evening when you went into labor?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: What kind of baby was David?
C. WALLACE: Beautiful. Beautiful curly hair.
D. WALLACE: You sure I shouldn’t leave the room?
WILLIAMS: Healthy?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, he was no problem. He was a good baby. In those days, you came home with a practical nurse.
D. WALLACE: A good baby or a bad baby.
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C. WALLACE: What was that gal’s name? You’ve heard us talking. All she would do is make Russian salad dressing. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Where? There in Kansas City?
WILLIAMS: Why?
C. WALLACE: Don’t you remember, after we came . . . [chuckling] Oh, you were . . .
D. WALLACE: Sure I remember just like yesterday.
C. WALLACE: We came home, and I had this practical nurse that stayed there, and all she wanted to do—
D. WALLACE: Vivian?
C. WALLACE: No, no.
D. WALLACE: Marie?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. And I was just big and fat, and she was . . . I think she was a Russian. [chuckling] Anyhow, she’d sit at that secretary and she’d . . . And remember we had . . . Oh, no, you wouldn’t. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Which secretary?
C. WALLACE: Yes, you would, you remember this. Dad’s secretary that was in our apartment.
D. WALLACE: Then it came back out here then.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Yeah, and we had a floor lamp, a brass floor lamp right by the wing chair. And she’d put her foot on that base—God, I still see her footprint on it—and work jigsaw puzzles. That was while he was taking a nap. She was real good with him, though. She got him started very good.
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D. WALLACE: How long was she around?
C. WALLACE: Well, a little bit longer than she should, because I had a few complications I had to take care of. But anyway, she would help get dinner at night, or help do it or something, and she was always making this Russian salad dressing and putting it on lettuce. Oh, geez! I wonder how the food got in the house. [chuckling] I guess Fred must have done the buying. I don’t know, I don’t remember those little details, but we did eat Russian dressing. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Do you still like it?
C. WALLACE: Georgian Court. That was the name of that apartment. Sombart was here, my parents lived there, and here was the Georgian Court, and that’s where we lived.
WILLIAMS: So you lived right next door to them.
C. WALLACE: On Armour Boulevard, yeah.
WILLIAMS: So, if he was born and you were still down there, how much longer till you moved out here? Because we’ve always said you moved out here in ’34, but . . .
C. WALLACE: No, he was born in ’34.
D. WALLACE: No, it was just soon after the beginning of ’35. It was very soon, don’t you think?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I had to get over my problems. I had some complications that we won’t get into, and then . . . What was that gal’s name? Well, anyway, finally her time was up with us, and she went home, and I took care of
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myself, and then it was just a few months after that. But I think you were . . . I wonder how old you were when you stood up? [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Don’t ask me.
WILLIAMS: Would it be in his baby book?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, it’s all in the baby book. Everything is in there. It’s just embarrassing.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, because I remember I put his crib in my bedroom at my parents’ in the Sombart, and my mother used to open the door and peek in when he was supposed to be taking a nap and I was elsewhere, and he’d stand up in his crib and laugh at her. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: It was about the only degree of expression one had in those days in this family.
C. WALLACE: He was a good boy. He was a good baby.
WILLIAMS: Was this the first grandchild for your parents?
C. WALLACE: Yes, the first.
WILLIAMS: So I expect they were pleased?
C. WALLACE: They were delighted. They would like to have kept him.
WILLIAMS: But it wasn’t Madge’s first.
C. WALLACE: No, Margaret was her first.
WILLIAMS: Did she have any particular reaction when you moved in with a young baby?
C. WALLACE: You mean Mrs. Wallace?
WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
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C. WALLACE: She was delighted. Oh, she thought, “The more the merrier.” No, she liked it. There’s a cute picture I have of Grandmother Wallace sitting on the back porch holding you.
D. WALLACE: Where is that?
C. WALLACE: Hmm?
D. WALLACE: Where?
C. WALLACE: Well, I guess in your baby book. [chuckling] I don’t know. Some of these pictures, I don’t know where they . . . You know, I move around so much, I’m not very well organized, and I don’t know where anything is. What was I looking for? And I’m still looking for it. See, I can’t even remember.
D. WALLACE: Well, you don’t need to record that for eternity if you don’t remember what you’re looking for.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] I can’t remember what I’m looking for now, I’ve looked for it so long.
WILLIAMS: What was it like to be related, I guess, to a U.S. Senator?
C. WALLACE: Nothing. Oh, my goodness sake alive, did you ever hear the story when . . . oh, what’s his name? Stark.
D. WALLACE: Stinky Stark.
C. WALLACE: Stinky Stark. [chuckling] I shouldn’t talk like that. Anyhow—
D. WALLACE: Mother, it’s fifty-five years later. You can talk like that.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but that’s not very ladylike. Anyway, oh, it was the night that Harry . . . It was when Harry ran against Stark, and we all went to—
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D. WALLACE: Nineteen forty.
C. WALLACE: And we all went to bed that night, because they . . . as they were telling us—have you heard this story?—over the radio—we didn’t have TV in those days, did we? it was radio—that Stark was way ahead. We thought Harry had lost, so we all went to bed. I don’t think anybody went to sleep. We were all sort of down in the dumps. In the middle of the night the telephone rang, and Bess came dashing through the hall upstairs, knocked on our door and said, “Harry’s ahead!” They’d been holding the returns back.
D. WALLACE: In St. Louis.
C. WALLACE: In St. Louis. [chuckling] By golly, we all rose. Talk about everybody getting up! [chuckling] And that was the first time that I had seen the sunrise. But I remember standing on that back porch with Margaret, and we just enjoyed that sunrise. [chuckling] That’s the first time I’d ever seen it. I think it was the first one for her. But it was a tough day. It was touch and go: If this district would come in, what would that do? Different things like that. But he did beat the dickens out of that guy.
WILLIAMS: It sounds like Bess wanted him to win.
C. WALLACE: Well, sure, you don’t ever want to lose anything. Whether you like it or not, you want to be a winner.
WILLIAMS: Do you think she liked Washington?
C. WALLACE: She loved it when he was in the senate, yes. She’ll say that. In anything you read about Bess, she’ll say she enjoyed being a senator’s wife.
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WILLIAMS: Did that change when she became first lady?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t think so. I think she learned to adapt. She was very good that way. But she had a good time in Washington when she was a senator’s wife, and she had a lot of good friends. I don’t think it carries quite the responsibility that it did being Mrs. Truman, you know, president’s wife. She had a lot of other things she had to attend to that . . . I don’t know, there’s always good and bad of everything.
WILLIAMS: Your first daughter came along when?
C. WALLACE: In 1937.
WILLIAMS: What’s her full name? Well, let me ask you first, why did you name your son what you named him?
C. WALLACE: Because his father wanted to have a Junior.
WILLIAMS: So it’s David Frederick Wallace, Junior.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Now you can ask the one question you haven’t asked her: What’s her name? Full name.
WILLIAMS: Your middle name, I guess we don’t—
C. WALLACE: Marian. Christine Marian.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, you didn’t say that before.
C. WALLACE: Christine Marian Wallace. My daughter’s name was Marian Christine Wallace. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: So you just flipped them.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I wasn’t very inventive when it came to names.
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WILLIAMS: Well, it seemed like the family tradition was to recycle names.
D. WALLACE: She was only inventive when it came to the third sister, she named to match the silverware which she was going to get. And then she ended up giving the silverware to me, and the silver I was supposed to get to her.
WILLIAMS: What was that? [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Charlotte Margaret Wallace, CMW on her silverware. That’s Margo.
WILLIAMS: So Marian was Marian Christine.
C. WALLACE: Christine. Marian Christine Brasher. Her last name was Brasher, B-R-A-S-H-E-R. She met Dick when we lived in Albuquerque.
WILLIAMS: When was she born?
C. WALLACE: March 2, 1937.
WILLIAMS: What was her birth? She wasn’t born in the house either?
C. WALLACE: No, no. No, but I had changed hospitals because we got a better deal. You know, in those days the hospitals gave you a package deal whenever you had a baby. Did you have one of those? Well, we did. And David was Saint Joseph, and by that time then Menorah came along, and they had a better deal. I think it was a little cheaper, and they gave you more time off or something, I don’t know. [chuckling] Anyway, she was born at Menorah. Now, she had a problem when she was born. She had an enlarged thymus gland, and I’ve often wondered if that had a lot to do with her cancer.
D. WALLACE: Nothing.
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C. WALLACE: Well, she had cancer of the lymph glands. They gave her some—
D. WALLACE: Radiation then?
C. WALLACE: Radiation then.
D. WALLACE: Really? When she was a baby?
C. WALLACE: Yes, sir, for the—
D. WALLACE: Probably so.
C. WALLACE: They were enlarged thymus, and they had to do it. That’s how they treated it. Anyway, so she otherwise was fine.
WILLIAMS: And she eventually had seven children?
C. WALLACE: Seven children. She had, as I said, cancer of the lymph glands, and I think it must have gone into the bone marrow or something. But she passed away in 1984. She was shopping on Sunday, and Monday she was gone. But she had had the cancer for twelve years. She fought it for twelve years, chemotherapy and the whole thing. But she never lost her hair with the chemotherapy.
WILLIAMS: What time of year did she die?
C. WALLACE: Oh, dear, it was summer. Where’s my book?
D. WALLACE: Well, Christopher and I were in Santa Fe.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: We flew up.
C. WALLACE: March the 2nd.
D. WALLACE: Mother, I know.
C. WALLACE: July, wasn’t it?
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D. WALLACE: Twenty-third.
C. WALLACE: The 23rd of July?
D. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
WILLIAMS: These are Mrs. Truman’s notes that she kept, probably in a Bible or something, and apparently she only kept track of the first four children, but . . .
C. WALLACE: Here’s Richard Jamon Brasher. That is Marian’s husband—was Marian’s husband. What is that word?
WILLIAMS: That’s Junior.
C. WALLACE: Oh, well, there is a Richard Jamon Brasher born February 24, 1958.
WILLIAMS: Okay. Dick and Marian were married July 26, 1954.
C. WALLACE: Nineteen fifty-four. Cheryl Ann was the first girl, the first child, and she’s the one now who is in England for a while.
WILLIAMS: Okay, then there’s Elizabeth Marian?
C. WALLACE: And there’s Beth. Yeah, she lives in Evergreen and has three children. And Richard Jamon, Jr., he lives in Arvada, and he has three children. And then there is Lynne Frances. She’s not married. She has a condo, and she’s living with her boyfriend Tommy. He’s a nice guy. A runner. He likes to go out and run. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: And then there’s three more that didn’t—
C. WALLACE: Then after Lynne was Pam, and after Pam came Jamon, and after Jamon came Kristi Marie. Where’s my book?
WILLIAMS: So there’s another Christine Marie?
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D. WALLACE: Kristi.
C. WALLACE: Kristi. It is Kristi.
D. WALLACE: K-R-I-S-T-I.
C. WALLACE: C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E.
D. WALLACE: Not the way she spells it.
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Not the way she spells it.
C. WALLACE: Birthdays. No, this is my great-grandchildren. You don’t want them. This is Dick’s great-grandchildren and my great-grandchildren.
WILLIAMS: Where did Marian meet Dick?
C. WALLACE: At the University of New Mexico. Marian was a senior in high school, and they had a day when they take the seniors to a college and show them the works and so forth. I guess Dick was one of the boys chosen to be one of the guys to show them around, and that’s where they met, and evidently it must have been . . .
WILLIAMS: Where was the wedding?
C. WALLACE: At the old church in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
WILLIAMS: Did any of the Trumans come out?
C. WALLACE: No. What’s this one? No, they didn’t come out.
WILLIAMS: But that was in ’54, so they would have been retired.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but they didn’t come. They never came for anything. February . . .
WILLIAMS: I assume they were invited.
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C. WALLACE: Oh, sure. Now what am I looking for?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know what you’re looking for. They already have the date that Marian got married.
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s not what I was looking for.
D. WALLACE: You’re looking for Kristi’s birthday.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and I don’t know when it is.
D. WALLACE: Well, don’t look then.
C. WALLACE: Is it July? Do you want those birthdays?
D. WALLACE: I’ll look, Mother. You go on with your talking. So you want Kristi and Jamon and Lynne.
C. WALLACE: I thought Dick wrote them all here, but—
WILLIAMS: Pam.
D. WALLACE: Pam, Jamon, and Kristi. No, that’s the wrong kind of handwriting.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: So that family has lived in the Denver area?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: No, they lived in Albuquerque for quite a while, and then they moved to Denver.
C. WALLACE: When they moved to Denver, they have never been elsewhere since. And they’re all engineers.
D. WALLACE: Actually, did they move to Denver before they moved to Grand Junction?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
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D. WALLACE: And he was an engineer with the highway department and retired—this is Dick.
C. WALLACE: Now, he’s married again.
D. WALLACE: And he is back again working for the state—
C. WALLACE: For the city. For the city of Denver.
D. WALLACE: His whole retirement thing fell . . . and a whole new job.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, they lived in Denver, and then they moved to Grand Junction. He was a construction engineer for the highway department, and they sent him over there. They were over there for a year or so.
D. WALLACE: No, ten years or so.
C. WALLACE: Not in Grand Junction.
D. WALLACE: The kids went all the way through school there. Dick went to junior high and high school in Grand Junction, so they were at least there six years.
C. WALLACE: High school? He was in high school in Aurora. That’s where he met Laura.
D. WALLACE: Well, before. No, he started high school in Grand Junction, because he showed us the pictures of it.
C. WALLACE: All right, he started. He started. Is that those awful pictures they showed us where everybody looked like they were—
D. WALLACE: Yes, Mother. Yes, yes, yes. So four years in Grand Junction, or so.
WILLIAMS: And then you had twins?
C. WALLACE: Oh, you have that down, too?
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WILLIAMS: Mrs. Truman wrote it down [see appendix, item 2].
C. WALLACE: Yes. Yes, I had them. They were . . . I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: That was in Denver.
C. WALLACE: That was in Denver.
D. WALLACE: Forty-four.
C. WALLACE: Forty-four, November. I remember somebody coming and bringing me a ballot and say, “Here, put your X here. You’re voting.” Isn’t that terrible? I was in a hospital so . . . Yeah, I had what they call, if you want the whole story, a placenta previa. Now, you don’t know any more about that than you did before. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was hemorrhaging. Fred went down and called the doctor, and the doctor said, “Well, just keep her quiet.” Fred came upstairs, and he wasn’t halfway up the stairs—this was during the war—we only had one telephone—and the telephone was ringing and here was him saying, “What did you say?” He said, “Keep her quiet. I’m sending an ambulance.” I’ll never forget when they took me down those steps. Have you ever been on one of these things that they carry, and you’re lying here, and they take you down and hold you up over the bannister? Imagine coming down and you’re practically up to the second floor.
D. WALLACE: Now, backing up a little bit, but that’s the house that Grandmother would come out and spend the whole summer with . . . starting . . . That was at 411 Williams Street, and then later at 1200 East Third Street.
WILLIAMS: So, when you first moved to Denver it was 411?
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, we were in a hotel.
D. WALLACE: When we first moved to Denver it was a hotel for a while, not long.
C. WALLACE: Hotel Ayers. You could only stay so long in a hotel in those days.
D. WALLACE: And then that incredible house, which is still there—incredible, incredible house—411 Williams Street, which they could not afford, bought for $10,000.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, well, we didn’t have the money.
D. WALLACE: And after that was . . .
C. WALLACE: Twelve hundred East Third.
D. WALLACE: No, no, there were a lot of houses after that. You’ve got Claremont, you’ve got Gaylord, you’ve got all that, you’ve got the Ayers Hotel in 1948.
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know where they were.
D. WALLACE: Well, then 1200 East Third, then out to Cherry Hills, and from Cherry Hills we moved out here. And Cherry Hills was my father’s favorite house, and is a kissing cousin to the architecture on the courthouse here. It’s a Williamsburg colonial house—very, very pretty.
C. WALLACE: Well, anyway, so they took me to the hospital. And a placenta previa is when . . . Generally when a baby is born, the baby is first and then the placenta. And this was placenta and then the baby. There was no way for the baby to arrive, so that was my first Caesarian. And it was a little boy and a little girl, and they lived one day.
WILLIAMS: Did you know you had twins before?
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C. WALLACE: Just—
D. WALLACE: How early was it?
C. WALLACE: About one day.
D. WALLACE: Six months? Seven months?
C. WALLACE: Oh, it was seven months. They were seven-months babies. When you go to the hospital to have a baby, they always have . . . Well, in those days, they had this nurse, and she’d go around with a stethoscope, you know, and see what she could hear, whether the kid’s crying or yelling or what, or kicking. And she caught the two heartbeats. The doctor never had. And she had told me, “You know, I think there’s two heartbeats in there.” Well, that was before they put me out for the Caesarian. Which one lived the longest, the little girl or the little boy?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know.
C. WALLACE: It doesn’t make any difference. They both passed away about the first day. I never saw them. They were named. They had to be named. It was Margaret Ann and Charles Gates.
WILLIAMS: Family names.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. If it makes any difference . . . And they’re out at Mount Olivet. They have a plot out there called “Plot of the Angels” where they put babies like that.
WILLIAMS: Do you know what day that was in November?
C. WALLACE: November . . . around the 4th. It’s in the back in Grandmother’s handwriting here in the . . .
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D. WALLACE: There?
C. WALLACE: No, no, no. There. Now what is that, if you can read that? I think it’s November 4, 1944.
WILLIAMS: You said it was election day, or close to it?
C. WALLACE: I remember this . . . I don’t know whether it was that day, or whether I was still in the hospital or what, but I remember this friend of Fred’s bringing me this ballot and saying, “Put your X here.” [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Who did you vote for, for president?
C. WALLACE: I don’t even remember.
D. WALLACE: You don’t even know? She had a baby every time he ran for something new. She had me in ’34, she had the twins in ’44, which was vice president, forget Marian, and she had Margo in ’48. So there.
WILLIAMS: So what’s Margo’s full name?
D. WALLACE: It’s the same as the silverware.
C. WALLACE: Charlotte Margaret Wallace.
WILLIAMS: Charlotte Margaret. How did you get Margo?
C. WALLACE: I have Charlotte from my father, whose name was Charles—Margaret, Charlotte Margaret. Margaret for Mrs. Wallace, whose name Madge is really Margaret.
D. WALLACE: It looks like November 3rd here.
C. WALLACE: How did I get Margo? Because we already had a Margaret, and we just called her Margo, but her official name is Charlotte Margaret Wallace. If I had to do it over, I wouldn’t have done it that way, but hindsight,
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you know.
WILLIAMS: And she was born in August?
C. WALLACE: August 12, 1948.
WILLIAMS: And that was in Denver still?
C. WALLACE: In Denver.
D. WALLACE: She would have been born on the 13th, but you couldn’t get the operating room for Friday the 13th, which is what they wanted. She was also a C-section, obviously.
WILLIAMS: You wanted it on the 13th?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I thought that Friday the 13th would be kind of fun. [chuckling] Oh, well, you have to have something to entertain yourself.
D. WALLACE: I was trying to say, considering, you know, living under one house with all this crowd for eight years, I mean, people go mad.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever visit Washington when Mr. Truman was senator?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Not much.
C. WALLACE: Fred and I came—
D. WALLACE: No, but I never did.
C. WALLACE: No, you didn’t. No, Fred had to go to Washington for something, and so they decided that I should go with him. And Grandmother Wallace said, “Now don’t worry, I’ll take care of the children. There’s plenty of people here to look after them. Now you go.” So we had a funny little old Ford, and we rattled along.
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D. WALLACE: A ’39 Ford.
C. WALLACE: Rattled along to Washington. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Green.
C. WALLACE: And I think they were in an apartment on Connecticut Avenue then. They moved around a lot, too. Oh, we just had a real nice time. I can’t remember what Fred went there for, but he must have gone there for something.
D. WALLACE: Well, that was the War Production Board then. He started with the War Production Board here. Or maybe that was the . . .
WILLIAMS: Federal Housing?
D. WALLACE: The FHA thing, probably. That was FHA then, yeah. Which would make sense.
C. WALLACE: FHA, yeah. And it was nice. And they just went out of their way to show us a good time.
WILLIAMS: Did you go to the Congress and the Capitol?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, we went to the Congress, and we rode the little train from the Senate to the House. Yeah, Harry took us on that.
WILLIAMS: So that was your first taste of Washington?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: What did you think? Of course, you’d lived in Versailles, so . . .
C. WALLACE: Well . . .
D. WALLACE: [chuckling] I never thought of it quite like that.
C. WALLACE: [laughter] What does that have to do with it?
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D. WALLACE: It was slumming, yes.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] What does that have to do with it?
D. WALLACE: Well, it was slumming.
WILLIAMS: It’s not like the first time you’d ever left Missouri or anything.
C. WALLACE: Oh, no, I was a traveling woman. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Compared to the rest of the family, you were pretty cosmopolitan.
C. WALLACE: Oh, I was really something. [chuckling] No, we used to—
D. WALLACE: No, they never went anywhere, these two.
C. WALLACE: We did, too.
D. WALLACE: We went everywhere, but Frank and George never really went anywhere. They just hung around here.
C. WALLACE: No, before I got married I used to drive my mother to Chicago to—
D. WALLACE: Kristi you have misspelled as C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E Marie Brasher.
C. WALLACE: That’s how Dick told me to spell it!
D. WALLACE: July 19, 1967.
C. WALLACE: And that’s how Dick said he wanted it spelled, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E.
D. WALLACE: Mother, we’re beating that one to death.
C. WALLACE: I used to drive my mother to Chicago so she could trade at . . . buy the Christmas presents at Marshall Field’s. She hated to move away from Chicago. See, from Springfield we moved to Chicago—well, Oak Park, which is a suburb.
D. WALLACE: Excuse me, Pamela Sue Brasher, August 2, 1961. Now, somebody’s going to separate all this, right?
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WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm, and there’s one more. Who’s between Pam and—
D. WALLACE: Jamon.
C. WALLACE: Jamon.
D. WALLACE: Nice kids.
C. WALLACE: My mother never thought anything was quite like Marshall Field’s. So, after I got back out of Versailles, they didn’t know what to do with me, so they sent me to stay with a friend of my mother’s in Evanston.
WILLIAMS: He went to Northwestern. [pointing to Scott Stone]
D. WALLACE: Oh, really? I had a lot of friends who went there.
C. WALLACE: I had the nicest boyfriend. His name was Johnny Porter. God, he was a . . . But he didn’t go to Northwestern; he went to the University of Illinois up at . . . Where is it?
D. WALLACE: Down at Champaign.
C. WALLACE: Champaign, yeah. And both my brothers went to Notre Dame and graduated from Notre Dame, and my oldest brother was there when the “Four Horsemen,” Knute Rockne and old . . . what is it? Gip, who died, and they’d always say, “Well, we’ll win this one for Gip.” Yeah, it was fun.
WILLIAMS: Is that where you learned to like football, at Notre Dame?
C. WALLACE: No, no, no. And then when I went to Finch in New York, I had this friend that lived in Denver—her name was Carol Sutter—and she’d buy her ticket in Colorado, and I would buy my ticket in Kansas City—well my parents would—and we’d get in the same car right next to each
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other. So, in getting up in the morning, [chuckling] she would get under . . . you know, the curtain, you know how it is under there—and come through, and she’d get in mine or I’d get in her bed, and then we’d order breakfast. [chuckling] Oh, God, I’ll bet that porter was ready to kill us. And then we’d tell the school we were coming in on the Lakeshore Limited, which got in New York at 5:30 at night—in the afternoon, rather.
D. WALLACE: But you really got in early.
C. WALLACE: And we took the New York Central that got us in at ten o’clock in the morning. [chuckling] Because they would always say, “Well, meet us at the information booth,” so they didn’t know where we came from. When we all of a sudden appeared, here we were. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: So what did you do in the meantime?
C. WALLACE: Oh, have fun.
D. WALLACE: Doesn’t it sort of strike you as odd that anybody with the sense of humor that Mother had then, and still has, would bury herself in a house out here with a bunch of people?
C. WALLACE: Well, maybe that’s my problem.
D. WALLACE: Something is. I mean, it’s very strange. It’s very strange.
C. WALLACE: So we had fun, Carol Sutter and Polly Merritt—she was from Minneapolis—and me. Oh, dear, what did we do? Oh, and then on Sunday we’d go to church, and everybody wanted to go to church with me because it was a fast service. [chuckling] So we’d all go to church,
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and then we’d go over to the Biltmore Hotel, and we’d all buy all these newspapers and sit there and read the whole newspapers and drink coffee.
WILLIAMS: At the Biltmore.
C. WALLACE: At the Biltmore. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Did that include the Kansas City paper?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember. I don’t even think we read them. [chuckling] We just got them. And then what else did we do? Oh, and then we used to have to take a walk every afternoon. Well, after the first year, we had to walk with a chaperon, but after the second year, before we went to Europe, we got to go out by ourselves. And you know, I never have smoked a lot in my life, but that was the big deal. You had a cigarette you know, we didn’t really care. And we’d go down to a place called Alice Foot McDougals, and have uh, . . . what was it, waffles and eggs. This in the afternoon. I guess smoke a cigarette.
D. WALLACE: It was real high living back in 1926 here right?
C. WALLACE: Or hang out of the window at school.
WILLIAMS: We’re out of tape.
C. WALLACE: Oh, it was fun.
[End #4394; Begin #4395]
C. WALLACE: And then we’d have to be careful when we were going. We’d run down to Fifth Avenue and get on the double-decker bus. And we had to watch we didn’t—that first year girls then who were walking with a
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chaperone didn’t see us or the chaperone didn’t see us.
WILLIAMS: They kept a close eye on them.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And then when I went to Europe, we went on a boat. And we, we’d go into the lounge and order, champagne cocktail and we’d have it in a cup, a teacup. So that when Madame May Hardwood came by, she’d think we were drinking sweet tea. I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: This is when you were nineteen or something.
C. WALLACE: Doesn’t that sound like kids. That we really didn’t care. I think if we had one drink a month, why big deal. They had good food at that school.
WILLIAMS: Don’t you have to drink when you were in France, wine at least?
D. WALLACE: Well, then it’s okay.
C. WALLACE: Well, we didn’t know that. We had a good time.
WILLIAMS: Was it kind of a letdown to come back to Kansas City?
C. WALLACE: Well, no.
WILLIAMS: You didn’t have big aspirations to live on the East Coast?
C. WALLACE: No. We had fun.
WILLIAMS: Well, so back here in Washington and riding the train—
D. WALLACE: You should see a picture of her taken at this time—I mean, the classic flapper picture of all time, with the cloche hat and everything—which we have.
WILLIAMS: Well, apparently the Truman Library thought they had some pictures of her at that time.
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D. WALLACE: Well, yeah, but I mean, you’ll see this, and you’ll see how far-ass wrong they were.
C. WALLACE: Don’t you dare send that picture to them.
D. WALLACE: Well, it was gorgeous, and it really is amazing.
C. WALLACE: Oh, sure. Oh, I don’t know. We had fun.
WILLIAMS: So how often would you go to visit them when they were in the senate?
C. WALLACE: Just once—I think just once—with Fred. We drove.
WILLIAMS: When would they come back each year?
C. WALLACE: We always were together at Christmas, regardless of where they were. Either we went to Washington, or they came to Independence.
D. WALLACE: No, Mother, we’re in the senate. He’s talking about the senate.
C. WALLACE: Oh, the senate? Oh, they always came to Independence.
D. WALLACE: When? he’s saying.
C. WALLACE: When he was in the senate.
D. WALLACE: July.
C. WALLACE: They came for Christmas. Oh, they came for the summer! Don’t you know, I said it was half and half, yeah.
WILLIAMS: So they would get back here in June or July?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry.
WILLIAMS: And stay through Christmas?
D. WALLACE: Through Christmas.
C. WALLACE: Through Christmas, and then go back for the . . . when the Congress would convene.
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WILLIAMS: What would Harry do while he was back here?
C. WALLACE: Oh, see his buddies.
D. WALLACE: Fence mending.
C. WALLACE: See his buddies.
WILLIAMS: Would they be in the house?
D. WALLACE: Didn’t he have to drive all over the state all the time? I mean, you know, he had to cover the state.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, so I have a little antique chair that was Grandmother Wallace’s, and she had it there in the parlor or music room or whatever you want to call it.
D. WALLACE: Which was always called the parlor, by the way.
C. WALLACE: Parlor. It was the only time I ever saw Grandmother get mad. She said, “If those big, fat politicians would stop coming in. They always pick that chair to sit on!” [chuckling] It made her furious.
WILLIAMS: So they would come to the house?
C. WALLACE: Once in a while. Once in a while.
WILLIAMS: Did he try to avoid that?
C. WALLACE: Yes, anything to keep peace. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: So that did bother her?
C. WALLACE: That’s the only time I heard her. But it was such a pretty, fragile chair. [chuckling] And isn’t that funny? Why do great big, fat people always pick the wrong kind of chairs to sit on?
WILLIAMS: Is that where, when people came to visit, would they be in the parlor?
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, because they’d talk politics. And Grandmother was always in the living room, and that was her room and her chair, so naturally Harry would come in and they’d go that-a-way.
WILLIAMS: Would she use the living room because her bedroom was right next to it?
C. WALLACE: I think so. I think that was it. And after all, it was her house, and where else would she sit?
WILLIAMS: Was she always in that first-floor bedroom, as long as you were there?
C. WALLACE: As far as I know.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever hear what her room was before that?
C. WALLACE: No. No, I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Did Mrs. Truman play bridge?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: As long as you remember her?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, she belonged to the bridge club. That’s an institution practically, you know.
WILLIAMS: Okay. The Tuesday bridge club?
C. WALLACE: Is that when they played it?
WILLIAMS: Well, that’s what they called it when she was first lady. I don’t know if that’s what they always called it.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and they went to Washington.
WILLIAMS: Would they take turns coming to the Truman home, the Wallace house?
C. WALLACE: You mean, to play bridge?
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WILLIAMS: To play.
C. WALLACE: Well, say there were ten people, and everyone had their turn. I don’t know—
D. WALLACE: They rotated it.
C. WALLACE: Rotated it.
WILLIAMS: So there would be times when they would come to the Wallace—
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: What did she serve them when she did that? Lunch before, or candy with it, or what?
C. WALLACE: I think, if they had food, they’d have something like a fruit salad.
D. WALLACE: Oh, I remember those awful fruit salads.
WILLIAMS: Was it like a Waldorf salad?
D. WALLACE: Oh, no, it was that canned, mixed fruit.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I don’t like fruit salad.
D. WALLACE: Well, no wonder. No, I mean, some of the food was the most abysmally awful on the face of the planet, because that’s what everybody did at the time—that awful canned, mixed fruit salad.
WILLIAMS: Fruit cocktail?
D. WALLACE: Yeah. And then something that was a slight cut above it came along, which was cottage cheese shoved in the hole in canned pears. That was a real classy salad. You had that when you were really entertaining.
WILLIAMS: On a bed of lettuce?
D. WALLACE: On a flat leaf of iceberg lettuce, yeah. Which, of course, in this weather
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lasted crisp for about thirty seconds. I don’t know how Vietta stood it in the kitchen, though, with that heat and the gas stove—I mean, the wood stove out there—which she didn’t have on in the winter. Was the stove always a gas stove, or was it coal before that? Because we had an icebox until I was like . . . Till like 1940, it was still an icebox.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and Fred had to take the thing out from underneath it and empty the water, and sometimes he’d forget. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Well, and the guy came with the ice blocks.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, it was always a gas stove. The only time I ever cooked on anything was the time we went to Buena Vista, and Fred had to go someplace—Pueblo or someplace—and we had rented this cottage and—
D. WALLACE: Summer vacations in the thirties.
WILLIAMS: Buena Vista?
D. WALLACE: Colorado.
C. WALLACE: Buena Vista. David and Marian. I didn’t have Margo in those days.
WILLIAMS: Why did people tend to go to Colorado for a vacation?
D. WALLACE: Cooler.
C. WALLACE: Cooler.
D. WALLACE: It’s the only way you can go from here that’s cooler. It’s a twelve-hour drive to Denver from here, even then, or less, you know, and suddenly you’ve gone from ninety-degree and high humidity to basically seventy-five and much different.
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C. WALLACE: Well, I didn’t have Margo at this time, and we had rented this cottage. And Fred’s grandfather had some property in Buena Vista, and I think they all thought that’s where we were going to get our million. Anyway—
D. WALLACE: A gold mine.
C. WALLACE: Gold mine. And so we rented this apartment—I mean, this cottage—and this little old Tommy Caskey was a little mountaineer, and he knew Grandfather Gates. In fact, he used to go with him when he went out looking for this gold mine or something on this mountain. He had the best raspberries—great big, red raspberries—that he’d bring to us, and then he’d go for the day and he’d come back and he’d have a whole mess of trout. He even showed me how to cook them. I didn’t know how to cook them. You just put them in a pan of bacon grease and take . . . Anyway.
D. WALLACE: This is really elevated cuisine. You know, I can’t find Jamon, and I’ve got to call my machine.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] And anyway, we had a wood stove in the kitchen, and he left town. I didn’t know how to cook on that cook stove. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Well, who did the cooking in the house?
C. WALLACE: Well, you mean when we were there? He did, or I did, but I had Fred to start the fire. Anyway, I couldn’t get the fire to start. But you know how I did, finally? Well, I put the wood and the paper in and it still wouldn’t start. I’d take and throw some bacon grease on top of it, and it
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was just beautiful. We ate. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Now, Mother!
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Before you get on to the next thing, the Trumans then would come out to Buena Vista and visit during the thirties.
C. WALLACE: And we had a picture of Uncle Harry hanging his socks up on the clothesline. You don’t have that one. I don’t know who has it. Uncle Harry hanging up socks. He always said, “No man should expect his wife to wash his underwear and his socks.” You remember that, girls. [chuckling] Somehow it never got through on my family. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Well, when you were here in Independence, who would do the cooking?
C. WALLACE: Vietta.
WILLIAMS: So she was there in ’34?
C. WALLACE: Oh, yeah. I’ve never known anybody there. The only time we didn’t have somebody there was when she was sick.
D. WALLACE: Who did the cooking when she quit and went to Katz Drug?
C. WALLACE: What?
WILLIAMS: Who did the cooking when she quit?
C. WALLACE: When did she quit?
D. WALLACE: You remember, like about ’38 or ’39.
WILLIAMS: Then she came back, right?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I guess Grandmother Wallace could cook.
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D. WALLACE: Yeah, she did it.
C. WALLACE: Bess could cook. Chris? No, she couldn’t.
D. WALLACE: No, that’s what happened. I think then everybody just pitched in then.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: No, she got mad because . . . she got mad.
C. WALLACE: I always had to set the table.
D. WALLACE: And I don’t blame her. I don’t know how she stood it.
C. WALLACE: And I always said, “Well, Grandmother, I don’t see any sense to put butter plates on.” “Christine, do you want your children to go out someplace and ask somebody what that plate’s for?” [chuckling] “Put them on.” Oh, she was very proper.
WILLIAMS: Did you have place mats?
D. WALLACE: Oh, and I remember rolls rising all the time in the refrigerator, because Vietta would make them the night before. I mean, I don’t know how that poor woman survived!
C. WALLACE: And how she did all the dishes!
D. WALLACE: After dinner, then she’d make rolls and shove them in the refrigerator to slow down the rising. And then the next day—I mean, she was cooking bread every day, in addition to two meals for this herd. And all the dishes—by hand—there was no dishwasher, of course.
C. WALLACE: But now, George or Frank used to take her home nights, or call a jitney and pay for it for her. Or a taxi.
D. WALLACE: Yeah. Yeah, but still, I mean, it was bond labor.
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C. WALLACE: I don’t see how she did it. I couldn’t. That’s a lot of dishes. Say, by the way, you had a lot of dishes this morning, too, didn’t you?
D. WALLACE: They have a machine to wash them, too.
C. WALLACE: Smart girl.
WILLIAMS: So you didn’t learn to cook when you were at Finch?
C. WALLACE: Why no. They didn’t have that course.
D. WALLACE: The meals were cooked for them at Finch.
WILLIAMS: They just always assumed that you would have a cook?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know what they assumed, but they just thought we were a bunch of brats.
WILLIAMS: I have a list of the Tuesday bridge club. Could I read the names and see if you recall these ladies?
C. WALLACE: Uh-huh.
WILLIAMS: In 1946, it was Mrs. J.C. Noel.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Any recollection of her?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I can’t remember her first name, but I know a Miss something Noel. I can see her face, sort of, vaguely.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Mize Peters.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s Lucy Peters.
D. WALLACE: That’s Lucy Peters, “beaten biscuit” Peters.
WILLIAMS: Did we get that on tape?
C. WALLACE: “Beaten biscuit”?
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D. WALLACE: No, you’ve got to be sure and do it. Also, you must get Mother on tape. We’re ahead of ourselves, so back up for a minute about when I came from the hospital and you had Pauline. Then you had the RLDS woman who had to wash the diapers out and boil them in the copper tub down in the cellar.
C. WALLACE: Yeah?
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s not on tape.
C. WALLACE: Well, even I did that.
D. WALLACE: Well, talk about it. This is another lifestyle.
WILLIAMS: You’d be in the cellar?
C. WALLACE: Well, in the basement.
WILLIAMS: Boiling diapers?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Well, they had a double-boiler down there and a big copper tub. That’s how they did it.
D. WALLACE: That was a double burner, not a double-boiler.
C. WALLACE: A double burner.
WILLIAMS: With like gas or coal or . . .?
C. WALLACE: Well, gas, and you’d put a match on it and it burns. And the copper tub.
D. WALLACE: In a big, oval, copper tub.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then you have a big stick like this, and you do like this, you know? [chuckling] And then right here was the built-in washtub. Didn’t you have them in your basements?
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D. WALLACE: There are two washtubs down there.
C. WALLACE: And you had one of these things, and you’d fill that—
D. WALLACE: And then there was also the . . . you know, those. But then there was also the washing machine with a wringer down there.
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s my Mother’s old one.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, and you had to shove everything through the wringers.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, you had to get the—
D. WALLACE: But it was electric wringers, so they were always, you know, yelling at me to keep my hands out of that because it would drag my hands through—you know, realizing, of course, that they immediately spread. Also, before you get too far ahead of the “beaten biscuit,” about me hanging out in the kitchen and catching fire, and all that sort of thing.
C. WALLACE: When did you catch fire?
D. WALLACE: My bathrobe caught fire. You know that.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember that.
D. WALLACE: You had to put it out. Mother, I don’t know where you’ve been.
C. WALLACE: Who put it out?
D. WALLACE: You.
C. WALLACE: The only thing I knew, you crawled in the hall and burned your little hands. Oh, they were so . . . He was crawling, and there was a hot register on the floor, and before you could get to him, here were the two little hands on it. Poor little thing.
WILLIAMS: It got that hot that it would burn you?
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C. WALLACE: It was winter. Yeah, they got hot.
D. WALLACE: It was the main vent up from the furnace right below—that wonderful dinosaur of a furnace.
C. WALLACE: And then we had that thing in the dining room we all took turns sitting on to get warm in places. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: So where would the exhaust go from when you were down there boiling diapers?
C. WALLACE: Well, I guess it went out the door. [chuckling] I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Would you be down in the basement much?
C. WALLACE: Well, just to boil the diapers. You’d put them on and let them boil for a while. Then you’d go down, do a few things, and then you’d go away. Then you’d hang up the clothesline outdoors . . .
WILLIAMS: Where was it?
C. WALLACE: Oh, God! [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: There, sort of out toward the pergola.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, from about the pergola . . . I don’t know, over right just—
D. WALLACE: Just sort of like how you tied it on the pergola a lot of the time, I know.
C. WALLACE: But the time that the clothesline broke with the diapers on it, that’s when I was ready to leave home.
WILLIAMS: Why did you boil the diapers? Why couldn’t you just wash them?
C. WALLACE: Because that’s how you did them in those days. God, if you didn’t boil them, I guess they’d . . . I don’t know, they’d get rashes on their behinds. [chuckling]
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WILLIAMS: So did you do all of your own laundry?
C. WALLACE: Did I do my own laundry?
WILLIAMS: There wasn’t somebody to do the laundry?
D. WALLACE: Everybody did their own, basically. I mean, they didn’t have help.
C. WALLACE: Well, until I got this Pauline there to help me with him, and she did the diapers then and helped with it. And then, of course, with the other two children we finally had diaper service. It made a difference, let me tell you. Oh!
WILLIAMS: Did Bess do the same things with Margaret?
C. WALLACE: I’m sure she did. I don’t know. I wasn’t there, but you didn’t have diaper service and you didn’t have . . . What am I thinking of? The ones you buy, like Luvs and—
WILLIAMS: Oh, disposable.
C. WALLACE: Disposable. They didn’t have them, did they? What did you . . . Oh, you weren’t old enough. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: And you didn’t sew much?
C. WALLACE: No. Grandmother Wallace. Everybody brought something to Grandmother Wallace to sew. She always did. But she said that when she was raising her children she had to make all her children’s little undershirts and everything. God, it’s just as well I didn’t live then; the kids would go naked. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: So she made all that stuff? She didn’t use a sewing machine.
C. WALLACE: No, she did them by hand. Well, maybe she did, David, before we got
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there.
WILLIAMS: But you said she did have an antique sewing machine?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, a treadle, and she gave it to me and I—
D. WALLACE: It was out on the vestibule.
C. WALLACE: And I traded it in for my little portable one, which is in storage in Margo’s basement, and it is mine.
WILLIAMS: So who would clean the house?
C. WALLACE: Well, Vietta and—
D. WALLACE: Oh, after lunch and before dinner, Vietta, you know, could hustle through and clean it.
WILLIAMS: Like dusting and vacuuming and sweeping?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Vietta would—
WILLIAMS: Would you do any of that?
C. WALLACE: Vietta did. We all took our turn. Yeah, I remember dusting lots of times.
WILLIAMS: Was there an annual big spring cleaning, something like that?
C. WALLACE: Maybe that’s when Fred did the painting on the floors.
D. WALLACE: When the rugs were taken out and beaten outside, or . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Well, they weren’t beaten then, really, but they would have been taken out for spring cleaning.
C. WALLACE: And shaken real hard. But we used to have rug-beaters, didn’t you.
D. WALLACE: And the floors were painted. Not only the floors inside, but all the
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porch floors too outside would be painted every year or couple of years.
C. WALLACE: Well, that was paint, but this was Floor-lac in the house. Oh, gosh.
D. WALLACE: And the linoleum in the kitchen—
WILLIAMS: Would you also do the grates over the vents, paint those or lacquer those?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and all around them and everything, and up the steps and in the upstairs hall. And I know our . . . Fred and my bedroom got it, and I guess the others did.
D. WALLACE: No carpeting anywhere in the house, just a few rugs.
C. WALLACE: Just rugs, throw rugs. Of course, it’s all carpeted now, and it looks so nice.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, but the wood’s right underneath it.
C. WALLACE: But you still have the funny lady at the foot of the stairway holding the light. God, that’s so strange.
WILLIAMS: Why is it strange?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, it’s just sort of strange.
D. WALLACE: It’s very Victorian.
WILLIAMS: Did Mrs. Wallace like to keep the house as a dark, Victorian house?
C. WALLACE: She never said.
WILLIAMS: Did she redecorate much?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Getting wallpaper or drapes?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t ever remember doing it.
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D. WALLACE: There’s that blue wallpaper in the dining room, bluish. The pattern [unintelligible].
C. WALLACE: We had a bathroom upstairs. [chuckling] That’s the one I used to work in with paint. It had wood up so high, you know, and then the wall. Well, I didn’t do anything up there, I couldn’t reach it, so I’d just do the wood up so high. And sometimes they’d come home from—
D. WALLACE: Then you did the corner cabinets, too, didn’t you?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. They’d come home from back East, and it might be blue, and the next time it might be green. Well, one time—I told you this—I painted it black up so far, [chuckling] and the cupboards and everything. And then it was the old-fashioned bathtub, so you could have fun painting that. So I painted it black. So, when Mrs. Truman got ready to go back East, she said, “Chris, for heaven’s sake, when you get ready to paint again, please paint the bathtub something other than black. I feel like I’m stepping into my coffin every time.” [chuckling] So I did.
WILLIAMS: Would they usually call you Chris?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, everybody calls me Chris, [chuckling] but my children.
WILLIAMS: And would you like to tell us about being set on fire in the kitchen?
D. WALLACE: I just caught on fire in the kitchen.
WILLIAMS: How would you catch on fire?
D. WALLACE: Fooling around the stove.
C. WALLACE: He liked to be in the kitchen and—
D. WALLACE: With Vietta.
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C. WALLACE: Vietta would always give him little things to mix up, and I think that’s why he’s such a good cook now.
D. WALLACE: Well, and she was [unintelligible].
WILLIAMS: Would you lick the spoons and all that stuff when she baked?
D. WALLACE: All the time, all that stuff. There was one very memorable thing when I took a big spoonful of what I thought was hard sauce after Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner in a bowl in the refrigerator. And it was uncolored margarine. [chuckling] White margarine. You’ve got to understand, they got everything before the country got it all—I mean, margarine first, and when we were in Denver, people were bringing out instant coffee before the unfortunate day people ever thought of that commercially. Her, she still drinks it. But all that. We had a lot of game around the house all the time. Tell the Bambi story.
WILLIAMS: Game? Who would kill it?
C. WALLACE: We were sent some—
D. WALLACE: Well, he was sent everything.
C. WALLACE: Some venison. And how was that, David?
D. WALLACE: This is an easily dated thing. I started crying.
C. WALLACE: Marian, too.
D. WALLACE: No, it was Marian. I’m the one who told you it was Bambi’s enemy.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then she’d eat it before . . . She wouldn’t eat it because it was a little deer, Bambi.
WILLIAMS: And what did you tell her?
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D. WALLACE: It was Bambi’s enemy.
C. WALLACE: Oh, that’s the thing that Caroline Carnes wrote up in the Examiner about that. Oh, dear.
D. WALLACE: She did a story on it in the Examiner.
WILLIAMS: But nobody in the family would go hunting or fishing?
C. WALLACE: No. They weren’t hunters, and they weren’t fishermen.
D. WALLACE: They were very strange people. They didn’t do anything like that.
WILLIAMS: I understand that Mrs. Truman liked to fish.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but she certainly had her . . . It was before our time with her. She never went to anyplace to fish.
WILLIAMS: When they went to Colorado?
D. WALLACE: She didn’t fish when she came out? Of course she did.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know where she fished.
D. WALLACE: When we were at Buena Vista and stuff.
WILLIAMS: Any streams or lakes?
C. WALLACE: Well, could be.
D. WALLACE: I’m sure she held a fishing rod now and then through all of that.
C. WALLACE: Well, she came out to Colorado to see us a lot and brought Grandmother Wallace out.
WILLIAMS: Back to the bridge club. There’s Mrs. Frank Wallace and Mrs. George Wallace. Mrs. Oscar King.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Linda. Linda King.
WILLIAMS: Now, she lived in Kansas City. How did she get involved?
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D. WALLACE: Well, “beaten biscuits.” We haven’t got back to it. Lucy Peters’s beaten biscuits.
C. WALLACE: I’ve told them about that.
WILLIAMS: I don’t think we got it on tape.
D. WALLACE: Not on tape.
C. WALLACE: Oh. Well, every Christmas, Lucy Peters, who lived down the street and was part of the bridge club and everything—
WILLIAMS: At 631 North Delaware.
C. WALLACE: At 631 North Delaware, would make a lot of beaten biscuits. Now, have you ever eaten a beaten biscuit? Well, they’re about so big around, and they’re about like that, and they’re hard as a rock, but oh, are they good. And she’d always bring this boxful. Well, after Christmas dinner the turkey was always so big you couldn’t put it in the refrigerator—or the . . . whatever we had in those days—so they left it on the platter and put it on the kitchen table. Well, that was all right. I mean, nowadays they say you ought to put it in the refrigerator right away or you’ll get ptomaine poisoning or something. But that kitchen would get so cold at night, so it was the same thing. But that didn’t bother any of us. We’d still go out . . . And, you know, there’s nothing better than cold turkey, I don’t think. And we’d get turkey and a beaten biscuit, and it’s good eating. Maybe someday you’ll find out what I’m talking about. I don’t know who makes beaten biscuits now.
D. WALLACE: You can buy them everywhere.
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WILLIAMS: So that’s how you remember Lucy Peters.
D. WALLACE: “Beaten biscuit” Peters, yes.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but she was a good friend. She’d come up a lot to see Grandmother Wallace—Lucy and Mize, and then they had one daughter.
D. WALLACE: And Mize had a casket company?
C. WALLACE: Mize Peters?
D. WALLACE: Where did you get that?
WILLIAMS: That was someone else.
C. WALLACE: That’s Oscar King.
D. WALLACE: Oh, King, Oscar King’s Cozy Casket Company.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, he had the casket company.
WILLIAMS: The Cozy . . .?
C. WALLACE: Cozy Caskets. King’s Cozy Caskets.
WILLIAMS: That was something Marian invented, that expression? [chuckling] Now, she lived in Kansas City. How did they get involved with the Trumans, do you know?
C. WALLACE: They used to live out here at one time. And then that Marjorie Nicks was their niece, that I talked about.
WILLIAMS: Okay, Mrs. Tom Twyman.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, the Twymans.
WILLIAMS: Adelaide.
C. WALLACE: Adelaide Twyman, yeah.
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WILLIAMS: Anything you remember in particular about them?
C. WALLACE: Well, there was a Twyman that was a Dr. Twyman, but I don’t know how he was kin to her. Was it a brother-in-law? It wasn’t this one. I don’t know what this one did.
WILLIAMS: I think it may have been Tom’s father.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Mell—Thelma—Palette.
C. WALLACE: Now, that was a good friend of May’s, and Mel and Thelma and George and May did a lot together. I mean, she not only belonged to the bridge club, but then they would play bridge at other times and do things together. And then Mel died, and Thelma remarried and went elsewhere. Now, where she is and whether she’s still alive now, I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. John Hutchison .
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Now, what they did, I don’t remember.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. E.K. Crow.
C. WALLACE: Yes, yes. And it was all the old crowd, isn’t it, every one of them.
D. WALLACE: And your old crowd, huh?
C. WALLACE: Not my crowd, but theirs.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Leslie Shaw. Shawsie’s mother.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Shawsie’s mother. She was a Gentry, I think. And that group had been together for years. How many do you think, Jim?
WILLIAMS: I don’t know.
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C. WALLACE: But that was the whole group that went to the White House together.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, there are some articles about them going to . . . Now, here we have an article about in 1945 [see appendix, item 3], and it says, “A flurry by the Trumans. Family settles down to rearranging the home.” Apparently, when they came back or he became president, they sent some belongings back here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I guess so.
WILLIAMS: And it says, “Workmen added to the contents of the van an electric washer, a small red toy automobile, several large clothes hampers, a wicker table, several barrels and two old trunks. These apparently were the excess possessions of the Fred Wallace family”—
D. WALLACE: That was that pedal fire engine.
WILLIAMS: [reading] —“stored there when they moved to Denver and obtained a furnished apartment. The toy automobile probably belongs to David Wallace, small son of Fred Wallace, who spent the summer with his grandmother two years ago. The van rolled off to the storage headquarters.” So this was apparently when they were fixing up the home and clearing out some of the stuff.
C. WALLACE: The things that didn’t belong there, yeah.
WILLIAMS: So did you leave things here when you moved to Denver?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember, but we must have. I certainly didn’t leave the washing machine.
WILLIAMS: This was in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 4, 1945.
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C. WALLACE: Maybe it was that awful, awful, old washing machine I had that had belonged to my mother that wasn’t worth a darn. It might have been that one.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “They also carried from the home a large upholstered chair and a large walnut cupboard.” Okay, and in December 20, 1945, I think they were decorating for Christmas, the first Christmas when he was president. [reading, see appendix, item 4] “The lights of the cars pulling into the drive illuminated a 16-foot crated Christmas tree standing in front of the garage.”
C. WALLACE: Oh, didn’t we tell you about that?
WILLIAMS: [reading] “The tree was sent to the nation’s first family by a niece and nephew, Marian Wallace, 8, and David Wallace, 11, the children of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Wallace of Denver. The tree, a Douglas fir, was cut in the Pike National forest of Colorado.”
C. WALLACE: Well, a friend of Fred’s crated it, and it was a big thing in the backyard. It looked like a . . . what shall I say? Like an oil well standing up there, you know, like this? [chuckling] But it was a beautiful tree, and that’s the one that marked the ceiling and upset Grandmother. That’s the only thing . . . one of the only things that really bothered her. She didn’t like that big black mark up on the ceiling.
WILLIAMS: It says later that [reading] “It had not been moved indoors, awaiting the decision of Mrs. Truman as to whether the top or bottom should be cut to fit the 16-foot tree under the 14-foot ceiling of the Truman home. [¶]
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Also hurrying from the train to the Truman house was Miss Vietta Garr, the Negro family cook who came along from Washington to prepare the Christmas dinner.[¶] Confronting Miss Garr is the problem of roasting a huge young tom turkey that will be presented the official family by Mr. and Mrs. Ernest L. Capps. . . .” It was a thirty-five-pound turkey. How would you cook something like that?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, but she sure did a good job.
WILLIAMS: What was the family reaction when he ran for vice president?
C. WALLACE: There was no comments; they just listened. I don’t know, what do you think?
D. WALLACE: No, everybody was excited.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, they were excited. They thought, “Well, gee, good.”
D. WALLACE: They weren’t thinking ahead, though, I don’t think anybody was . . .
WILLIAMS: They didn’t anticipate him becoming president?
D. WALLACE: And we all went back for the inauguration in ’44, and stood around on the lawn in front of the south portico because they didn’t have a canopy, and it was raining. Remember? And then there was a reception line inside in the hallway, and Roosevelt went on upstairs because he was too tired, so Eleanor was alone.
C. WALLACE: I remember that time meeting Dwight Eisenhower.
D. WALLACE: On that trip.
C. WALLACE: On that trip.
D. WALLACE: Yeah. He subsequently came to the house [unintelligible].
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WILLIAMS: Why do you wrinkle your nose?
C. WALLACE: Oh, well, he was strange. And then, see, Mamie lived in Denver, and they’d come out. We had them out for dinner one night, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, and . . .
WILLIAMS: Could we wait a minute for this story so we can change?
[End #4395; Begin #4396]
WILLIAMS: So why would you invite the Eisenhowers to dinner?
C. WALLACE: Well, we were living out in Cherry Creek, and—
D. WALLACE: Cherry Hills.
C. WALLACE: In Cherry Hills, and we had met them before, and they were nice and friendly. Anyway, we asked them to dinner, and they accepted. They came to dinner. And as I said, I went up to . . . Mrs. Eisenhower wanted to see Margo, so I went up and got her out of bed and brought her down, as I was telling you then—
D. WALLACE: So this is ’49 we’re talking about.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. She was the same age as her grandson David, who is married to Julie Nixon. Anyway, Mrs. Eisenhower liked to play canasta. Gene Cervi—what would you say he was? He liked—
D. WALLACE: He had a column in the Rocky Mountain News.
WILLIAMS: How do you spell Cervi?
D. WALLACE: C-E-R-V-I.
C. WALLACE: C-E-R-V-I. And he and Fred and Ike . . . Oh, Ike was the best-talking Democrat you ever heard then.
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D. WALLACE: Then, oh, yeah.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: That’s all right.
C. WALLACE: And so they talked politics, and we all played canasta. It was a nice evening.
D. WALLACE: You and Eulalia Cervi and . . . E-U-L-A-L-I-A.
C. WALLACE: E-U-L-A-L-I-A, Eulalia.
D. WALLACE: Right. And Mamie. You needed a fourth, and I think Marian was too young for a fourth.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I think.
D. WALLACE: This was ’49, I mean, so she was twelve years old.
C. WALLACE: Well, she could play.
D. WALLACE: Oh, well, maybe she did.
C. WALLACE: I mean, canasta didn’t take any brains.
D. WALLACE: But you didn’t have anybody like Oscar Brannon over, or any of those people out there?
C. WALLACE: Not that time.
D. WALLACE: The Brannons were from Denver. Secretary of the Interior.
C. WALLACE: And then there was Secretary of Agriculture. Who was that?
D. WALLACE: Well, Clint Anderson.
C. WALLACE: Clint Anderson from . . .?
D. WALLACE: New Mexico.
C. WALLACE: And then they had one . . . I thought Brannon was—
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D. WALLACE: Charlie Brannon was Interior, I think.
C. WALLACE: I thought he was the one when . . . Are you sure?
D. WALLACE: Was Brannon the Mormon? Because it was a Mormon that was agriculture secretary.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember that.
WILLIAMS: Did you know these people because you were—
D. WALLACE: No, no. No, he had little glasses, the agriculture—
C. WALLACE: The pince-nez.
D. WALLACE: Yeah. But it wasn’t Charlie Brannon, I don’t think. Anyway.
WILLIAMS: Did you know these people because of your relationship to the Trumans, or—
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s how we met them, yeah.
WILLIAMS: So then, once you were in Denver, you just—
D. WALLACE: Well, we were there in—
WILLIAMS: But when you were in Denver, you had met them someplace else?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. There’s something I want to ask David. Excuse me. I saw him on TV the other night, and I just can’t believe how old he looks.
D. WALLACE: Clark Clifford.
C. WALLACE: Clark Clifford. How did you know that’s what I was going to say?
D. WALLACE: You know, because he’s in a scandal right now.
C. WALLACE: Oh, but he was such a good-looking person when we were there, in his white uniform and everything.
D. WALLACE: White suit.
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C. WALLACE: Suit? I thought he was in uniform, wasn’t he?
WILLIAMS: He was a naval aide.
C. WALLACE: Yes, he was.
D. WALLACE: Maybe it was a white uniform, but that’s way back, and much before, in the opinion of Aunt B., that he double-crossed them, you know.
C. WALLACE: Well, he was waiting there at the Williamsburg when we got on the Williamsburg. And that was another thing, whenever you go down the Potomac, you know, as you go along and you pass a military camp or something or place, they all have to stand at attention and then they pipe you through . . . by. It was kind of fun. [chuckling] And they’d take some of the Filipino help from the White House to cook the dinner, and they made this dessert Margaret wanted. It was the kind of ice cream thing that you cook.
D. WALLACE: Baked Alaska.
C. WALLACE: Baked Alaska. And they made one with chocolate ice cream because she liked it better. Boy, that was good eating. Imagine all that chocolate.
WILLIAMS: I think you said at lunchtime that Madge Wallace would go out on the Williamsburg?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, she went on it. There’s pictures. Don’t you have those pictures where we’re all standing on the Williamsburg and—
D. WALLACE: On the fantail.
C. WALLACE: And Grandmother right there in front?
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WILLIAMS: Do you know why she liked that enough to go out when she otherwise—
C. WALLACE: Because she was just with her family and no other people—outsiders—I guess. Wouldn’t you think so? I think that’s . . .
WILLIAMS: And nobody could see her?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t think she cared about people seeing her. It’s just that . . . I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: How did the Trumans change when he became president?
C. WALLACE: They didn’t.
D. WALLACE: Just busier.
C. WALLACE: They just got more to do. I don’t think they . . . They just took it all in their stride.
D. WALLACE: Well, I think it affected Margaret a great deal. I don’t think it bothered them at all.
C. WALLACE: Well, not as much as you think it would bother Margaret. Margaret was pretty good until she started being a concert singer.
D. WALLACE: Well, no, it wasn’t that. No, it’s when she started being the holder of the flame after he died. Well, anyway . . . But when we were in Denver she would come out, too, and stay, and she sang in a production of “The Countess Moritz” at Achievement Park, which of course Mother overlooks now in her apartment many years later.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but she’d always stay with us, and when we lived there—
D. WALLACE: We were living in the house on Williams then, or Claremont.
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C. WALLACE: We did not. We lived out in Cherry Hills.
D. WALLACE: Not when she did “The Countess Moritz.”
C. WALLACE: I don’t even remember that. When did she do the opera and she stayed in that . . . and Reathel was with her? And I have a picture of Margo, and Charles and Sue’s daughter—they came up from Dallas—sitting on the sofa in the living room.
D. WALLACE: She didn’t do any operas.
C. WALLACE: Yes, David, she—
D. WALLACE: She did a concert. Well, that’s different.
C. WALLACE: And they’re sitting . . . Well, it’s singing.
D. WALLACE: A different time. She did “The Countess Moritz” in about 1944. It was right after we were out there, and we were still in the house on Williams.
C. WALLACE: Well, this was when we were living in Cherry Hills. Because you know how they had those bookcases . . . Well, anyway . . . And Reathel was with her. And I still hear from Reathel every now and then, at Christmas time.
WILLIAMS: Reathel Odum.
C. WALLACE: Reathel Odum, yeah. I came across her address the other day.
WILLIAMS: She lives in Illinois, doesn’t she?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: After you moved to Denver, how much would you see the Trumans? You said every Christmas.
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C. WALLACE: Every Christmas, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Was that about it?
C. WALLACE: I think so. They were so busy, and it takes—
D. WALLACE: Well, I was here all summer.
C. WALLACE: And it takes money to travel, and we didn’t have that kind of money, and—
D. WALLACE: No, but she would bring Grandmother out and stay.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, she’d bring Grandmother out, and we always corresponded.
D. WALLACE: They’d sort of planted Grandmother with us while they went back then, you know, or something during . . . I don’t understand that.
C. WALLACE: And we always wrote back and forth and so forth.
D. WALLACE: It would be fall that they’d spring for her [unintelligible].
WILLIAMS: Well, it’s funny you should mention that, because I have an article from the Littleton Independent [see, appendix, item 5].
D. WALLACE: Wonderful.
WILLIAMS: In Arapaho County, Colorado. July 18, 1947, [reading] “Mrs. Harry S. Truman is pictured here with members of her family, after arriving at the Littleton depot aboard the Colorado Eagle. . . . From left to right are Mrs. David Frank Wallace, her sister-in-law; Mrs. D.W. Wallace, Mrs. Truman’s mother; David Frank Wallace, her brother; David Wallace, her nephew; her niece, Marian Wallace; Mrs. Truman; and Miss Virginia Ann Marshall, Independent reporter.” And it says, “FIRST LADY OF LAND IS JUST PLAIN ‘AUNT BESS’ TO NIECE AND
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NEPHEW.”
C. WALLACE: They sure got the names wrong, didn’t they?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know why she got off the train in Littleton, though, when we were still living in town. That was before we moved out to Cherry Hills. No, we must have just been in Cherry Hills then. That’s right, that’s why. That’s why.
WILLIAMS: It says something about Cherry Hills.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s where we lived then.
C. WALLACE: [reading] “. . . Family, in Cherry Hills.”
WILLIAMS: And it says you were active in Girl Scouts?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I was a Girl Scout . . . whatever you are.
D. WALLACE: But there’s the Eagle . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I did that.
WILLIAMS: And Marian was proud of being in Troop 3 or something?
C. WALLACE: Marian was in scouts, and I also was a den mother when he was a Cub Scout.
D. WALLACE: See, 3751 South Gilpin. So this is right after we moved out to Cherry Hills.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Cherry Hills.
D. WALLACE: I mean right after, like the day after, nearly. We lived there until 1950 when we moved to Albuquerque. I didn’t think we moved out there until ’48, but we were there for the ’48 election.
WILLIAMS: What would they do when they came out? What would Mrs. Wallace
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do?
D. WALLACE: I said that Eagle was the best in the country then. It still is.
C. WALLACE: Well, she’d pitch in, and she’d do everything. She’d cook, or she’d wash dishes—anything to help.
WILLIAMS: Well, she was in her nineties at this time?
C. WALLACE: Oh, Grandmother Wallace? I thought you meant Bess.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, close to it, though. She died at ninety-two, wasn’t it, or ninety what? So she was eighty-eight or eighty-nine here.
WILLIAMS: Was she still pretty spry?
C. WALLACE: She looks pretty good, doesn’t she?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, pretty good.
C. WALLACE: Oh, she’d sit, and she’d read to the kids. She was good at reading to the children. I don’t know, it was nice having her.
WILLIAMS: And Bess would just . . .
C. WALLACE: She’d just pitch right in and help. She’d make beds. She’d do anything.
WILLIAMS: Now, would the Secret Service have been with them?
D. WALLACE: Oh, yeah.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yeah.
WILLIAMS: So what happened with them?
D. WALLACE: They were there.
C. WALLACE: Well, they just were in the background somewhere. One time she drove out, and Tommy, her . . . Wasn’t his name Tommy?
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D. WALLACE: Dorsey.
C. WALLACE: Dorsey?
D. WALLACE: Mm-hmm, Tommy Dorsey.
C. WALLACE: Oh, Dorsey was the Secret Service man.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, well, that’s what we’re talking about.
C. WALLACE: The driver of the car when they brought Vietta out one time.
WILLIAMS: They brought Vietta out to Colorado?
C. WALLACE: Uh-huh.
WILLIAMS: Why? So she could cook when she was out there? [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: To visit.
C. WALLACE: And she wanted to see. And David and Marian took Vietta downtown in Denver shopping. They just loved her. It didn’t make any difference whether they were black or white.
WILLIAMS: Is that because she spoiled her, probably?
C. WALLACE: She was Pete. No, it was just plain Pete.
D. WALLACE: That was a really bad comment, Mother.
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Nothing.
C. WALLACE: And they just loved her, and she loved them.
WILLIAMS: Was she married? Did she have children of her own?
C. WALLACE: No, no, she never married.
WILLIAMS: Is there anything of interest in that article?
D. WALLACE: [reading] “. . . Mrs. D.W. Wallace of Grandview, Mo. . . .”
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WILLIAMS: [chuckling] Obviously, that reporter there got her . . .
D. WALLACE: She didn’t have much of a future, did she, in reporting? That’s charming. It’s nice to see that.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Wallace would have been pleased to have . . .
C. WALLACE: Especially their name is Frank in the middle.
WILLIAMS: Could you maybe explain why you were in the Kansas City Social Register in 1948 [see appendix, item 6]?
C. WALLACE: Because I had a baby. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: But it’s listed as: “Truman, President and Mrs. Harry S., 219 North Delaware.” And they have Miss Margaret Truman living with them. And then there’s “Wallace, Mr. and Mrs. David Frederick (Christine Marian Meyer). Residence, 219 North Delaware.” He went to the University of Missouri; you went to Finch.
D. WALLACE: Well, we were long gone by then.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: You have children, David, Jr., and Marian, and living with you is Mrs. David Willock Wallace.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Well, they obviously didn’t do any updating, did they?
WILLIAMS: Well, they updated it to President Truman, but they didn’t . . .
D. WALLACE: They didn’t clean up the rest of it.
C. WALLACE: Oh, well, big deal.
WILLIAMS: So you were considered high society?
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C. WALLACE: I don’t know. [chuckling] Who cares?
WILLIAMS: Frank and George aren’t in here.
C. WALLACE: Well, they didn’t live in Kansas City.
D. WALLACE: Well, nor did you. You were living in Denver.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but I had lived in Kansas City.
WILLIAMS: So that’s just an error on their part.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. What difference does it—
WILLIAMS: Here’s another visit, apparently, to Denver, September of ’48. [reading, see appendix, item 7] “First Lady at Niece’s Christening.”
C. WALLACE: Oh, yeah. Now, let me see, where did we live then?
D. WALLACE: Cherry Hills.
C. WALLACE: Oh, that was fun. We had fun with that dress. When I had Marian christened, I had . . . What did I do? I went and bought a dress for her. Then I found that I had my christening dress—that was my christening dress—and we needed a slip to put under it. So I had some of that same kind of material that my mother had a petticoat . . . I don’t know how it got in my cedar chest, but she had had a petticoat. So Bess and I—well, Bess especially—cut it and made a little slip to go under that dress. And I’ll never forget when she was christened in that little old church at Saint John’s, and Monseigneur Moran christened her, and he kept calling her Marguerite or something. And Bess said, “Margaret. Margaret!”
D. WALLACE: “Margaret!” She yelled it right at him, too.
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WILLIAMS: [chuckling] Was she like that?
C. WALLACE: Oh, I don’t know. It didn’t bother me any the first time I heard it either.
D. WALLACE: Good grief! What’s today’s date?
WILLIAMS: August 26th.
D. WALLACE: Well, that was August 29, 19 . . . whatever it was, ’48.
WILLIAMS: Did she make a special trip out for that, or was this just during one of her regular visits?
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t know. I guess—
D. WALLACE: Who’s Ralph Zimmerman?
C. WALLACE: That was a cousin of mine.
D. WALLACE: It says, “Sponsors were Charles Meyer of Dallas, Texas, Mrs. Ralph Zimmerman of Evanston, Illinois.”
C. WALLACE: Oh, that was his wife, Gretchen Zimmerman, yeah, in Springfield. She’s dead. But anyway, that dumb church.
D. WALLACE: This is the Catholic Register.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I told old Moran then I wanted my sister-in-law to be a sponsor. We had to get special permission [whispering] because she wasn’t a Catholic.
WILLIAMS: So being first lady didn’t count?
C. WALLACE: Oh, I guess they got special permission. I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. You saw this side of it, too?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, see how pretty that dress was?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, isn’t that nice?
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C. WALLACE: See? One of those longie things? See, a long, long dress. A long dress. That was a pretty dress.
D. WALLACE: Where is it now? Margo has it?
C. WALLACE: It’s in my cedar chest at Margo’s. I have to keep things some places. It’s mine, though.
WILLIAMS: So this photo was in your house?
D. WALLACE: That’s at . . . yeah, at 3751 South Gilpin.
C. WALLACE: We’re sitting on the sofa.
D. WALLACE: That’s the sofa from here.
C. WALLACE: I thought I had three of those pictures all in a row.
WILLIAMS: Well, and Madge was there, too, huh?
D. WALLACE: Who?
WILLIAMS: Madge Wallace.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Grandmother Wallace.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, she just came out.
WILLIAMS: Where’s Margaret?
C. WALLACE: She wasn’t there.
D. WALLACE: That’s right.
WILLIAMS: Could you talk about your visits in the summertime, why you would come back in the summer here?
D. WALLACE: Oh, because of polio.
C. WALLACE: He did.
WILLIAMS: That was the reason? It wasn’t for recreation or to see your cousins?
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D. WALLACE: Around there? Are you kidding? “Hello, Aunt and Uncle. Hello, Aunt and Uncle.” Then you’d just sit and read for the whole summer. You know, they were not stimulating summers, but they were—
C. WALLACE: There weren’t any cousins except Margaret, and she couldn’t be bothered with him.
D. WALLACE: There was nothing. No, she never bothered with that. Well, she wasn’t around that much in the summertime then. You know, I mean she was ten years older. She was twenty-five years old at this point.
WILLIAMS: We thought that Margaret and Bess would come back every summer and spend the summer.
D. WALLACE: Well, I think Margaret . . . I guess maybe she was back for part of it, but I think she stayed in Washington for some time. I mean, she was old enough to get around and do her own things now.
C. WALLACE: She was in New York then, wasn’t she?
D. WALLACE: She was twenty-one. No, she wasn’t in New York. She was twenty-one when all that was going on, so she was here part of the time. And I don’t know why I was here. It was the stupidest thing in the world.
WILLIAMS: You didn’t come out by choice then?
D. WALLACE: Well, I guess I did, but I mean, it was awfully stupid in retrospect.
C. WALLACE: Why did Margaret come see us in Albuquerque? I have a picture where we’re meeting her at the station, and I have Dr. Loveless and you and me and Dad.
D. WALLACE: That was Aunt B. She was with them.
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C. WALLACE: No, it was Margaret by herself, and standing in front of her was Margo, and Margo wasn’t any bigger than—
D. WALLACE: Well, maybe she had a concert in Albuquerque.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember that.
D. WALLACE: Probably, though. That’s probably the reason.
C. WALLACE: I don’t think so. Well, Reathel wasn’t with her.
D. WALLACE: Or maybe she stopped off on the way to Los Angeles, which is far more likely because it’s on the train.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. No, we were standing on the platform.
D. WALLACE: Well, that same point is just as valid. But I mean, I don’t remember much of those summers because there was nothing to remember of those summers. You know, rides with Uncle Frank and Aunt Natalie at night, and Grandmother, and, you know, the heat.
WILLIAMS: Was that every summer until . . .
D. WALLACE: Forty-five, forty-six, and forty-seven. It may have been ’46, ’47, and ’48, but I think ’45 was . . . I think, too.
WILLIAMS: What happened in the later . . . during the second term? You wouldn’t come out?
D. WALLACE: Well, I was getting old enough. I mean, polio wasn’t a problem. And I think, you know, probably they needed me around the house to help out, and I just didn’t want to do it anymore. Oh. I mean, I don’t know what was going on. I really don’t know why. I think it was, you know, demented.
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C. WALLACE: Well, you came for Margaret’s wedding.
D. WALLACE: Mother, that’s another decade later.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I know.
WILLIAMS: When would you go to Raytown for chocolate sodas?
D. WALLACE: Oh, that’s back.
C. WALLACE: That’s back . . . the eight years we lived there.
D. WALLACE: Well, it was sometimes when I was here in the summertime, too, with Margaret. But it all started back there.
C. WALLACE: Back in those days.
D. WALLACE: Raytown Drugstore, which is probably still there. If you want to drive to Raytown we can check it out. I don’t really need to.
WILLIAMS: Why would you go to Raytown?
C. WALLACE: Because that’s where they were good, and they were twenty-five cents.
WILLIAMS: Was that cheap?
D. WALLACE: No, actually that was high.
C. WALLACE: That was high in those days.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, I think it was about five cents more there, but they were really the best on earth, until I found them at the Westwood Drugstore, and now that’s gone.
C. WALLACE: Where is Westwood Drugstore? There in Los Angeles?
D. WALLACE: It isn’t there anymore, Mother.
WILLIAMS: So Margaret had a fondness for chocolate sodas?
C. WALLACE: We all did.
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D. WALLACE: Yeah, Margaret instigated that. And we’d go to movies a lot, you know.
WILLIAMS: Would she drive when she was old enough?
D. WALLACE: Oh, yeah.
WILLIAMS: How old did you have to be?
D. WALLACE: Here? Eighteen, I think.
C. WALLACE: I helped her to learn, and so did Uncle Frank Wallace. The two of us taught her.
WILLIAMS: Were all the cars the stick shifts?
C. WALLACE: Stick shift, yeah.
D. WALLACE: That would give one pause, teaching her how to drive a stick shift.
C. WALLACE: She was all right. She did real well.
D. WALLACE: She was?
C. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
WILLIAMS: When Madge Wallace died, this is one of her obituaries [see appendix, item 8]. I’d like to see if you agree with what they say. [reading] “When Elizabeth Wallace was married to Harry Truman, Mrs. Wallace’s sons already had established homes of their own. One of the conditions of the marriage was that the young couple live with her in the family home.” Did you ever hear that?
C. WALLACE: Well, I assume probably there was something more to it than met the eye.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “Mrs. Wallace gave hearty”—
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D. WALLACE: Well, I think, for one reason, he didn’t have a job, did he, when they got married?
C. WALLACE: Not at first.
D. WALLACE: So I don’t know whether it was a condition that was laid on from the outside, or a condition of necessity. I would suspect it was a condition of necessity, or desire and necessity met right in the middle.
C. WALLACE: I think a lot of it was necessity, because you read some of those books and it was Harry trying to find a job and how much he would make and—
D. WALLACE: Well, there was the haberdasher, the oil business, and all that junk going on for years, and there just wasn’t any money. I mean, there wasn’t any other place to live. So I suspect it might have been, “Oh, isn’t it wonderful you’re going to be able to live with us.” When Bess said, “We’re going to get married, but he doesn’t have a job, he just got back”—you know, da, da, da, da. I don’t think it was a condition, ipso, you know. What did Margaret say about that? I don’t think it was a specific, “You live here, or you don’t get married.” I don’t think it was that.
WILLIAMS: Then it says, “Mrs. Wallace gave hearty approval to her new son-in-law. . . .” See, we hear all these stories that they didn’t get along.
C. WALLACE: Who, Grandmother and Harry? Well, if they didn’t get along, they sure covered it up well. I mean, of course you felt like there was a little iciness maybe between them, but Harry was always a perfect gentleman.
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And I remember after dinner he would say . . . talk a little bit and then go on up. And it was always “Harry,” and he called her “Mrs. Wallace.”
D. WALLACE: Well, it couldn’t have been easy for him living in his mother-in-law’s house, either.
C. WALLACE: I think it was darn hard on Harry.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it if he could have financially gone somewhere else. It was a hell of a nice . . . you know, way of living inexpensively.
WILLIAMS: Were there ever disputes, that you know of?
C. WALLACE: If there were, I never heard one of them. And you can’t tell me that Harry and Bess didn’t have a few fights. Don’t you think it’s normal?
D. WALLACE: Well, yeah.
C. WALLACE: But it was always quiet. It was done up in their room. You never heard any shouting. The only time I heard Bess shout at anybody was at Margaret because she was trying to cheat at croquet. [chuckling] And she sent her to bed, and you never heard such a racket in your life as the way she screamed and cried. That was Margaret that screamed and cried.
WILLIAMS: How do you cheat at croquet?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: You move the balls.
C. WALLACE: I don’t play croquet. But she was really . . . And isn’t it funny how you
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remember those things? But boy, did Margaret ever put on a show. Now, that’s the only time I ever heard any dispute between any of them.
WILLIAMS: Why wouldn’t Mrs. Wallace like Harry Truman? What was there not to like about him?
C. WALLACE: I really don’t think Mrs. Wallace would have liked anybody to marry Bess. I think she was perfectly satisfied having somebody live in that house and take over the responsibility.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, I don’t think it was the poor farm boy thing at all because, I mean, that was sort of in the past then. He’d just come through the war and everything.
C. WALLACE: I think it’s because she got Bess to run . . .
D. WALLACE: Yeah, got her to do all the work.
C. WALLACE: And look after the kids. You’ve read those stories.
D. WALLACE: No, I think she was terrified that Bess would get married and disappear. So there may have been that, you know, “Can you please live here for a while and see how it goes?” And then, you see, as a semi-condition. That’s exactly probably what happened.
C. WALLACE: But I think, really, it’s because she wanted somebody to help take the responsibility.
WILLIAMS: What would have happened if they had moved out?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Could Mrs.Wallace have taken care of the house? Or survive?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I did not know Mrs. Wallace—
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D. WALLACE: I think there would have been a lot of pressure on Frank and Natalie then. Frank would have been the next closest one.
C. WALLACE: And I think, of course, at that time her parents were alive, so that was a houseful even in those days. There would be her parents and—
D. WALLACE: They weren’t alive in 1919.
WILLIAMS: Mrs. Gates was alive.
D. WALLACE: She was? So she was there, too?
C. WALLACE: Anyway, it was a full house. She moved up there after her husband died, and it was Madge Wallace and the four children—there was five people—and then her parents, five, six, seven. There were seven in the house then. Now, if there were any brothers . . . I think there was a brother living there, Madge’s brother. I don’t know, maybe seven, eight people living there. That’s a houseful of people. But Mrs. Wallace was a young woman then, too. That makes a difference.
WILLIAMS: What did your husband think of his mother? How was their relationship? I know how you—
D. WALLACE: He wrote a letter every day. Every day.
C. WALLACE: He was mama’s boy.
WILLIAMS: So he reciprocated her feelings?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And then they took a trip back East and he took her along. He had a car—he had a Packard—and they went back to see some kinfolks back East, and I don’t know where they were. Read that book. Margaret tells about it. There’s a lot of information in that book.
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D. WALLACE: And just where do you think a twelve-cylinder Packard convertible was coming from?
WILLIAMS: Her?
D. WALLACE: Of course. When he was in school? You know, and they were out working at a job, Frank and George.
C. WALLACE: It didn’t sit very good, I don’t think.
WILLIAMS: That she favored Fred?
D. WALLACE: Very much the spoiled son. But of the others, I think Frank was closer to her than George, don’t you?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Frank would always come up after work.
D. WALLACE: That’s why I said, had the whole Truman thing blown up, I think that she would have lived with them, you know.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yeah, but there were a couple remarks about Natalie.
D. WALLACE: Natalie, I don’t think, would have it. That’s the other thing.
C. WALLACE: Because Natalie was walking around . . . Instead of going one way, she went all the way around the block, and somebody saw her and said, “What in the world are you doing?” She said, “Well, I just get tired of going by that house and having somebody say, ‘Where are you going, Natalie? What are you going to do, Natalie?’”
WILLIAMS: Was that Mrs. Wallace?
D. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
WILLIAMS: She’d do that to you?
C. WALLACE: No, all of us, but—
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D. WALLACE: She did it to all of us. She did it to me when I was here in the summers: “Where are you going? How long are you going to be?” You know, and there was always this insecurity about it. It was like my dog: was he going to come back, you know?
C. WALLACE: But you get sort of . . . you live with it.
WILLIAMS: It never got on your nerves too much?
C. WALLACE: A little bit, yeah. If Fred and I had any fights, it was because I’d get so damn sick of living here [lowers her voice] with their mother.
D. WALLACE: That’s okay, you can say it.
WILLIAMS: She’s long gone.
C. WALLACE: I know, but it doesn’t sound very nice.
D. WALLACE: No, but it couldn’t be otherwise. How could it be otherwise?
WILLIAMS: I think people really relate to that. When they come in and we say Harry Truman lived with his mother-in-law for thirty-three years, and they say . . .
C. WALLACE: My lord, how did he stand it?
D. WALLACE: Good God!
WILLIAMS: He was a saint.
C. WALLACE: Well, he was practically.
D. WALLACE: Well, actually I think he probably handled the living there better than anybody else, I just have a funny feeling.
C. WALLACE: Because he just went upstairs and read.
D. WALLACE: Because two sons wouldn’t. Frank and George wouldn’t—didn’t.
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Their wives wouldn’t let them. And so, to that extent, I think that was part of Harry’s compromise there. And I think, you know, Dad wouldn’t think of living anywhere else when he needed a financial base, a place to live inexpensively.
WILLIAMS: So you didn’t move to Denver to flee her?
D. WALLACE: Oh, no.
C. WALLACE: No, we moved to Denver because he had a job that sent him to Denver.
D. WALLACE: But it was good.
C. WALLACE: But I was kind of happy to get out from under.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, I think it was the best possible thing, but I think it was too late for him.
C. WALLACE: I think eventually we would have exploded.
WILLIAMS: When you first look at it, the three children were there, and then the fourth one moves off, and it kind of looks like—
C. WALLACE: The only thing that used to drive me crazy, if this kid would scream and yell and cry . . .
D. WALLACE: She would start throwing a fit.
C. WALLACE: She’d call up to me, and she’d say, “Christine, is there anything I can do to help?” [chuckling] And you’d think . . .
D. WALLACE: She was always doing that, and it was driving people mad.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know why it is.
D. WALLACE: Well, Margaret, too. I think she drove Aunt B. absolutely wild. Because the minute Margaret would cry or something, Grandmother
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would come to her defense: “Poor little Margaret. Poor little Margie.”
WILLIAMS: “What did you do to her?”
D. WALLACE: She did the same thing with me: “Poor little David.” You know, a little less with Marian.
C. WALLACE: And “What can I do to help?”
D. WALLACE: “What can I do?” because she was always there, Miss Solicitation, and I think it probably drove Bess and Mother absolutely mad. And Harry just went out of the room and slammed the door and read, you know.
C. WALLACE: But that is the one thing that I—
WILLIAMS: Did she think that you were doing something wrong when they cried?
C. WALLACE: Who knows? Who knows?
D. WALLACE: No, I don’t think that, but I think she just wanted everything to be—
C. WALLACE: Peaceful and quiet and happy.
D. WALLACE: Peaceful and quiet and happy.
C. WALLACE: Well, with kids you don’t have it always peaceful. You’d think that we’d been beating the devil out of your kid, and all they were doing was crying because they didn’t want to go to bed. You know, don’t you?
D. WALLACE: Mother, you don’t need to defend it.
C. WALLACE: I know, but I just want to be sure everybody else understands. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Well, after it says that she gave hearty approval to her son-in-law, it says, “. . . and when Margaret Truman was born, her happiness was complete.”
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C. WALLACE: Oh, God, that stinks. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: I’m sure it was very exciting for her.
C. WALLACE: I wonder if she was there and helped born the baby.
WILLIAMS: It says, “Taking an active interest in her granddaughter’s life, there remained a close bond of affection between Margaret and her grandmother.”
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: I guess up to a point.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, but I mean really read between the lines in this. I mean, this sounds like something Pravda would have written, you know. Just like it went too far the other way with the dragon lady stuff, too.
WILLIAMS: This is the Star piece. The uh, Kansas City . . .
C. WALLACE: She wasn’t a mean woman, she just . . . wanted things quiet and peaceful and happy.
D. WALLACE: [unintelligible] Roy Roberts thought [unintelligible].
WILLIAMS: Her own way.
C. WALLACE: Her way. And you all should go along.
WILLIAMS: Okay.
C. WALLACE: But she wasn’t mean.
D. WALLACE: Changing the tape.
STONE: I think we are going to set a record.
C. WALLACE: Are we talking too much?
STONE & WILLIAMS: No.
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D. WALLACE: You don’t turn it over and run it back the other way? What do you want—I mean, the sound is perfect? And then who gets to transcribe all this? How many hours—that is going to take a year.
WILLIAMS: The people in Fullerton do.
D. WALLACE: In Fullerton, California? You send it out there and they transcribe it?
WILLIAMS: UC, they have some kind of . . .
D. WALLACE: What, for mentally handicapped people or something?
C. WALLACE: You mean people really do it with their fingers? Or do they . . .?
WILLIAMS: They use computers, but . . . type.
C. WALLACE: Computers.
D. WALLACE: But how could they not go insane? I mean, do they go out there . . . they, “I’m going to college to copy stuff like this?”
WILLIAMS: They find it’s very interesting.
STONE: Some people do.
WILLIAMS: That’s what they tell us.
D. WALLACE: Really?
WILLIAMS: So, do you flip them over and use the other?
D. WALLACE: Well, it’s going one way and then you turn it the other way and it comes back going the other way.
WILLIAMS: [unintelligible]
[End #4396; Begin #4397]
D. WALLACE: It only records on half the tape. So you still have half the reel left.
WILLIAMS: I don’t know why we . . . probably because we’d be afraid to.
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D. WALLACE: Yeah, I know, it’s safer that way. Anyway, you were saying? You think she was afraid . . .?
WILLIAMS: She wasn’t mean?
D. WALLACE: No, she wasn’t mean at all. She really wasn’t. She was a wonderful grandmother.
WILLIAMS: How about this? [reading] “In her prime, Mrs. Wallace was a regal woman of the Victorian dowager-type.”
C. WALLACE: Very regal.
D. WALLACE: I think that’s very accurate, and I don’t know why she wore the uh . . .
C. WALLACE: The little black ribbon around her throat.
D. WALLACE: Why? Did she ever say why?
C. WALLACE: They all did that in those days, all older women.
D. WALLACE: A black ribbon, always.
C. WALLACE: A little black velvet ribbon right around here. You know how they did, you see pictures of . . .
WILLIAMS: Here’s her picture.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, look.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s only her. She’s the only person who ever wore it.
WILLIAMS: With the cameo.
C. WALLACE: See there?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, I know.
WILLIAMS: And says in the next sentence, “She wore black velvet bands around her neck and prided herself on her erect carriage.”
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, she was very erect.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “She believed a woman’s place was in the home but she had many outside charitable interests.”
C. WALLACE: What?
WILLIAMS: [reading] “She didn’t care much for politics although her husband was county treasurer at one time.”
C. WALLACE: What were her outside interests?
WILLIAMS: [chuckling] I don’t know. [reading] “She liked to keep busy in her home. She had no time for idle gossip.”
D. WALLACE: I think that’s about all that made the house go around, actually.
WILLIAMS: Was the idle gossip?
D. WALLACE: Was talking about everybody, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Or the town go around?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: We didn’t talk about each other much.
D. WALLACE: I can’t believe that.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “She was an excellent housekeeper and she reared Mrs. Truman to be capable of cooking a meal with ease. And she saw to it that Margaret had the same training.”
D. WALLACE: Oh, sure. Margaret can’t even boil an egg.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “Musical herself, she encouraged Margaret’s aspirations to be a singer.”
D. WALLACE: Oh, I’m sure she did.
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C. WALLACE: Oh, she fought it every inch of the way.
D. WALLACE: No, she didn’t, did she?
C. WALLACE: Oh, she thought a woman didn’t go on the stage, not a good woman.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “When Margaret sang on her first concert tour at Constitution hall in Washington, Mrs. Wallace went.”
C. WALLACE: I didn’t know that.
WILLIAMS: [reading] “It was one of her few public appearances in recent years. That night she sat in the presidential box, proudly wearing three white gardenia corsages—one from her son-in-law, one from her daughter and the other from Margaret.[¶] Mrs. Wallace was a member of the Trinity Episcopal church. . . . She had few other interests outside the home”— Well, they just said she had all these charities.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, how about those?
WILLIAMS: [reading] —“her family and its activities were her hobby.”
D. WALLACE: That’s it. That’s very accurate.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yeah, we were a hobby all right.
WILLIAMS: Well, what was it like visiting the White House? Would you go every Christmas?
D. WALLACE: No, we went here every Christmas.
C. WALLACE: We did every Christmas we didn’t come here. They came here some.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, it was like half and half. You’ve seen the pictures. I got thrown out of the kitchen.
C. WALLACE: At the White House.
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WILLIAMS: Not because you were on fire? Why would you get thrown out of the kitchen?
C. WALLACE: He was in the way.
D. WALLACE: I was a little kid, and I was in the way.
WILLIAMS: They didn’t let you have the run of the house?
D. WALLACE: Anywhere except the kitchen, and, boy, was that boring.
[interview interrupted—miscellaneous chitchat not transcribed]
D. WALLACE: It was just very nice, you know. It was just like Independence moved to Washington; it was the same people, you know, again.
WILLIAMS: Oh, it’s always the same crowd?
D. WALLACE: The same aunts and uncles, all year, all the time.
C. WALLACE: And we’d always have the Christmas tree down at the end of the hall. You know where the window does this? The second floor?
D. WALLACE: In the East Wing.
WILLIAMS: In the family area?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, in the family area, the East Wing.
C. WALLACE: The big hall in the center was where the family sat. It was in the center, a big Christmas tree. We did everything like we did it here. Everybody had a chair.
D. WALLACE: Including presents on the chairs, the various chairs.
WILLIAMS: So you’d have to haul all the gifts out there on the train?
C. WALLACE: Yes. [sighing] Yes, and when we came from Denver to Independence, then—I told you—Marian’s bicycle was shipped out so it would be
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under the tree—Santa Claus brought it.
D. WALLACE: Well, one time when we went to Washington, there were so many presents in the bags. They were in shopping bags from the grocery store. And get on the B & O, arrival in Washington station with all this junk. It was nice.
WILLIAMS: They’d have cars for you?
D. WALLACE: Oh, they’d come down and meet us.
WILLIAMS: He would?
D. WALLACE: No, Aunt B. and Margaret.
C. WALLACE: I liked when we were over in Blair House. I liked it over there. It was nice. And when we were there—What were we there for? Inauguration.
D. WALLACE: The inauguration, and Christmases after that because the White House was torn down.
C. WALLACE: And that’s when Fred decided the children should see Mount Vernon in wintertime. He ordered an open car, and we drove to Mount Vernon. I think I had two lap robes on me up to here. Oh, geez! Sometimes I wondered about your father at times.
WILLIAMS: Did they treat you royally in Washington?
C. WALLACE: They treated us very nicely, just like you want to be treated.
D. WALLACE: Well, that didn’t always work out that way. [chuckling] Yeah, you might imagine. But it was very insular. As I say, it’s Independence lifted and moved into Washington. They didn’t have really . . . I mean,
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that was the circle. There were very few orbits that intersected it, you know.
C. WALLACE: And Bess, for that last Christmas dinner, she had it in the State Dining Room.
D. WALLACE: Those were the pictures we looked at last night.
C. WALLACE: With all the gold service, the whole bit. Margo was a brat. She was four years old; she wouldn’t eat. I finally had to . . . Upstairs on the second or third floor they had a kitchen.
D. WALLACE: The third floor, a little kitchen.
C. WALLACE: Third floor. So Vietta took her up there. The child had to eat something. Bluette. Bluette was the maid there that everybody just loved, too, and she was so good to . . . I wonder what ever happened to that doll she gave Margo? Anyway, so we just put her away because she was just obnoxious. God, she was terrible.
WILLIAMS: Now, Vietta went to the White House, didn’t she?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: She lived back there with them.
C. WALLACE: She lived with them.
D. WALLACE: And Bluette, too.
WILLIAMS: So you’d see her?
C. WALLACE: Bluette?
D. WALLACE: Was Bluette here? No, Bluette was only here.
C. WALLACE: Bluette just came here to help, but she was a Washingtonian.
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D. WALLACE: And where was Leola in all of this?
C. WALLACE: Leola was just somebody that helped work in Independence.
D. WALLACE: Here. And she’s in Los Angeles.
WILLIAMS: Leola Estes.
C. WALLACE: She’s in Los Angeles now.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, wonderful.
WILLIAMS: Do you know her address?
D. WALLACE: Oh, yeah. I haven’t seen her in six or seven years. I used to see her out there. And her son was the gravedigger at Woodlawn.
WILLIAMS: I think she writes to Mrs. Allen, because she worked for them, too.
C. WALLACE: Did she?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: They mentioned that.
D. WALLACE: I’ve got to call her up and see her. A real sweetheart—I mean, a real sweetheart.
C. WALLACE: You ought to call her sometime when you’re back.
WILLIAMS: Was it ever a bother to be related, from the press or anything like that?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: When they weren’t around, nobody really paid any attention. You know, it’s just they go to where the honey is. That’s what it was.
C. WALLACE: It all worked out real well.
D. WALLACE: One was Charlie Brandon and one was Oscar Chapman. Which was which?
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WILLIAMS: Chapman was Interior.
D. WALLACE: So Brandon was . . .
C. WALLACE: Was the Agriculture.
D. WALLACE: Agriculture, yes. Brandon was the Mormon, and nobody [unintelligible].
C. WALLACE: Because I had an argument with somebody there. Somebody from Denver said, “Oh, Charlie . . .” No, Charlie Brandon was Denver, and he was—
D. WALLACE: So was Oscar Chapman, I think.
C. WALLACE: No, he was Agriculture.
D. WALLACE: Brandon was Agriculture.
C. WALLACE: From Denver, all right, and I saw somebody who I was talking to, and I said, “Yeah, and so was . . .” Who’s the one from Albuquerque?
D. WALLACE: Clint Anderson.
C. WALLACE: Clint Anderson also was. “Oh, well, you mean there was more than one?” I said, “Well, only one at a time, but one was from Albuquerque and one was from Denver.” Well, this Denverite just thought there was nobody but Denver. Some people. Now I can’t even remember their names. [sighing] I don’t know . . .
WILLIAMS: These are a few pictures that apparently Mrs. Wallace had, May Wallace had [see appendix, item 9]. And it says, “Arlington, May 1946.”
D. WALLACE: That’s who they went out and visited.
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WILLIAMS: But I’m not sure, I know that’s May, and . . .?
C. WALLACE: George. And I don’t know who those other three people are, but we weren’t there. Written on the back, “Arlington.”
WILLIAMS: And this, I think, is George. At the White House.
C. WALLACE: That’s George; that’s right. And that’s May and Harry and . . . Who’s that, David, next to May? I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: It sure looks like General Westmoreland, but it’s not.
C. WALLACE: But see how much . . . how fatter her face was than it is now.
D. WALLACE: Well, Mother, that’s forty years ago.
WILLIAMS: And here’s Margaret’s family.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s Clifton. Oh, that’s another thing. [chuckling] Where did Aunt B. see you?
WILLIAMS: Did you have long hair?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, he had kind of longish hair. And she just called me up and said, “Chris, why do you let him have that long hair?” And I said, “Well, Bess, I can’t cut his hair.”
D. WALLACE: That’s Spot.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s Spot. She said, “I’m just embarrassed as I can be to introduce him as my nephew with that kind of hair.”
D. WALLACE: Well, did you say, “Wait a little”?
C. WALLACE: Wait a minute. So, along comes the funeral of Uncle Harry. Clifton . . .
WILLIAMS: Shoulder-length?
C. WALLACE: William, Harrison . . .
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WILLIAMS: The same?
C. WALLACE: And Tommy—Tom—all long hair. She called me up. She said, “I want to apologize to you. I’m sorry I said what I did about David’s hair.” She says, “I have four grandsons, and their hair is a lot worse than David’s ever was.” [chuckling] Oh, she was just horrified at those boys with their long hair.
WILLIAMS: Is that Margaret’s wedding picture, the last one?
D. WALLACE: No, this is a concert picture.
C. WALLACE: Let’s see her.
D. WALLACE: That’s how she had her hair in about 1947. That’s a ’47 hairstyle, and that’s that Spanish mantilla that she wore when she did her concerts.
WILLIAMS: Did you go to any of her concerts?
D. WALLACE: A few of them.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, we went to the one in Denver.
WILLIAMS: Were her parents pleased at her career?
D. WALLACE: I think they tolerated it more than anything.
C. WALLACE: As much as any parent would. If she would be successful and everything go well—
D. WALLACE: This is in the backyard at George’s place with my dog. That’s with Spot.
C. WALLACE: And that’s Margaret with him.
D. WALLACE: What?
C. WALLACE: Is that Margaret with the dog?
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D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: That’s your dog?
C. WALLACE: That was Spot.
D. WALLACE: Spot. That’s Spot.
WILLIAMS: The little one you got that grew up to be fat?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, it grew up.
D. WALLACE: Grew up to be a sausage.
C. WALLACE: Well, George took the dog then when we moved to Denver.
D. WALLACE: When we moved to Denver.
WILLIAMS: That’s not the dog that gave you the scar?
D. WALLACE: No, that’s Mike.
WILLIAMS: Mike had the house in the backyard for a while?
D. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
WILLIAMS: What happened to Mike?
D. WALLACE: I suppose Margaret got tired of him, so they shot him. [chuckling] What do you do with a dog you don’t want anymore?
WILLIAMS: I think we heard they gave it to someone in the country.
D. WALLACE: Probably.
C. WALLACE: Give it to somebody.
WILLIAMS: That’s what they do with dogs around here. [chuckling]
D. WALLACE: Which is a death sentence anyway.
WILLIAMS: Did you go to Margaret’s wedding?
D. WALLACE: I did.
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C. WALLACE: He did.
WILLIAMS: You were invited, I suppose?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And what did I give her? I went to this antique store that I had gone to in Englewood, a Mrs. Fisher, and I got an antique cordial set—you know, the bottle and the little glasses?—in the prettiest ruby-red color. And that’s what we sent her. She was pleased with it.
D. WALLACE: They had all the presents out in the upstairs bedroom.
C. WALLACE: And she was pleased with it.
D. WALLACE: Not the big one—hers, that other one.
C. WALLACE: Where Fred and I were.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: What other occasions did you come back after the presidency?
C. WALLACE: Well, we came back—
D. WALLACE: Well, when I was driving across the country or something like that, I’d stop off and see Aunt Bess.
C. WALLACE: Well, we came for Grandmother Wallace’s funeral. She had it in the house.
D. WALLACE: I didn’t.
C. WALLACE: Well, I did.
D. WALLACE: So you did then, huh?
C. WALLACE: And I had Margo upstairs.
D. WALLACE: That was before the Christmas thing then.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
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D. WALLACE: So you came back and then went back to Denver—Albuquerque, it was Albuquerque there—and then went to . . . three weeks later.
C. WALLACE: Well, who took care of you then while I was gone?
D. WALLACE: I don’t know. Why would I need anybody to take care of me?
C. WALLACE: Well, you and Marian—
D. WALLACE: At eighteen.
WILLIAMS: It was ’52.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, December 2nd in ’52.
WILLIAMS: Was the house decorated or full of flowers?
C. WALLACE: For her funeral? They had the coffin in where the piano room is—the parlor—I call it parlor—in front of the fireplace.
WILLIAMS: Parallel to the fireplace?
C. WALLACE: Here’s the fireplace. It went right like that. Then, in the living room, from where the secretary was out—isn’t there a post here or something?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, in the corner.
C. WALLACE: They had chairs.
WILLIAMS: In the foyer, scattered?
D. WALLACE: The hall.
C. WALLACE: No, straight.
D. WALLACE: In the hall.
C. WALLACE: Straight. In the hall, right through the living room.
WILLIAMS: It’s not the foyer?
D. WALLACE: No, you’ve got to speak the language that everybody understands.
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That’s the parlor, that’s the den, that’s the living room, that’s the hall.
C. WALLACE: I mean, starting with the hall and going through the living room, they were like this. You understand, don’t you?
WILLIAMS: Rows of chairs.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: How many people were there?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember. Not many.
WILLIAMS: And the body was laid out there overnight, or . . .?
C. WALLACE: Well, it was there. I think they just brought it for the funeral from the—
WILLIAMS: Why wasn’t it at a funeral parlor or a church?
C. WALLACE: You know, I have often wondered that, but I think Bess—
D. WALLACE: Well, I think because of all the hoo-ha.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Was Uncle Harry back for it? I’m sure he would have been.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: He was president still, just barely.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: But all I can remember is her laying out there, and Bess going through there, and she and Fred were standing there and they were really quite upset, both of them.
D. WALLACE: Well, sure.
WILLIAMS: Because they were the two that were closest?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. No, it’s just . . . I don’t know, it was sad.
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D. WALLACE: Well, I think it was an end of an era, in more than the usual sense. Because I mean they were all very . . . I mean, it was fanaticism, nearly.
C. WALLACE: Well, I had Margo with me, because I had her upstairs with somebody.
WILLIAMS: We have an article from the Denver Post [see appendix, item 10], I guess, when your husband died, and the Trumans, did they come out?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: She did.
C. WALLACE: He did, too.
D. WALLACE: Well, later. When she got there, I was in the hospital when he died, and you were at the train station meeting her. And then you drove out to the hospital, and I said that Dad had died.
C. WALLACE: Now, may I correct you? I had spent the night there with Dad.
D. WALLACE: Yeah?
C. WALLACE: And I had left you with him and went home for a change of clothes. And I no more than got home when the telephone rang and you said, “Mother, you better come right on back.”
D. WALLACE: Yeah, but that’s when Aunt B. came out with you.
C. WALLACE: And Aunt B. came out with me. And evidently Aunt B. had been there in the afternoon, because Dad kept saying, “Has Sis come? Has Sis come?” And she was there to see him in the afternoon and talk. They talked together. And then she had gone home, and then I no more than got back when you met me outside and told me Dad had died.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, but I met you outside downstairs.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then Bess and Marian showed up.
D. WALLACE: Oh, so you came separately then. Because I know we all just sort of left together.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I was in my car and then Marian came in hers.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, but the story is not accurate.
C. WALLACE: Now, where’s Uncle Harry at that time?
D. WALLACE: He hadn’t gotten there yet.
C. WALLACE: He hadn’t gotten there yet?
D. WALLACE: See, he’s met at Stapleton Field Monday night. Well, then we went out and met him later that night.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then he just stayed one day and left.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: To make arrangements at this end.
D. WALLACE: Well, he didn’t do the arrangements.
C. WALLACE: He made the funeral home here. We had to make the arrangement—
D. WALLACE: Harry was in Washington, Mother. You know, he didn’t make the arrangements.
C. WALLACE: Yes, he did.
D. WALLACE: Bess got on the phone and made them, and Frank did most of the work here.
C. WALLACE: Well, how come Harry was there for the funeral?
D. WALLACE: Well, he flew here, but I mean, he’s not going to sit down and make the funeral arrangements.
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WILLIAMS: Why would he have been in Washington?
C. WALLACE: Well, I know he was here. I know he was—
D. WALLACE: Who?
WILLIAMS: Mr. Truman.
C. WALLACE: Listen.
D. WALLACE: No, he was here then; he wasn’t in Washington.
C. WALLACE: He was here, and he came—
D. WALLACE: So he flew out from here and then flew back here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then he was there for a whole day, because I remember him sitting down in the den there in the library of the house where we were living and talking to some people.
WILLIAMS: It says here you were a private in the army.
D. WALLACE: Uh-huh.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Why?
C. WALLACE: He was drafted. And he worked for Gates Rubber Company in the mornings, and afternoons he worked for Uncle Sam out at Fitzsimmons Hospital, sitting on the information desk from 3:00 until 12:00.
D. WALLACE: That’s where I sat and had to figure out what to do with the dead bodies.
C. WALLACE: God, you must have lost your mind.
D. WALLACE: No, it was a good job.
WILLIAMS: Well, it says he died of pneumonia which developed after a heart attack? Was it sudden?
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C. WALLACE: Well, he died from a heart attack, and no pneumonia that I know of. He had been in bad health. He had had problems.
WILLIAMS: So it wasn’t unexpected?
D. WALLACE: No, his kidneys weren’t working.
C. WALLACE: He had been in the hospital off and on for how many months?
D. WALLACE: A long time.
WILLIAMS: And you said earlier that you had a job at the time?
C. WALLACE: I was working at the highway department.
D. WALLACE: Then?
C. WALLACE: Yes, I sure was.
WILLIAMS: Well, you hadn’t always worked outside of the house?
D. WALLACE: Never, till we went back to Denver in ’55.
WILLIAMS: From Albuquerque. And you continued to work for the highway department?
C. WALLACE: For almost twenty years. If it had been now, I could have worked my full twenty years, but in those days you had to quit at sixty-five, and mine was just about eighteen.
WILLIAMS: How much contact did you have with the Trumans after that when they were retired?
D. WALLACE: A good deal. A good deal.
C. WALLACE: Always, yeah.
WILLIAMS: How much would you come and see them, or would they come to see you?
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C. WALLACE: It was mostly letters.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, less and less, because they were getting older and older.
WILLIAMS: Did anyone come out for the dedication of the Truman Library?
D. WALLACE: I did. I was at Fort Chaffey, Arkansas, and came up.
WILLIAMS: Were you like the delegate of the family?
D. WALLACE: Not specifically. I just came up.
C. WALLACE: The only time I came out here was for the postage stamp.
WILLIAMS: In ’73?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, we talked before about that.
WILLIAMS: That was after he died.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: A year. The birthday after his death.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and I stayed down at May’s. Then I stayed with Aunt B. Maybe I stayed with her that trip.
WILLIAMS: Did you come out for Frank’s funeral and Natalie’s funeral and George’s funeral?
C. WALLACE: No. No, I was working. I couldn’t.
WILLIAMS: Natalie and Frank and George all seemed to die fairly young, too.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Is there any particular reason? George, it says, was seventy-one.
C. WALLACE: Well, Natalie died, and Frank only lasted a few months after she died. And he died on August the 12th, on Margo’s birth date.
D. WALLACE: Really?
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C. WALLACE: But I can’t remember the year. I have it written in that book.
D. WALLACE: Sixty.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I don’t know. I think he had emphysema, don’t you?
D. WALLACE: Sure he did.
C. WALLACE: Because he smoked like a chimney.
D. WALLACE: He may have had lung cancer, for all we know.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Was it one of these situations where one dies and then the other one just gives up?
D. WALLACE: That’s exactly what happened.
C. WALLACE: It just seemed like that, because he and Natalie were so close and so together.
WILLIAMS: What was Frank like? We haven’t described him.
C. WALLACE: Frank?
WILLIAMS: As a person?
D. WALLACE: Oh, charming, wonderful.
C. WALLACE: He was nice. He was real good to everybody. I liked Frank. And I liked Natalie. In fact, I liked them all.
WILLIAMS: Was Natalie outgoing or quiet?
C. WALLACE: She was kind of quiet, retiring. May was the very outgoing one.
WILLIAMS: You said earlier that they were almost opposite, May and Natalie.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Is that what you meant?
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C. WALLACE: Mm-hmm. Natalie was always very pleasant to everybody, but she wasn’t full of fun like May. I mean, like Margaret would go down to May and say, “Come on, Boofie, let’s get an ice cream soda,” and she’d be right with her.
D. WALLACE: Natalie wouldn’t do that.
C. WALLACE: Well, she might. You never know.
WILLIAMS: Was that the Presbyterian in her?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, she was very Presbyterian.
WILLIAMS: What about George? What was he like as an uncle and brother-in-law?
D. WALLACE: Erratic. You know, basically because of all the drinking. What did he officially die of?
WILLIAMS: He had been in the hospital seven . . . Let’s see, it doesn’t say.
D. WALLACE: It was cirrhosis, I think.
C. WALLACE: No, no.
WILLIAMS: It says, “He had been ill since December and was in the hospital several times.” [see appendix, item 11] He died in May.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, and that’s when they had ropes all around the house so he could follow the ropes from the bed clear into the bathroom. He was in terrible shape, you know, for a long time.
C. WALLACE: What was it he had?
WILLIAMS: Well, I talk to people, and I’ll ask about May and George, and they’ll say . . . usually they’ll say something like, “Well, May had a hard life,” and that’s about all they say.
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C. WALLACE: Well, she had her problems, too. What is it? What is sleeping sickness called?
D. WALLACE: Encephalitis.
C. WALLACE: That’s what he had.
D. WALLACE: Really?
C. WALLACE: I think so.
D. WALLACE: There are no African tsetse flies around here. I mean, how do you get it?
C. WALLACE: Well, maybe I’m wrong.
D. WALLACE: Well, doesn’t it have a reason in there? Well, there’s got to be a reason on the death certificate, doesn’t there?
WILLIAMS: Well, in the Examiner they might have said. This is the Kansas City Times.
D. WALLACE: I think it’s highly unlikely they’d say anything in the Examiner, considering the fact of who owned it.
WILLIAMS: Right. That’s another thing they said, that the only thing Colonel Southern would cover up was if George got in trouble somehow—as if there were things to cover up. You really haven’t described Bess as a sister-in-law.
C. WALLACE: Perfect. I think she was.
D. WALLACE: Well, she was an amazing person.
C. WALLACE: She was an amazing person. I was very, very fond of her, and she couldn’t do enough for anybody. She did as much as she could. And
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that was not enough to suit her, I guess. I think she was a . . . I don’t know, I was very fond of her. That’s all I can say. She was so good to everybody.
WILLIAMS: Did she take after her mother that way, or just—
D. WALLACE: I think so, but in a more practical way. Because Grandmother was anything but practical, and Bess was very practical and down-to-earth. And I think that that’s the main difference. But their personalities were very similar.
WILLIAMS: Would it be safe to say that her hobby was her family, just like they said about Madge Wallace?
D. WALLACE: Well, in later years certainly. I think her hobby was more her husband than her family. But she didn’t let the family go. I mean, certainly not the extended family. I mean, if anybody needed help, she was there. But, you know, I think as devoted as she was to Margaret, I think if Harry needed something done, that’s what . . . That’s who she was really devoted to.
WILLIAMS: What happened when he died?
D. WALLACE: She just went downhill, for a long, long twilight. Talked to Margaret every day or every other day, something like that. Very close. And saw her friends here less and less and less and less. It was just a very long, slow process. There didn’t seem to be any other way of doing it, you know. That’s the way it happened.
WILLIAMS: Did you speak to her on the phone through the years?
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C. WALLACE: Mm-hmm, lots of times, yeah.
WILLIAMS: What would you talk about?
C. WALLACE: Oh, she would ask how the children were, and what’s new and—
D. WALLACE: Just sort of “the price of Tide” conversations, you know, but not quite that. You know, what are they doing? What’s going on?
WILLIAMS: Exchange grandmother stories?
C. WALLACE: Well, sort of. You know, “Where’s Marg? How’s she getting along?” Just family conversation.
WILLIAMS: Did your son or the other of your grandchildren have any contact with Margaret’s children?
C. WALLACE: No, not whatever.
D. WALLACE: No, none.
WILLIAMS: You don’t have family reunions?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: No, there’s absolutely nothing.
WILLIAMS: Is that because of distance?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t think Margaret . . .
D. WALLACE: I think she opted not to maintain a family situation.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know why, but . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, I can understand why. I mean, it’s New York, and after the many years that she spent in the family situation, I think there’s nothing I’d rather do than get the hell out of it, you know? I really believe that, and I don’t fault her for it at all. You know, she had it in spades! No, she
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had her own family, and then she had . . . you know, four boys hitting teenage practically one after another. No, I recognize the story line.
WILLIAMS: You haven’t described your Uncle Harry as an uncle.
D. WALLACE: Oh, friendly, interested, busy, you know, always there, but very much separate from the grandmother relationship with me, you know, and he was very much off on his own.
WILLIAMS: Is it fair to compare him to your other uncles?
C. WALLACE: He wasn’t the same type person.
D. WALLACE: No, he wasn’t the same type at all, not as . . . Well, I mean, how could he be? I mean, with Uncle Frank we’d go out on drives in the evening and things like that. You couldn’t do that with him because he wasn’t here in the evening, or he would be on the telephone, or he’d be working.
C. WALLACE: Oh, that telephone would ring constantly all the time.
D. WALLACE: Well, I’m the one who answered the phone when the Korean War got started. Because I was sitting in the parlor and the phone rang, and I went over and grabbed it, and it was Dean Acheson.
WILLIAMS: Margaret said she answered the phone.
D. WALLACE: Wrong.
C. WALLACE: Oh, well.
D. WALLACE: Because Dad was here. My father and I were here, and he then went on the plane, which I don’t think was still the Sacred Cow then. It may have been the Columbine. Yeah, it could have been the Columbine.
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Flew back to Washington with him.
[End #4397; Begin #4398]
WILLIAMS: This is the continuation of the interview with Christine Wallace and David Wallace. We’re in the basement of the Gates-Wallace-Truman home at 219 North Delaware in Independence, on the evening of August 26, 1991. Before we go upstairs, I was wondering what you recall about the basement.
C. WALLACE: Well, it certainly has changed. I mean, we had the big copper . . . Don’t they have the burners over there? There were two burners?
D. WALLACE: No, they’re not there.
WILLIAMS: Nothing historic is here.
C. WALLACE: And a washtub and all that, a washing facility, are not here.
WILLIAMS: That was along the north wall here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, right along the wall.
WILLIAMS: By the window.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, no, that copper was more back there a little bit. See? Right in there.
WILLIAMS: To the west of the window.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Did you go back in the back of the basement?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t like it back there. It looks dark and scary.
WILLIAMS: Did you go back there, playing?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
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WILLIAMS: To explore?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: What was back there?
D. WALLACE: Nothing now, but it was just piles of furniture and all kinds of crap back there before. The biggest change, of course, that I remember—and I know it was done earlier—is the furnace. That great big old furnace is gone.
C. WALLACE: I don’t even remember that, but . . .
WILLIAMS: When you were here, you had an icebox upstairs. Was there any kind of—
C. WALLACE: There was a deep-freeze right here.
D. WALLACE: No, not then. It hadn’t been invented when we were here.
C. WALLACE: Well, when we used to come back and so forth.
D. WALLACE: He said when we were living here.
C. WALLACE: Oh.
WILLIAMS: But later on?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, later on.
WILLIAMS: Here, along the south wall where we have the work table.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s right. That’s where it was kept.
D. WALLACE: It was a top-loading deep-freeze about six feet long.
WILLIAMS: So who would be down here in the basement most often?
D. WALLACE: Vietta.
C. WALLACE: Well, Vietta, and whoever was going to do some wash, washing. And
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as I say, when I was here, I was down here using the big copper tub to do diapers. And that was down there.
WILLIAMS: Do you know of any reason that people would go back beyond the furnace into the real back part of the basement?
C. WALLACE: Not unless they had stored things back there and wanted to go back and see what was there.
D. WALLACE: But that was so rarely done. I mean things, I’m sure, piled up there for fifty years and nobody ever saw them.
C. WALLACE: Nobody came down here much, that I knew.
WILLIAMS: When you lived here, was it the coal furnace?
C. WALLACE: No, I don’t remember a coal furnace. Because you have to take clinkers out if you have a coal furnace.
D. WALLACE: There was no coal furnace then.
C. WALLACE: And there was nobody here to take clinkers out.
WILLIAMS: So that was already gone.
C. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
D. WALLACE: No, the furnace that was here was the old furnace with the asbestos covering around it and all that.
C. WALLACE: But no coal.
D. WALLACE: Was it coal or was it gas?
C. WALLACE: It was gas.
WILLIAMS: It was coal originally and converted in the thirties, I think.
D. WALLACE: Converted.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: So it was gas by then.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: But it was the original furnace.
WILLIAMS: But the coal cellar was way in the back, and the chute came—
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but by the time I was here in the house, it was gas.
WILLIAMS: They said, I think, one of Harry’s jobs early on was to feed the furnace.
D. WALLACE: To feed the furnace.
C. WALLACE: And take the clinkers out?
WILLIAMS: What are clinkers?
D. WALLACE: Was there a heater here, Mother? Was there a stove here?
C. WALLACE: What are clinkers? They’re things that—
D. WALLACE: When the coal burns, it’s the residue. And it turns into like lava rock around the flame, and you’ve got to take it out every day or it’ll stifle the flame. Was there a thing there?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember. If it was, it’s been taken out.
D. WALLACE: You’ve got to be real careful on this, Mother.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
[sound of footsteps ascending the stairs]
D. WALLACE: That’s an ugly green paint.
C. WALLACE: God, it’s still painted green.
WILLIAMS: What was the kitchen color when you lived here?
C. WALLACE: The same color it’s in now, green.
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WILLIAMS: It was green way back in the thirties?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And that’s the door that goes up to the back room. The stove’s in the same place. Those are new. We didn’t have those over there, that I remember. Now, this is where the old wood stove was, was right here.
WILLIAMS: Where the little gas stove is.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. The table’s in the same place.
WILLIAMS: You wouldn’t cook on that stove? It was just for heat?
C. WALLACE: It was for heat, and then, as I told you about the fruitcakes, remember?
WILLIAMS: I don’t think we had that on tape. Could you just tell that a little bit?
C. WALLACE: Well, as I remember, there was an old wood stove here, and that’s the stove that kept the kitchen warm. At Christmas time Mrs. Wallace would always make fruitcakes, and she had little loaf pans. Anyway, she covered the . . . I’m out of breath. She covered the table in the dining room with . . . oh, an old tablecloth or something, and that’s where David, Marian, and myself would help her take like the citron and the cherries and dates and nuts and put them in flour, and then she’d make her batter and so forth and put the . . . in these little pans. And she’d steam them. But she didn’t steam them in the regular cook stove. On this wood stove she had a metal . . . oh, a steamer. It was about so big, and she put them in there.
WILLIAMS: About a foot high?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, about like that, and she put these little . . . They were only little
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pans about so big—fruitcakes you generally make small—and put the batter in those in this steamer and put it on the wood stove, and that’s how she cooked them.
WILLIAMS: Would she give those fruitcakes away?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, for Christmas.
WILLIAMS: To friends, family?
C. WALLACE: Friends or family, whoever wanted one, and she kept a few for herself, but . . . And then the old refrigerator was there.
WILLIAMS: Where the new refrigerator is.
C. WALLACE: With a pan under it that had to be emptied every so often. [chuckling] Well, every morning. Every night. Fred was supposed to do it every night.
WILLIAMS: And the iceman would deliver ice?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: How would they know how much to deliver?
C. WALLACE: I think they had a card that they put in the window, didn’t they?
D. WALLACE: Fifty pounds every two days. This was all added new. The sink was different.
C. WALLACE: This was all new.
D. WALLACE: The sink did not have the cabinets underneath it.
WILLIAMS: What was it? Just a . . .
D. WALLACE: It was a top like that with a deep part in it.
C. WALLACE: It wasn’t a double sink like it is now.
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D. WALLACE: Yeah, I know. And it was all one.
WILLIAMS: I see. So it was just open?
D. WALLACE: And it was just slightly different. No, the tabletop was different. There always used to be oilcloth tacked over the top of the tablecloth on the table, before that junk was put on the top.
WILLIAMS: But this is the same furniture?
D. WALLACE: The table, that’s the same. I really cannot believe that you’re tagging old boxes of wax paper.
WILLIAMS: We have everything.
D. WALLACE: I mean, unbelievable.
WILLIAMS: Let me turn the light on in the pantry here.
C. WALLACE: Well, this is just the same. Just the same. May I open?
WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. They stick, some of them.
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s where they kept their dishes and so forth, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Probably some of the same dishes.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: From the looks of it. Now, did you have your own dishes when you were here? Did you take those with you?
C. WALLACE: Oh, I kept them packed away. Grandmother Wallace had enough dishes, and all the cooking stuff was all around, and the pans were right in through here.
WILLIAMS: Just like this, kind of on the floor and shelves and . . .?
C. WALLACE: Well, yeah, piled up. Yeah, it was just about the same. I don’t
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remember any wallpaper like that—I think it was all just painted—and this was sort of like it used to be. You need linoleum.
WILLIAMS: Was this table used for—
C. WALLACE: We didn’t have a table here, did we?
D. WALLACE: No, it was never there. The chairs are the same.
C. WALLACE: The chairs are the same. The only table we had was the one over there.
WILLIAMS: Was it always against the wall? Just like that?
C. WALLACE: Just that same way. The same way.
WILLIAMS: How could more than three people eat?
C. WALLACE: Nobody . . . three people didn’t eat there.
D. WALLACE: We ate in the dining room then.
C. WALLACE: They ate in the dining room. We always ate in the dining room. Fred would—
D. WALLACE: Not breakfast.
C. WALLACE: Fred would come down, and his mother had made the oatmeal and the coffee, and he’d sit there at that end and drink coffee and eat his oatmeal.
WILLIAMS: On the east end.
C. WALLACE: And there wouldn’t be anybody else. Nobody else was up. And then when Harry got up, he ate in the dining room, and Bess would make his breakfast and serve him in there. Grandmother Wallace, I don’t know where she ate. She probably had eaten before any of us were up, I think.
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D. WALLACE: She sat at the end of the dining room table where she always did and ate there.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. For breakfast?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember that.
WILLIAMS: Well, you said, I think, in the car the order of when people got up. Madge was first?
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s interesting, yeah.
C. WALLACE: Grandmother Wallace always got up first and prepared the coffee, made the coffee and made the oatmeal. Then generally the next one up was Fred, and he’d come down, drink his coffee and eat his oatmeal there at the end of the table. And then everybody trailed, came down as they woke up. And I guess Harry was the next one, and Bess would fix his, and sometimes I’d see her plug in an iron and put up the ironing board and iron a shirt for Uncle Harry.
WILLIAMS: There’s an ironing board back behind the door there.
C. WALLACE: Well, it was right here, and that’s where she ironed.
WILLIAMS: Right here, across . . .?
D. WALLACE: Sticking out at an angle.
C. WALLACE: Just like this.
WILLIAMS: From the south wall.
C. WALLACE: Here’s the shirt, you know, like this. Sometimes I’d have to do one for Fred, and I always scorched it. They always wore white shirts, and I
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could never iron a white shirt, not even for this one.
WILLIAMS: You had to use starch and all that?
C. WALLACE: Well, no, just plain. I never used any starch.
WILLIAMS: Before it gets too dark, can we go out on the back porch?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: That way?
WILLIAMS: We have to go this way. Would you use that door most often?
C. WALLACE: Always.
WILLIAMS: The same door?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, this was all just a narrow little porch, you know, when we lived here.
D. WALLACE: Well, he’s talking about the door.
WILLIAMS: See this? The dark gray carpet is what we have visitors walk on. I was telling you about that.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Now, this doorway here, I understand—
C. WALLACE: Was not there. There was no door there.
D. WALLACE: There was a door and a stairway.
WILLIAMS: Just a staircase down?
D. WALLACE: This was the end of the porch right here when we lived here. All they did was just extend it out from here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, just about from here out.
D. WALLACE: Well, from the post.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, but this was all new—this.
D. WALLACE: The color of the floor has always been the same.
C. WALLACE: And it was not screened.
WILLIAMS: No. But there was a railing just like down here?
C. WALLACE: A railing. A railing went right through here and across there.
WILLIAMS: And then there was the staircase down into the yard?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember. I don’t think there was—
D. WALLACE: When I was here there was a staircase down.
WILLIAMS: And the pergola was out this way?
C. WALLACE: And the pergola was right out there.
D. WALLACE: Right on the brick . . . the brick thing. That’s exactly where it was.
WILLIAMS: So how often would you sit out on the back porch?
C. WALLACE: Oh, every evening when it was hot and the mosquitoes weren’t too bad.
WILLIAMS: Is this the porch that you used most?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, always this porch.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever sit on the front porch or the side porches?
C. WALLACE: Never, never, never.
WILLIAMS: Did anyone, like Mrs. Wallace?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: Never.
C. WALLACE: She would always sit here on this porch, and it was generally more over here by the kitchen door.
WILLIAMS: And these are the grapes?
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D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: And then that little area there, you see where the stairway goes down and there’s a post? Well, take it straight across. Fred had somebody screen in that little area there for this one to play in before we put him out in the backyard.
WILLIAMS: Screen in? You mean like—
D. WALLACE: The corner.
WILLIAMS: Like this?
C. WALLACE: That corner.
D. WALLACE: A six-by-six corner there.
WILLIAMS: To the west of the—
D. WALLACE: The dining room door.
WILLIAMS: —south kitchen door.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And Grandmother generally had a chair right along the side there, and she’d sit there. And then Natalie’d come up and talk, and she’d sit on the steps and either—
D. WALLACE: A lot of sitting on the steps, [unintelligible] right there.
WILLIAMS: There are a lot of pictures of—
C. WALLACE: She would either eat her lunch of shredded wheat, or she would have beans . . . whatever they do to beans, and peas, whatever they do to peas.
WILLIAMS: Snap them?
C. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
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WILLIAMS: This is Madge or Natalie that had shredded wheat?
C. WALLACE: Natalie. Natalie. Now, can we walk out here?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Well, I didn’t see any gray carpets.
WILLIAMS: Well, this is where the tours begin. You don’t worry about those.
C. WALLACE: Now this is all the only porch we had, plus . . . and it went all the way around. And here’s where Grandmother would sit, and then that screened-in was right through here and through here.
WILLIAMS: So just this west end of the—
C. WALLACE: Yeah. So he came to it through the dining room door.
WILLIAMS: I see. And it went all the way up and around?
C. WALLACE: All the way up it was screened, yes.
WILLIAMS: And Madge Wallace sat to the east of the door here.
C. WALLACE: Would generally sit here. And Natalie would come and sit here. David, we didn’t have railings here, did we?
D. WALLACE: Where?
WILLIAMS: These iron ones.
C. WALLACE: These iron railings.
D. WALLACE: No, we had wooden railings.
C. WALLACE: Wood railings, yeah. And we generally . . . well, like when Frank Wallace would come, everybody went up that entryway.
WILLIAMS: Into where the hat and coat under the steps . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and that’s where the telephone was downstairs.
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WILLIAMS: How would you know to use that doorway instead of this doorway?
C. WALLACE: Well, habit. It was habit.
WILLIAMS: Any time of day difference?
C. WALLACE: No, no.
D. WALLACE: That was rarely used. This is the door everybody used. This is the door I used—
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but when Frank Wallace came to see Grandmother at night, he always came in that door.
D. WALLACE: Right.
WILLIAMS: Is that because she would have been in—
C. WALLACE: A right straight shot into the living room.
WILLIAMS: I don’t suppose they knocked, or they had to ring the bell?
C. WALLACE: Oh, no, no, everybody—
D. WALLACE: No, everything was open. The dining room door was rarely, rarely used, if ever.
WILLIAMS: This one here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Except to put me out in that little screened area, the cage.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] And then from that he went down to the bigger area in the backyard that was fenced in. And that was in that open area right in there. And then you go back a little bit, and that’s where the big tree was.
WILLIAMS: Out there where the Secret Service house . . . hut.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah. And that’s where Margaret had her trapeze, and then you saw the picture of Marian in her swing. It must have been a good, low limb. See, those all had limbs that wouldn’t be . . .
WILLIAMS: They’re not very thick.
C. WALLACE: Well, and they aren’t low enough.
WILLIAMS: Was this wire up here? Did you ever use it for like a clothesline or anything?
C. WALLACE: No, never. It was just—
WILLIAMS: So it must have been just for the grapes to crawl on.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, Grandmother Wallace used to have another kind of thing, a flower that . . . Oh, it was this one.
WILLIAMS: Like a trellis or something?
C. WALLACE: This one would bloom.
WILLIAMS: I think these are rose . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And those . . . Oh, we put those in! Fred and I put those in.
WILLIAMS: The spirea out here?
C. WALLACE: The spirea, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Around the shingle oak? Why did you do that?
C. WALLACE: To cover that slope, and it never did have pretty grass. I don’t know, something—
D. WALLACE: No, because the tree would keep the grass from growing a lot.
WILLIAMS: And that’s while you were living here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And she had some morning glories. Grandmother Wallace had
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morning glories that would grow along here.
WILLIAMS: On the porch railing and down?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: I guess those grow up from . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: They climb?
C. WALLACE: Well, yeah, but I don’t . . . It was just like this. It’s just that she’d come and take and hang it over somewhere. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Besides being brown, does the yard look . . .
C. WALLACE: It’s about the same.
WILLIAMS: And the fence is there, of course.
C. WALLACE: We didn’t have that fence, of course, you see.
D. WALLACE: Well, no, there are more bushes over there along the driveway.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and you see how those girls would go straight across, and that wall to that house over there was not there. It was open backyards.
WILLIAMS: So people really didn’t have fences between their yards.
C. WALLACE: Not here, no. And then you could see how we would look all the way down to May and George’s and Frank and Natalie’s. And generally they’d sit right down in here in the summertime.
WILLIAMS: Near the driveway?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, right . . . I can remember, I think we have pictures of them sitting right down in here.
D. WALLACE: The bushes along Van Horn over there were much bigger at the time.
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And you must understand the driveway was gravel.
WILLIAMS: Right. Are the bushes along the fence now, they’re about my height. That’s more the thickness—
D. WALLACE: Right, yeah.
WILLIAMS: And was that to keep privacy, or just because . . .
D. WALLACE: Some privacy, yeah.
C. WALLACE: But in those days people didn’t come looking at us.
D. WALLACE: And the peonies were there where the roses are.
C. WALLACE: Oh, those peonies were so pretty.
WILLIAMS: So the peonies extended—
C. WALLACE: All along, on both sides.
D. WALLACE: All the way along.
C. WALLACE: But this is where they’d have their . . . you know, those patio-type furniture, with the—
WILLIAMS: Kind of like this, but . . .
C. WALLACE: Well, not like . . .
D. WALLACE: No, they were Adirondack chairs.
C. WALLACE: It was mostly the canvas chairs, you know.
WILLIAMS: Would they have umbrellas and that sort—
C. WALLACE: No, no, no. No, just canvas chairs.
WILLIAMS: Was there always a sidewalk like this one here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And it went down to gravel?
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D. WALLACE: Went down to gravel.
WILLIAMS: And then just stopped.
D. WALLACE: And just stopped, and then picked up with the steppingstones, which is what we called them, even though they weren’t stones.
WILLIAMS: And they’d connect all the back doors?
D. WALLACE: The back doors.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then you can see where you went to May’s and then to Frank’s. And of course there was no fence over there.
WILLIAMS: I think I’m tangled up somehow.
C. WALLACE: You know, David, we had that table here when we were here.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s an original table.
WILLIAMS: The south kind of . . . Is that a gate-leg, what you call a gate-leg?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that was a gate-leg table. It was painted white and used out here.
WILLIAMS: Now, when you were here, did they have the flowers and things in the boxes?
D. WALLACE: No, they came after the White House. That was all done after ’52, and when this was added on, and it was the same aluminum boxes.
C. WALLACE: And we didn’t have those there.
D. WALLACE: These are the same ones that have been here all along. And it was always geraniums like that, and not this stuff.
WILLIAMS: So were there just canvas chairs like this up here on the porch?
C. WALLACE: Not like those, but—
D. WALLACE: No, no . . . You mean, back in the old days?
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WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
D. WALLACE: Oh, I don’t know what was there then.
C. WALLACE: Grandmother had a . . . I think a wooden chair. Didn’t she have sort of a wooden seat?
D. WALLACE: The Adirondack chairs.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Would they bring the furniture in in the wintertime, put it under the porch or in the basement or in the garage?
D. WALLACE: A lot of stuff was put . . . But you know this porch facade was much different then down below than it is now.
WILLIAMS: Right. Was it closed off?
D. WALLACE: Closed off.
WILLIAMS: With . . .
D. WALLACE: Slats.
WILLIAMS: Lattice?
D. WALLACE: Slats. Like wide slats.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember them taking the furniture in. There wasn’t that much furniture out there.
D. WALLACE: And it had a door that opened that was the same slat with a latch.
C. WALLACE: Now, that furniture down there, they would take in.
D. WALLACE: No, this stuff just stayed out here.
C. WALLACE: But the chair that Grandmother Wallace had, I think it stayed there all year round.
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WILLIAMS: So it was an all-weather chair.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Okay. So there was latticework all the way around, and then a doorway, so you could get through into the basement.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: I don’t remember. I don’t think that the roof was white, that the roof of the porch was white.
C. WALLACE: No, it wasn’t.
D. WALLACE: I think it was the same color as the floor. It was gray.
C. WALLACE: I think it was gray, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Do you recall, did they have awnings or something hanging up? There are hooks.
C. WALLACE: No, no. No awnings.
D. WALLACE: These hooks were for rolls of canvas that, after all this was done, that they could raise and lower. I’m sure it was canvas, you know.
C. WALLACE: But not when we lived here. We had nothing up there.
D. WALLACE: No, this is after ’51. Mother, this was all put on in ’52 and ’53.
C. WALLACE: All we had was a railing.
WILLIAMS: And you wouldn’t have any awnings out here. And those were just on the windows?
C. WALLACE: Nobody was interested in us then. I mean, all this came when—
D. WALLACE: It was done to stop the sun. It had nothing to do with privacy.
C. WALLACE: Well, when people wanted to look at Harry, that’s when they had to do
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all this. Nothing like that fan. But I think after they put this on they sat out here often, and then they . . . I think that was to kind of . . . privacy. See how they’d grow up? And people would stand outside the fence and gaze in.
WILLIAMS: They’re cut back a bit too much now, but . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah. But those are nice there. Now, how do we go from here?
WILLIAMS: We should go back the way we came.
C. WALLACE: Okay.
WILLIAMS: When you would come to visit, would you sit out here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, or out in the yard.
WILLIAMS: Just the same as before?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Nothing had really changed?
C. WALLACE: Nothing.
WILLIAMS: Except the porch was a little bigger?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And lots of times when Bess—
D. WALLACE: This is where we put all the crap: sit it on the stairs.
C. WALLACE: Bess and Harry would eat lots of times out there after they were here. You see, it was served right through—
WILLIAMS: Lunch, dinner, and breakfast? All?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Did people not use this stairway if you were piling stuff up on it? Could you even get—
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D. WALLACE: You just sort of sneaked through it.
C. WALLACE: Well, you sort of stepped over it or picked it up and carried it upstairs. It was put there to go upstairs when somebody was going.
D. WALLACE: And that room was totally unheated.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, unheated.
WILLIAMS: It still is, basically.
D. WALLACE: It was frigid.
WILLIAMS: This has been covered up.
C. WALLACE: What is that? Is something leaking up there?
WILLIAMS: We had a leak earlier this year. It’s going to be fixed soon.
D. WALLACE: [In the butler’s pantry] Are these openable?
WILLIAMS: Yes. They may buzz, but we can fix that.
D. WALLACE: That’s not Grandmother’s, is it?
C. WALLACE: Huh-uh. That might be Aunt B.’s.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that probably was. Oh, yeah, I remember that, the gas thing.
C. WALLACE: Remember this?
D. WALLACE: Well, yeah, it was somewhere.
WILLIAMS: That was the presidential gift.
D. WALLACE: Okay, well, that came much later.
WILLIAMS: Here’s the telephone that we had.
D. WALLACE: There was no phone in here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, there was no phone here.
WILLIAMS: 252-7107.
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C. WALLACE: [In the dining room] Well, I told you where the phone was. Now, we had our buffet here.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, where yours is. And the breakfront there.
WILLIAMS: Where this is.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, just like they have there. And a little table over there.
D. WALLACE: And your dining room chairs were nearly identical to these.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: So they had a Duncan Phyfe . . .
D. WALLACE: This was Grandmother’s tea service here. That picture was always hanging there.
C. WALLACE: I beg your pardon. That was not Grandmother’s tea service.
D. WALLACE: Whose was it?
C. WALLACE: It was Aunt B.’s.
D. WALLACE: Oh. And this is where they always sat in the wintertime.
WILLIAMS: Where what sat, the tea set?
C. WALLACE: Oh, no. There was a great big silver thing—remember David?—that was over on this table? It was sort of a strange . . .
WILLIAMS: That’s probably it. We had it replated.
C. WALLACE: No, that’s not it.
D. WALLACE: Is that it?
C. WALLACE: No, I have it.
WILLIAMS: You have it?
D. WALLACE: Oh, no, the samovar.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Oh, okay.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that was the samovar.
WILLIAMS: Where was this thing?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: It was in Washington in their apartment.
C. WALLACE: But it came back later. We had nothing like that there.
WILLIAMS: The plants weren’t in the window?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Did you have the same style of Duncan Phyfe furniture?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, except my table legs were different, David. They went in the middle more like this.
D. WALLACE: They were real Duncan Phyfe.
WILLIAMS: They were not these double legs?
C. WALLACE: Not the—
D. WALLACE: I have a feeling this is Natalie’s silver.
C. WALLACE: She had to always have the same kind of silver as Aunt B. Aunt B. had two sets of Gorham Fairfax.
D. WALLACE: Fairfax, yes. That’s what this is.
C. WALLACE: And she had that. And then on, their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Uncle Harry gave Aunt B. a complete set of Fairfax, another one, so there were two sets. That picture always has been there.
WILLIAMS: Did you have the candelabras, and all of that looks just—
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C. WALLACE: No, we didn’t have those.
WILLIAMS: Do you know where they would have come from?
C. WALLACE: Those were Aunt B.’s—had to be. And that was Aunt B.’s tea service.
D. WALLACE: And here was all of your green crystal and your blue crystal in here, remember?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Which I have the blue, and I don’t know where the green is, probably Margo.
WILLIAMS: Now, we’ve been told that when the Trumans were here they’d eat dinner in here every night.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, we did.
WILLIAMS: When Mrs. Wallace was alive.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, Mrs. Wallace sat down there, and when Harry was here, he sat here.
WILLIAMS: Why would he sit up here and not one of . . . like Fred or—
C. WALLACE: Because . . . Well, it was partly their home, too. I don’t know, maybe seniority or something.
WILLIAMS: Just because he was older?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, but he always sat here. Bess sat there. Margaret sat there.
WILLIAMS: Okay, let me say this on the tape. Bess sat on the east side next to Harry, Margaret sat on the east side next to Grandmother Wallace.
D. WALLACE: You understand the table is totally different. The other table has two central posts and not these corner legs.
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C. WALLACE: David, look over there in that corner.
D. WALLACE: Oh, there it. Now you know where it is.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] Yeah, that’s the youth chair. Margaret used it; David used it; Marian used it.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s it.
WILLIAMS: And who sat on the west side?
C. WALLACE: I sat on the west—
WILLIAMS: Next to Harry.
C. WALLACE: And if Harry was here, generally Fred sat by his mother, and I sat here, and if the children were eating down here, well, David generally would sit between us.
D. WALLACE: Remember?
WILLIAMS: A cruet set?
D. WALLACE: The cruet set, Grandmother’s?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: That was Madge’s?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that was Grandmother Wallace’s.
WILLIAMS: What was dinnertime like? Quiet?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, we talked.
WILLIAMS: Boisterous?
C. WALLACE: No, but we all had a nice visit and talked.
D. WALLACE: It wasn’t like they hadn’t been sitting around together all day long cooking it.
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C. WALLACE: Well, Uncle Harry sat here. When he was here, he served. And when Uncle Harry wasn’t here . . . What’s the matter? When Uncle Harry wasn’t here, Fred sat here.
WILLIAMS: At the head?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Was this considered the head of the table?
C. WALLACE: No, Grandmother Wallace was the head of the table.
WILLIAMS: She always sat down by the kitchen?
C. WALLACE: Always by there. That’s the proper place for her to sit. And then Vietta would bring and lay the . . . if we were having meat or fish or something, right here, and then that was served by whoever was sitting here.
WILLIAMS: A man.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. It was either Uncle Harry or Fred. And then Vietta would pass around the potatoes or the vegetable and so forth.
WILLIAMS: So she would come around with the dish and you’d take out what you wanted.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Okay. As a child what was it like? Do you remember? Were you expected to be quiet?
D. WALLACE: No, not particularly.
C. WALLACE: It wasn’t boisterous, but it was just nice.
WILLIAMS: Margaret says that Grandmother Wallace believed that children were to
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be seen and not heard at dinnertime. Did you ever hear that?
C. WALLACE: I never heard that.
D. WALLACE: Never.
WILLIAMS: So she wasn’t giving you stern looks during dinnertime?
D. WALLACE: No.
C. WALLACE: No, but David, when he was old enough to sit in that chair and behave himself, he sat down here.
D. WALLACE: In the middle.
C. WALLACE: And then when Marian was kind of small, if I had help, she would be fed upstairs. And if I didn’t, why, we just made room for her in here, too.
WILLIAMS: So Vietta would bring out each course and serve, and then go back?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and if the children were down here, why, I’d have their plate in front of me, too, and I’d serve the potatoes because they couldn’t serve themselves, and the vegetable and so forth.
WILLIAMS: Did you have to clean up, change clothes for dinner?
C. WALLACE: No, but everybody . . . Well, generally Bess and Grandmother Wallace—
D. WALLACE: She changed for dinner.
C. WALLACE: We always wore house dresses in the morning. And then after lunch, Grandmother Wallace would go in her room, close her door, and she’d bathe and so forth and put on a little afternoon dress. And Bess would do the same. She’d go upstairs and rest, probably, or if she was going
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to Kansas City, she of course had on a suit or something that would be appropriate to wear. As a rule, in the summertime the men would eat their dinner in their white shirts or whatever. It was too hot to wear a jacket.
WILLIAMS: Would they have their ties still on?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And in the wintertime they’d keep their jackets?
C. WALLACE: They’d wear their jacket, yeah. And I don’t know, I think we all had a nice dinner. We had a lot of company. I mean, and all the holidays, like Easter and Thanksgiving and so forth, why . . . What was I going to say? Easter, Thanksgiving . . . Frank and Natalie were up, and George and May, and sometimes they’d have my mother and father come.
WILLIAMS: Do you ever remember Mr. Truman’s mother or sister being here eating?
C. WALLACE: No, not—
D. WALLACE: Oh, Mary Jane.
C. WALLACE: Mary Jane but—
D. WALLACE: Yeah, his sister.
C. WALLACE: But Mamma Truman was never here when I was here, no.
WILLIAMS: Would they go out to visit them?
D. WALLACE: Yes.
C. WALLACE: Yes, but I don’t know whether . . . Did they ever go over to Mamma
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Truman’s for a meal or anything? That I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever go to the Truman relatives?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: What’s the difference between an afternoon dress and a dinner dress?
C. WALLACE: Well, they didn’t wear dinner dresses. I mean, they’d wear a house dress. You know what a house dress is? Well . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, we’re talking about morning and afternoon, Mother.
C. WALLACE: All right, I have to start with a—
WILLIAMS: I know what a housecoat is.
C. WALLACE: Well, it’s not a coat, it’s a dress.
WILLIAMS: Or a house dress.
C. WALLACE: It’s a little gingham dress.
[End #4398; Begin #4399]
WILLIAMS: Okay, you were finishing talking about what you wore at dinnertime. And there’s an interesting picture over here.
C. WALLACE: That’s where we all ran to see who could get on there first. That’s where we sat in the wintertime. Oh, that heat would come right up, and it was marvelous. A nice warm place.
D. WALLACE: Both of you would sit on there sometimes. You and Natalie, I remember sitting on there together.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. So now where do we go? In there? Or do you want to go that way, or do you want to go this way?
WILLIAMS: Let’s go into the den. Do you ever remember putting plates into this
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thing to warm them up?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: No. The radiator.
WILLIAMS: There’s a door . . .
D. WALLACE: I know. There’s a door. I always used to open up and throw things down there.
C. WALLACE: Now this is where Uncle Harry sat most of the time, and Aunt B. sat in that chair right there.
WILLIAMS: She sat in the more Victorian-looking chair.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And they’d read. And always piled with books here for Uncle Harry.
WILLIAMS: On the table.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Now, when we were here . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, the room was two feet wider, for one thing. They didn’t have the bookcases there and there.
C. WALLACE: In the first place, we didn’t have the built-in bookcases. We had a bookcase that sat there.
D. WALLACE: Right at the end, you’re right.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and we had the white and black furniture in here. And it had a—
D. WALLACE: A sofa on this side, and a chair here and a chair here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: And then the chrome and glass table over here.
C. WALLACE: And a glass table, yeah.
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WILLIAMS: In the window?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, and a chrome lamp on it.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and we had a torch . . . what do you call it?
D. WALLACE: I have it.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, a torchiere.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, I have it at home.
C. WALLACE: A torchiere chrome lamp. And then at one time, isn’t this one time when Dad had a big table made in here before we brought that black and white furniture, or had it or what, and you had your train set on it?
D. WALLACE: Wooden train set, yeah.
C. WALLACE: That’s when he was young.
WILLIAMS: It was like on a big piece of plywood right there?
C. WALLACE: Plywood, yeah.
D. WALLACE: Just plywood.
C. WALLACE: And I understand, in the earlier days before we ever were here, Margaret used this as a playroom. It was a playroom for Margaret.
WILLIAMS: If you had this black and chrome furniture, what color were the walls? Wood floors, I guess?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, they were—
D. WALLACE: Wood floors. The walls were white with red trellis . . . The bookcase was white with red shelving and a red background painted in it, remember?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
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D. WALLACE: So the walls had something. It was a red and white wallpaper, and I think it’s that trellis design that we saw. The diamond pattern, remember?
WILLIAMS: Brighter than it is now.
D. WALLACE: Lots bigger and brighter.
C. WALLACE: But the floor was still the Floor-lac I told you about. That was a Floor-lac and this was a Floor-lac.
D. WALLACE: Yes, right here.
C. WALLACE: And in here, the whole thing. And the Floor-lac color was, oh . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, here it is right here.
WILLIAMS: You can see it on the sills.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: They’re dark brown, nearly black.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And this bookcase was not here.
D. WALLACE: No, much bigger. They really reduced the size of the room a lot when they put all these bookshelves—
C. WALLACE: Yeah, this is the color we painted it. It was all . . .
WILLIAMS: [In the music room] Now, you called this the parlor.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: What was the purpose of this room?
C. WALLACE: Well, this was Margaret’s piano, and it was not this . . . it was around this way, where the playing keys were here. Remember, David? The keys were here.
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D. WALLACE: Yes, you faced out west. The piano keys were northeast.
WILLIAMS: So it’s rotated around ninety degrees or so.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And this is one of the old chairs. This was always here, David. Now, you saw those pictures of—
D. WALLACE: That other thing was in here, that other couch which is in the living room now.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Wasn’t this one in here?
WILLIAMS: You’re talking about the silk settee over here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, this one.
D. WALLACE: Not in that picture that was taken the other day.
C. WALLACE: No, I was talking about the picture where Margo as a baby and she was sitting in a sofa of some sort.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s not the sofa there.
WILLIAMS: That was a more modern . . . ?
C. WALLACE: Oh, it wasn’t this one?
D. WALLACE: I think the one that’s in the other room with a different thing on it.
C. WALLACE: Oh, all right. And of course no TV, but there was a sofa or something here.
WILLIAMS: Along the window.
C. WALLACE: And then the piano here, and then they had a chair here.
WILLIAMS: Was it this chair?
C. WALLACE: Very similar. I don’t know whether it’s that one or not. None of this was here.
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WILLIAMS: None of the stuff on the mantel?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: And the mirror was out in the hall.
C. WALLACE: And the mirror was out in the hall. And I don’t think we had any little gadgets in these little places.
D. WALLACE: Well, somebody was always putting something there.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: What was on the walls, if you didn’t have these portraits and paintings?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember. I don’t remember. What did we have over this? Do you remember, David?
D. WALLACE: A Girondoux mirror? Or was that over this?
C. WALLACE: No, the Girondoux was in the living room.
WILLIAMS: Was the big wooden mantelpiece still here when you were here, and a mirror?
C. WALLACE: Yes, that was it. The mantels have been cut down.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, because that one—
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Do you know anything about the tile work around the fireplace?
D. WALLACE: Are these openable?
DAGE: I don’t know. I’ve never opened them.
D. WALLACE: Just garbage in them. Oh, the owl. I remember that.
WILLIAMS: But you don’t know the story of this tile?
C. WALLACE: No, I think the tile was just there. The same tile, wasn’t it, David?
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D. WALLACE: Yeah. Yeah, the same thing.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever use this fireplace?
C. WALLACE: No, not to my knowledge.
D. WALLACE: No, it was always sealed up like that. Because you’ve got to understand why—this room in the wintertime was closed off.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: So there was no reason to use this fireplace. This room was not heated in the winter.
C. WALLACE: Here are those doors that pulled out.
D. WALLACE: That wasn’t even . . .
C. WALLACE: Here are those doors.
D. WALLACE: How did you close off that room? Was the den not heated in the winter either?
C. WALLACE: No, we just closed the door between the dining room and the den.
D. WALLACE: So the den and this room weren’t heated.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: So these rooms weren’t really used in the wintertime.
C. WALLACE: No, it was just too cold. And the gas bills were just too high. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Do you recall the velvet curtains across?
D. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: Those were gone before you . . .
C. WALLACE: Where are velvet curtains?
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WILLIAMS: Well, there are rods up here, across, as if there were big heavy curtains.
C. WALLACE: Oh, no, not in our day.
D. WALLACE: No, that was way back.
WILLIAMS: Do you ever remember using that light fixture in here?
C. WALLACE: No, never. Never used it. Now, did they move that? That was more here.
D. WALLACE: No, it’s exactly where it was [in the foyer]. This was exactly where it was, where I burned my hand.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but I thought it was more here, but I guess I’m—
WILLIAMS: The ornate heat register.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and he burned his hands on it. Now, let me see . . .
D. WALLACE: Well, that Revolutionary table was here that Margo has, a chair on each side, and then whatever we saw over it.
WILLIAMS: A mirror?
C. WALLACE: It was a mirror.
WILLIAMS: That’s the picture of you two playing there.
D. WALLACE: Yeah. See, this is all their fake W. & J. Sloane.
C. WALLACE: And we didn’t have these, did we, David?
D. WALLACE: What?
C. WALLACE: We didn’t have these light fixtures here.
D. WALLACE: No, they were a different kind of light fixtures.
WILLIAMS: Now, I’ve heard that Fred picked these out. Is that not . . .
D. WALLACE: Those fixtures?
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WILLIAMS: That he did some decorating, and he liked—
D. WALLACE: No.
C. WALLACE: No, we never put them in, as long as I lived here.
WILLIAMS: But these are different than what used to be here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Yes, what used to be there came up a little higher. See, this is modern brass. I mean, this is just cast brass.
WILLIAMS: It didn’t have a shade?
D. WALLACE: This is like 1950-style. As a matter of fact, this is a 1955 switch. It would have been a turn switch, not a push switch.
C. WALLACE: There wasn’t a . . . David?
D. WALLACE: See, this had a gaslight up there.
C. WALLACE: There wasn’t one of those things here?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: Was there? I can’t remember. But this is where we’d bring our mattresses down, and we—
D. WALLACE: I don’t know if this wasn’t later.
C. WALLACE: That was not there.
WILLIAMS: That may be for the gas.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, but it is an original one, because here’s where the foot switch was to close the vents.
WILLIAMS: So that was on the west side.
D. WALLACE: So there was a little thing that stuck up, and you just kicked it closed in
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the back. I don’t know that it was there, but this is the one that was there.
C. WALLACE: But in the summertime we’d open like that, and open those doors and have just the screen. And we’d bring our mattresses down here and sleep, and bring a crib down for the babies and put them down here. It was a lot cooler. Now, the telephone was right back where David’s going now.
D. WALLACE: It was right here.
WILLIAMS: Was there a little table like that?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: It was not on this thing, and this was not the hat rack at all that was here.
WILLIAMS: There was a hat rack there?
D. WALLACE: There was. There were just hooks, I think.
C. WALLACE: No, we didn’t have a hat rack out here.
D. WALLACE: But there was something to hang stuff on here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: And there was a table here.
C. WALLACE: And that’s where the telephone was.
D. WALLACE: And this is not the table, and the telephone sat on it. And I don’t know if there was a chair or not next to it. I don’t think so.
C. WALLACE: I think we stood up.
D. WALLACE: And this, of course, is not the lamp like what was there or anything like
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that.
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: The light, I think, was here, because I remember pulling a thing underneath here.
C. WALLACE: A chain.
D. WALLACE: Or it was over here, and it was in a really funny place. It might have even been under here, but it was really funny. And this, of course, I remember very well.
C. WALLACE: Oh, yeah.
D. WALLACE: I remember pulling that damn thing all the time.
C. WALLACE: And that thing’s still there.
D. WALLACE: And that would break. And it would always break—
WILLIAMS: The string?
D. WALLACE: —way up at the top, which meant that you had to then get up there and put a ladder up to the ceiling or something and go up and stand. But you’re hanging over this, so it was . . .
C. WALLACE: Do the stairs still squeak?
WILLIAMS: We’ll go up in just a minute, after . . . This is the lamp you were talking about earlier.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: This, I have a feeling, was here.
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Not there, but this chair was back then, with the needlepoint on it.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah, that was Grandmother Wallace’s, I think.
WILLIAMS: Was it always there?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: That’s the only . . . that and these two are the only original pieces that I’ve seen in the house so far. These were hers, these Victorian . . .
WILLIAMS: But not the silk settee in there?
D. WALLACE: I’m not so sure about that.
C. WALLACE: That’s not quite right.
D. WALLACE: It’s sort of tourist Victorian, and that’s what worries me.
C. WALLACE: It was something about that size, but it’s the wrong shape up on top.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Did the lamps out here in the hall look more like the ones here in the living room?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, there they are. That’s it.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, there they are. Yeah. Then the secretary that had been up in . . . Well, Grandmother Wallace had one here, because the secretary was up in Fred’s room.
WILLIAMS: So the secretary is one of those that has the desks that folds up?
C. WALLACE: Well, it looks like that. Oh, well now, of course, that room is different. Then we had a gate-leg table.
D. WALLACE: That’s it.
C. WALLACE: And that sat over here.
WILLIAMS: In the bay window.
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C. WALLACE: In the bay window.
WILLIAMS: Why would it sit there?
C. WALLACE: Well, that’s where they liked it.
D. WALLACE: Because the sofa was here.
C. WALLACE: The sofa was here.
D. WALLACE: And I don’t know how the sofa was here with the grille on there.
C. WALLACE: That wasn’t there.
D. WALLACE: They may have moved that from some—
C. WALLACE: They sure did.
D. WALLACE: Oh, no, I know where the grille was. It was over here.
C. WALLACE: It was right here.
D. WALLACE: It was right here, because that’s what they tied the Christmas tree to, and there’s the mark on the ceiling from the Christmas tree. Right there. You see that? And that’s when they stood it up. That’s where it hit and dragged on the ceiling, right there. Because it was, as you know, a sixteen-foot tree. Right there is the mark on the ceiling.
WILLIAMS: Basically in the center of the room.
D. WALLACE: And that’s where they stood it up, and that’s when Grandmother had a fit about the whole thing. What they did, they cut the two feet off the bottom because it was just the tip of the tree that dragged on the thing. But this radiator was here, and that’s what the tree was screwed down to, wired down to.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Now, the sofa was over here. The gate-leg table was there when
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we didn’t have the—
D. WALLACE: It was on the other side of the radiator.
WILLIAMS: So they were basically reversed.
C. WALLACE: Yes. The clock was always there, and I told you about the clock.
WILLIAMS: Could you tell us, that you have a copy.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, actually a better copy.
C. WALLACE: David has a complete copy of it.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: Except the face. We never have got—
D. WALLACE: I don’t have the corner finials, but they’re not really too accurate either, and I’ve got the center finial. I have a photograph of this face, which is in mine right now, which will be copied eventually. These are the hands that were cut by George out of a pie pan when he put in the little electric clock movement on the back.
C. WALLACE: Originally the clock workings were wood. Grandfather Gates brought it from Vermont. Now, didn’t these mantels all have different things on the side? No, that was more like it.
D. WALLACE: No, this is just exactly right.
C. WALLACE: This is where we had the fireplace in the wintertime all the time.
WILLIAMS: You would use this one.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Oh, yeah, this room . . . this room was used all the time, but that was the closed one.
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C. WALLACE: Now, here was the gate-leg table here, and then Grandmother’s rocking chair was right there.
WILLIAMS: In the northwest corner.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: Right where that table is. That was not there.
D. WALLACE: And then Mother’s green velvet Duncan Phyfe sofa was here.
C. WALLACE: Was right here.
D. WALLACE: There was a drum table with silhouettes on it.
C. WALLACE: And then right . . . topped table was right here.
D. WALLACE: And it rotated, sort of a [unintelligible].
WILLIAMS: To the east of the sofa.
C. WALLACE: And then right here was a green velvet chair.
D. WALLACE: A velvet chair.
C. WALLACE: That was Grandmother Wallace’s, which she had given to us.
WILLIAMS: Okay, where the gold chair is now.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Then right here we had a wing chair.
WILLIAMS: That’s where the flowered chair is.
C. WALLACE: But I think ours was a little bit larger than this one. And we had—
D. WALLACE: Well, it was much taller.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I like mine better.
D. WALLACE: It was a full-size wing chair. It was out here and sat here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and we had that brass—
D. WALLACE: Like there, okay?
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C. WALLACE: Okay. We had that brass lamp.
D. WALLACE: This size and that sort of thing.
C. WALLACE: Brass lamp. We never used that door. And then there were two—
D. WALLACE: This lamp was here.
C. WALLACE: No, I had that brass lamp I was telling you about.
D. WALLACE: No, this lamp was in the parlor. I remember that cheap brass stem painted white, that was in the parlor in there. And all those two pie-topped tables came from their apartment in . . .
C. WALLACE: Connecticut Avenue.
D. WALLACE: On Connecticut Avenue.
C. WALLACE: Now, here we had—
D. WALLACE: This was that sofa.
C. WALLACE: Here there were two chairs: this one like there, and then the one without the arms was right here.
WILLIAMS: The one over here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Those two over in that corner.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but they were here.
WILLIAMS: So the two green velvet chairs were on the southwest corner.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and the rocking chair we put Grandmother Wallace’s presents on at Christmas time. The sofa, Trumans’; the green chair over here was . . . No, David and I were there, it was Frank and Natalie.
WILLIAMS: And you’re going clockwise.
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C. WALLACE: And George and May . . .
D. WALLACE: Were on the chair in front of the fire.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And nobody was on that one.
D. WALLACE: The center finial on the clock is missing, or there was one.
C. WALLACE: And we had a small coffee table right there.
WILLIAMS: In front of the sofa.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, a small one.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, an oval Duncan Phyfe table, with a glass top that lifted off.
WILLIAMS: The chair with the arms was on the left?
C. WALLACE: No, it was on that side.
WILLIAMS: On the right, and the chair without the arms was on the left.
C. WALLACE: Without the arms was there, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Did you have certain places to sit? You said this was—
D. WALLACE: By habit.
WILLIAMS: You said this was Mother Wallace’s chair?
C. WALLACE: No, she sat right there in the rocking chair.
D. WALLACE: No, she sat right there in the rocker.
C. WALLACE: No, and everybody sat wherever they could find a chair.
WILLIAMS: Okay, so she was just—
C. WALLACE: Generally Bess sat there a lot, didn’t she?
D. WALLACE: No, that was when . . . the last ten years of her life she would sit there. She’d sit there. She had the phone right there when Margaret called so she could pick it right up.
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C. WALLACE: Who, Bess?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: On the gate-leg table.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, and the magnifying glass, and all that sort of stuff. That’s where she sat. That was after she moved downstairs and was living in the bedroom there.
C. WALLACE: Bess, yeah.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Let’s look in the bedroom.
C. WALLACE: Okay.
D. WALLACE: This, by the way, is the only room that rings original with the wallpaper. This is the closest to whatever the wallpaper was at the time, and this may have actually been the wallpaper at the time. Because it was a vertical stripe with a pattern like this. All the other wallpaper was W. & J. Sloane hoo-haw.
C. WALLACE: What is that thing up there in the ceiling?
WILLIAMS: It’s the smoke detector.
C. WALLACE: All right, this is Grandmother’s room. It looks nothing like it. She had—
D. WALLACE: [unintelligible] in the other place.
C. WALLACE: She had a double bed here.
WILLIAMS: So the headboard would go up against the northeast corner.
C. WALLACE: Up against there, yeah. Just in the same position as this, but it was a
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double bed. Then over here—
WILLIAMS: On the southeast.
C. WALLACE: —was a wardrobe, because there was no closet here, until they built one in there.
WILLIAMS: In the back.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, the wardrobe was up there. Then she had a little dressing table right there.
WILLIAMS: On the west.
D. WALLACE: Here. That’s where she sat down with her thing around her neck and did the whole business. Right here, the little dressing table.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And then this was her bathroom.
WILLIAMS: With a mirror and . . .
C. WALLACE: This was her bathroom in here. And see here, this closet. This was the closet where she kept her clothes at that time.
D. WALLACE: Now, when I came back here in the ’50s, this was the arrangement of the room. Because after she died, then they turned this into what was essentially a guest room down here. And like I’d come through with a friend of mine, and my pet cat, which had to be locked up. This was about ’59 . . . about ’62. The cat had to live in there while I was here for a week.
WILLIAMS: They didn’t care for cats?
D. WALLACE: No, they just didn’t want . . . Aunt B. didn’t want any.
C. WALLACE: Well, I remember coming and staying with Aunt B., and they had some
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maple furniture. Maybe they have it upstairs somewhere.
D. WALLACE: This bathroom had a ball and claw tub in it, too, at one time. This is the whole ’50s remodeling . . .
WILLIAMS: So the closets weren’t always in here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. That’s where Grandmother kept her clothes, and also in this wardrobe, the big wardrobe.
WILLIAMS: When did these come in, do you know? The closets?
C. WALLACE: Well, they were there.
D. WALLACE: No, you just said they built them in, Mother.
C. WALLACE: I know, but they built them in, but . . .
WILLIAMS: While you were here?
C. WALLACE: No, they had them when I came. When they added this bathroom on they built that.
D. WALLACE: What do you mean when they added it on?
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t think originally it was there.
WILLIAMS: No, it wasn’t. It came in 1905.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: All right, so then this was there. But she always had her clothes in a wardrobe that stood right here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but then Bess would . . . I don’t know, that was sort of a catchall. And then I was here and I stayed with—
D. WALLACE: These were out of Connecticut Avenue.
C. WALLACE: And I stayed with Aunt B., and she had maple furniture in here, and she
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had twin beds just like this.
WILLIAMS: Is the lamp, the floor lamp, familiar?
C. WALLACE: No, I’ve never seen it before.
D. WALLACE: No, that one came . . . The cheap one is familiar. This one is Connecticut Avenue, I think. A lot of this is Washington stuff.
C. WALLACE: This is most of her Washington stuff, yeah.
WILLIAMS: What was along the north wall here? The bed was over here.
C. WALLACE: The bed.
D. WALLACE: The bed stuck out.
C. WALLACE: The bed stuck out and there wasn’t room for anything.
WILLIAMS: So you had to walk around the bed to get into the bathroom?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, but there was plenty of room because there was nothing over there. And Grandmother would always come in here and she’d close the door and lock it, and then I guess she took her bath and got herself all dressed up.
D. WALLACE: You know I never figured out why that column went to where it did and stopped.
C. WALLACE: I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: And I think the real reason is that the add-on was here.
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: See, this was all here. What this was, I don’t know, but I think there was major remodeling in here. I mean, I think all this was.
C. WALLACE: Well, isn’t there something you have that they did things?
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WILLIAMS: It was added, the bedroom, when the Gates got older. Was there a chair or an easy chair or something that she would sit in here?
C. WALLACE: She never sat in here. The only time she’d come in here is to bathe and dress. Because she’d get up and put a little house dress on to go out and do breakfast. Then she’d piddle around all day, in the morning, and help Vietta, might dust a little or sew a little or do little things, and then she’d come after her lunch, which she ate in the dining room, and come in here and rest probably a little bit, and get her redressed for the afternoon.
WILLIAMS: Where would you eat lunch? Where would everyone else eat lunch?
C. WALLACE: Wherever I grabbed it.
WILLIAMS: There wasn’t a certain place? But she would always eat in—
D. WALLACE: See, I don’t think you basically ever sat down for lunch at the dining room table.
C. WALLACE: I never did.
D. WALLACE: When I was here in the summers I would have lunch in the den with Grandmother, usually.
WILLIAMS: In the den?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, in there. You’ve got to understand, if this is the den like this, right? And his chair is right here facing out. Now, this is before these bookcases were built in.
WILLIAMS: Right.
D. WALLACE: Her chair was at an angle back in that corner. And you’ll see a little of
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that in that picture, but that’s much later, of course. Her chair was at an angle like that, there was still a sofa over here, another chair here. She would always sit right there because she could look out the window, just like they did, you know, and see what’s going on. I don’t know if it was north, but there was still some light there, and we’d have lunch in there on folding tables or something.
WILLIAMS: How did they decide to sit in there or in the living room?
C. WALLACE: Margaret always ate her lunch . . . She’d come back from high school . . . she’d come over, home from high school for her lunch—you know, over there—and she always ate her lunch on the sofa. And it was always a cream cheese and olive sandwich.
WILLIAMS: Here in the living room.
C. WALLACE: Here, she’d eat it there. David?
D. WALLACE: Cream cheese and chopped olive sandwich?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. David, there’s the window I said that Grandmother would stand at and wait to watch you come home.
WILLIAMS: So he’d be coming down from the Bryant School?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: That’s the north window in the bay.
D. WALLACE: I’m not sure where the whatnot shelf . . .
C. WALLACE: That’s not ours. I mean, that was Aunt B.’s. She probably had it in Washington.
WILLIAMS: What was the wallpaper like out here in the foyer? Do you recall?
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C. WALLACE: It was all, most of it, like this in here.
D. WALLACE: Like this. It was very “nineteen-teens” wallpaper like this, not this fake brocade stuff, you know. But this is very much like a 1912, 1915 wallpaper.
WILLIAMS: So it wasn’t way-back Victorian.
D. WALLACE: And over the fireplace was Mother’s round gold mirror, the Girondoux.
C. WALLACE: Girondoux mirror.
D. WALLACE: And then the two Girondoux’s, which were light things on each side.
C. WALLACE: On each side, yeah, lights. And do you know who has my Girondoux mirror is Dickie.
D. WALLACE: I know.
WILLIAMS: So you don’t ever remember the house being really dark Victorian?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: It never was, I don’t think.
C. WALLACE: It was a nice house.
D. WALLACE: Because the furniture never was that dark, even the left-over furniture. And the wallpaper was always light, as I remember, like this. If that was done after 1905, and it was dark before that, who knows? I don’t think there are pictures back then, were there, of it?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: When was this stuff put on the walls [lincrusta in the foyer]?
C. WALLACE: Well, that was there.
WILLIAMS: This? Oh, 1885, when the house, this part was built. It’s still the same.
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D. WALLACE: And this stuff here. I used to keep drawing those little loops all the time. I remember that.
C. WALLACE: It was always there, as long as . . . whenever I was here.
D. WALLACE: It’s exactly the right height to be peeling and playing with.
WILLIAMS: It is still for kids. What would you do to this dark stuff here in the . . .
D. WALLACE: Nothing.
C. WALLACE: Nothing.
WILLIAMS: Would you clean it or paint it or . . .?
C. WALLACE: We’d just wipe it off, like you’d dust a table. No, it was never washed or anything, at least not to my knowledge.
WILLIAMS: The tile was the same?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: I brought that with us from Rome.
WILLIAMS: Which? The box there in the parlor?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I don’t see that Maria pottery anywhere.
D. WALLACE: Well, you probably won’t.
WILLIAMS: Was the glass in the front doors always . . .
C. WALLACE: The same way, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Who would use the front door?
C. WALLACE: Nobody, except if somebody come up and knock on it and . . . I don’t know.
D. WALLACE: Company.
C. WALLACE: Company.
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WILLIAMS: Where would the mail be delivered?
D. WALLACE: Good question.
WILLIAMS: Was there a box or would they . . .
D. WALLACE: Oh, the box was on the . . .
C. WALLACE: It was on the porch.
D. WALLACE: On the porch, on the right-hand pole.
WILLIAMS: The right-hand . . .?
D. WALLACE: Well, you’ve got the two poles out there.
WILLIAMS: The north one?
D. WALLACE: The north pole, just to the north of the stairs going down, and it was a white slot mailbox.
WILLIAMS: Plain old metal box?
D. WALLACE: Plain old metal, painted white.
WILLIAMS: Of course, the mailman could . . . there was no fence, so . . .
D. WALLACE: He cut across the yard.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, there was no fence or anything.
D. WALLACE: He just cut across the yard. Well, it was much different. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Would you like to go upstairs?
C. WALLACE: Sure. Who goes first, me?
WILLIAMS: You do, and I’ll follow with the cord. So what was on . . . was there carpeting on the steps, rugs or anything?
C. WALLACE: No. No, and they squeaked. And this is where somebody tried to get in the house. Don’t you remember I told you? And Fred heard them and
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he ran across the hall and—
D. WALLACE: And the gun was downstairs and the bullets were in the attic.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: He yelled to Harry? Is that right?
C. WALLACE: He went across the hall up there and knocked on their door and told them somebody—
D. WALLACE: I don’t understand why those pole holders were never taken down, but they never were.
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: For the poles.
WILLIAMS: Where we presume were curtains.
D. WALLACE: Curtain holders.
WILLIAMS: Would you use the transoms? Would you open the transoms?
D. WALLACE: No, never opened them.
C. WALLACE: No, never opened them.
WILLIAMS: Here you can see probably the black . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: How are you doing, Mother?
C. WALLACE: Slow.
WILLIAMS: Take it easy.
D. WALLACE: How does that mean you’re doing?
C. WALLACE: I’m doing fine.
WILLIAMS: We have a chair.
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C. WALLACE: There! That sofa was the one that was in the parlor.
D. WALLACE: That’s the one. Yeah, that’s the one.
WILLIAMS: Okay, along the north . . .
C. WALLACE: This one. That’s the one that was in the parlor.
WILLIAMS: What was up here in the hallway?
C. WALLACE: This.
D. WALLACE: No, not that. That came from Washington, the White House, actually.
C. WALLACE: I thought there was a table.
D. WALLACE: There was a dark ugly table sort of desk there.
C. WALLACE: A table, and this was not here. And this is the . . . [chuckling] When they came back from Washington, Margaret—
D. WALLACE: That corner thing was never there.
C. WALLACE: Margaret would sit here, Bess would sit there, and I would sit on a chair there, and we’d kibitz.
WILLIAMS: So you’d sit in the doorways of your bedrooms.
D. WALLACE: Of their bedrooms.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Why didn’t you just go downstairs and sit somewhere?
C. WALLACE: Because we were in our nightgowns.
WILLIAMS: Oh. One didn’t go downstairs in one’s nightgown?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. This is the maple furniture that I remember was in Grandmother’s room at one time after I came to visit her. Bess’s bed was here. There was an open window here or there, and that was
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Margaret’s room.
WILLIAMS: Okay. Let’s stay in here [the Trumans’ bedroom]. There was a bed facing the other way?
C. WALLACE: This way. This way.
WILLIAMS: Perpendicular to the way it is now.
C. WALLACE: From this window out.
WILLIAMS: So that headboard was up against the window?
C. WALLACE: Over a little bit, because this is the window. Or was it that one?
WILLIAMS: This one, I think, goes out to the porch.
C. WALLACE: Well, they’d crawl through the window, and they’d sleep out there in the summertime.
WILLIAMS: Would they throw the mattresses out?
C. WALLACE: No, they had beds out there.
WILLIAMS: Oh, okay. How do you keep—
D. WALLACE: Was there always the sink here, Mother?
C. WALLACE: Yes.
D. WALLACE: But it was a different one. This is the 1950 sink.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, just a plain white one.
D. WALLACE: It was just a . . . an old white sink.
C. WALLACE: And then they had a cedar chest right here.
WILLIAMS: Where the chest of drawers is.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that was just packed with books and magazines, and you’d read. And then there was a chair there that Uncle Harry sat in. This is where
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he’d come up and read.
D. WALLACE: Right here.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: For the light and everything, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Well, where was the other bed?
C. WALLACE: This was a double bed.
WILLIAMS: Oh, a double bed, okay.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, the one that broke.
WILLIAMS: So it took up the southeast corner.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: There’s a chair in the southwest corner.
C. WALLACE: And then there was a chest of drawers along here, right.
WILLIAMS: On the north wall.
C. WALLACE: Now, where was that chair? That looks . . .
D. WALLACE: It looks very familiar.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Now, you said . . .
D. WALLACE: That could have been Grandmother’s rocking chair.
C. WALLACE: No, that was not Grandmother’s rocking chair.
WILLIAMS: And this isn’t one of the barrel chairs you were—
D. WALLACE: No, no, no. No, I have it in storage.
C. WALLACE: And that is not Grandma’s rocking chair. It was more of a kind of a rocking chair you’d buy today in some store that you weren’t going in
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for period furniture. It was just . . .
D. WALLACE: Just a rocking chair.
C. WALLACE: Just a plain, ugly rocking chair, but she liked it.
WILLIAMS: What do you mean “the bed that broke”?
D. WALLACE: Caved in a couple of times.
C. WALLACE: Which one?
D. WALLACE: That one. Theirs.
C. WALLACE: Oh. Oh, did you sleep in this one?
D. WALLACE: No. Well, I’ve slept in here, yeah, after they were gone. I kept rotating between the rooms. If there were people down there, I had to sleep up here. We’re talking about the ’50s now.
C. WALLACE: Well, Grandmother would close up Fred’s room and everything, the north side, and he and I would sleep in here, and it wasn’t too warm. And I took . . .
D. WALLACE: That’s in the winter.
C. WALLACE: [chuckling] I took a . . . what is that? a hot water bag to bed with me to stay warm. Need I say any more? It leaked.
WILLIAMS: So, since the parlor was shut off, she would shut off the room above?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, because otherwise you’d freeze the floor.
[End #4399; Begin #4400]
D. WALLACE: It was bedtime. You said you were wearing nightgowns.
C. WALLACE: It was bedtime. We were all undressed. Harry wasn’t here.
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WILLIAMS: Okay. Well, the alcove was the sewing room?
C. WALLACE: Well, we had the sewing machine—it was a treadle sewing machine—on this wall.
WILLIAMS: On the south.
C. WALLACE: And on this wall over here was a small cedar chest.
WILLIAMS: On the north.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Well, there it is behind you. There’s a cedar chest. Is that the one that was in their bedroom?
C. WALLACE: No. I can’t see.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s sure one that was around here. I remember the rounded edges.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that one was over here.
D. WALLACE: This is the one that was on the right over here.
WILLIAMS: On the north wall.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Were there curtains or shades in the windows?
C. WALLACE: Now, this was Fred and my room [northwest bedroom], and there was a closet here. And we had a big bed with a big blah-blah-blah up here, you know, Victorian.
D. WALLACE: Headboard, I think you’re saying.
C. WALLACE: What?
D. WALLACE: Headboard?
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C. WALLACE: Headboard.
D. WALLACE: Well, there’s the original floor. . .
WILLIAMS: Was there a canopy or anything?
C. WALLACE: No.
D. WALLACE: . . . that Dad painted.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then here against this wall was the secretary Fred had.
WILLIAMS: On the south wall.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then here we had a table that we used kind of like a desk.
WILLIAMS: In the west window.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then here we had a dressing table, one of those old-fashioned kind with a maple top.
WILLIAMS: On the northwest corner. On the north wall.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And then I had a cedar chest that I had over here.
WILLIAMS: On the northeast corner, on the north wall. What were the curtains like?
C. WALLACE: Well, they weren’t like these. They were just those thin sheers that . . .
WILLIAMS: Nothing flowery?
C. WALLACE: No, no.
WILLIAMS: Was the wallpaper?
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember the wallpaper.
D. WALLACE: Flowered.
WILLIAMS: Did you have anything over behind the door?
C. WALLACE: Well, I tried to make myself a closet there. It didn’t work very well.
WILLIAMS: How would you make a closet?
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C. WALLACE: Well, you take and you hang a rod from that wall over to here and make a rod come out here—I mean, a piece of board come out there—hang clothes there, and then you arrange some way to have a curtain.
WILLIAMS: Like a sheet or something?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. I think I had seen it in a magazine and tried to . . .
WILLIAMS: Was there anything . . .
C. WALLACE: That’s where the secretary was.
WILLIAMS: Okay, you said that. And who used the closet under the steps here?
C. WALLACE: Aunt B. This one.
WILLIAMS: For clothes?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, it was the only one they had. Now, I had the children in here, and this, I think, has turned into Margaret’s room now [southwest bedroom]. And everything . . . You see how those . . . that’s how they used to have things on top of the mantels. And there was a closet here. Is it all right if I open it?
WILLIAMS: Uh-huh.
C. WALLACE: And of course Margaret could use it.
WILLIAMS: It’s a pretty big closet.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And when Margaret wasn’t here, well, I think Aunt B. sort of used a little bit of it. And this wallpaper, of course, wasn’t here. I can’t remember what we had.
WILLIAMS: This is where David and Marian were?
C. WALLACE: Sometimes.
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D. WALLACE: This is the red floor. You saw the floor in there. I mean, you can see exactly what the floor looked like.
C. WALLACE: Now what I had in here was a youth bed that came out here.
WILLIAMS: From the north?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: To the left of the doorway.
C. WALLACE: To the . . . well, which way?
WILLIAMS: To the west of the door.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And then I had the crib over here.
WILLIAMS: In the southeast corner.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then there was a big double bed in here, so I had that . . . I kept that in here.
WILLIAMS: A double bed? About where this one is?
C. WALLACE: Yeah, about.
D. WALLACE: Over this way a little more.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Over toward the east a little more?
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And I don’t think we had much in here. They had toys in here and a playpen.
D. WALLACE: And the little rocking chair was there where I sat, read my Mickey Mouse . . .
WILLIAMS: Was it a children’s size rocking chair?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
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D. WALLACE: It was just about this tall, and it was right here.
WILLIAMS: Where the rocker . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: Facing this way. And here was a table or a little bookcase thing, as I seem to remember.
WILLIAMS: On the south window.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, and then there was something on this wall, and it was a problem because of the radiator vent.
C. WALLACE: The crib was down a little bit.
D. WALLACE: Well, that’s then, but the crib didn’t last for a long time. Yeah, the ceiling going in.
WILLIAMS: Did you use this fireplace?
C. WALLACE: No. And we had nothing in there. Oh, we had a little chest of drawers that I had over there.
WILLIAMS: Where the one is now?
C. WALLACE: A little maple chest of drawers, yeah.
WILLIAMS: There wasn’t anything in the bay window?
C. WALLACE: I think I had the playpen there.
D. WALLACE: This was a real workroom.
WILLIAMS: This is a pretty big room.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. It was nice. The kids had a nice room here. And when they came with their tonsils business, we had a . . .
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D. WALLACE: You said we were put in there the other day.
C. WALLACE: When you had the flu one time, but when you came from having your tonsils taken out you were in here.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s what I remember.
C. WALLACE: And you were there, and I think we just put Marian in the crib for the time being, or maybe we used the bed. That I don’t remember.
D. WALLACE: Well, she was two.
C. WALLACE: And then we had the big tub with the ice and the fan right about here. It really cooled the room down nicely.
WILLIAMS: Were these little sconces on the walls?
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: How would you light the room? There’s no ceiling [light].
C. WALLACE: We had a little lamp.
WILLIAMS: Was it something like that one?
D. WALLACE: A floor lamp, something like that. Not that one.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember.
D. WALLACE: The lighting was much darker in those days than it is now, you know. See, like those shades are all sort of Garfinkel shades from Washington. There was none of that. Just simple Woolworth shades and simple brass lamps, or something like that.
C. WALLACE: Well, maybe we had some kind of sconces there.
D. WALLACE: I do remember there were sconces there, though. There were two things there. They didn’t look like that.
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C. WALLACE: Yeah. They weren’t those, but . . .
D. WALLACE: But there were sconces there, but there wasn’t a chest in front of them. There may have been a chest. No—
C. WALLACE: No, the chest was over there.
D. WALLACE: Because these I always thought were sort of odd there, without realizing that you could put a chest, a dressing table between them. And I never could figure out why these two things were like that when I knew they should be somewhere else.
WILLIAMS: Before you were in this room, what was it used for?
C. WALLACE: It was just a room.
WILLIAMS: Where did Mother Wallace stay before she moved downstairs? Do you know?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know, because she always was downstairs. You know when we were in Bess’s room and Harry’s room, we didn’t go down to where Margaret was.
WILLIAMS: We can do that. And Margaret used this room later on?
C. WALLACE: She used this, yeah.
WILLIAMS: When you would come back with three kids, where would they stay?
D. WALLACE: Good question.
C. WALLACE: Well, when I came back with three kids . . .
WILLIAMS: When you came back to visit from Denver and stayed here, was this still your room over here?
C. WALLACE: Well, Margaret was still down in that old room down there.
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D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: And we just always used this.
WILLIAMS: So these were always your two rooms.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. We had that double bed in here, and we had the youth bed, and, yeah, we had the crib, too.
WILLIAMS: Okay. Let’s walk right out through this way. The big closet is over here. Do you recall what that was used for?
C. WALLACE: This? Is that a closet?
WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
C. WALLACE: Can I open it? I never know what’s going to happen. Well, there’s what it was used for.
WILLIAMS: Linens.
C. WALLACE: Linens.
WILLIAMS: Same as always.
C. WALLACE: The linen closet. Now this was Margaret’s room.
WILLIAMS: Growing up.
C. WALLACE: And all this here has been added.
WILLIAMS: All the closets?
C. WALLACE: All this. Yeah, all that.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that was never there.
C. WALLACE: No, that was never there. And her bed was right here.
WILLIAMS: Right . . .?
C. WALLACE: Well, this kind here, yeah.
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WILLIAMS: Just facing the same way?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Was it more of a twin bed?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and then she had a chest of drawers and a dressing table, and that was it.
WILLIAMS: The chest of drawers . . .?
C. WALLACE: Like there, yeah, and a dressing table there, yeah. And she’d sit up there.
WILLIAMS: Can you crawl out through this window?
C. WALLACE: I thought it was the other window they crawled out.
D. WALLACE: The hall window.
WILLIAMS: Right.
C. WALLACE: The one in the little hallway.
WILLIAMS: Why the connecting passage?
C. WALLACE: I guess it was always that way.
D. WALLACE: That goes way back to when probably that wing was put on the house and they had to tie it into the old part of the house, which is this.
WILLIAMS: Would people walk through there usually, or would they just come around?
C. WALLACE: Nobody went through there, except Bess, Harry, and Margaret. That was their own little connection. And this . . . they needed closets. There you are.
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WILLIAMS: This was just wall before the closets?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: More space.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, I can’t really quite remember [in the northeast bedroom]. Now this was a room that only . . . we had a great big old-fashioned bed in here, and a chest of drawers there, and a big cedar chest across here, and that’s all we had in here, and a chair.
WILLIAMS: You had a cedar chest in the bay window?
C. WALLACE: Right there, right across there.
WILLIAMS: Where the rug is sitting.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And what was where the . . .
C. WALLACE: This was a big old double bed with a lot of jimmy cracks on it. You know how fancy they were.
D. WALLACE: But that was gone by the time I was staying here in the ’40s, because then I had a fan at the end of the bed blowing.
C. WALLACE: And then there was a dresser here.
WILLIAMS: Where this dresser is.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. And then that was the back room, and I don’t want to even look at it. And this is where Harry kept some of his clothes hanging in here, yeah.
WILLIAMS: So you had a chest, a chest over here, a bed . . .
C. WALLACE: No, a cedar chest here.
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WILLIAMS: A cedar chest, right.
C. WALLACE: That’s low. A big bed here, pushed into that wall there.
WILLIAMS: Oh, so you didn’t have the end table.
C. WALLACE: Yeah. Well, they had it over on this side.
WILLIAMS: Does this mirror look familiar?
C. WALLACE: No, I never saw it before.
D. WALLACE: The rocking chair does, though.
C. WALLACE: The rocking chair?
WILLIAMS: This one?
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: The wicker? Or cane?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s very familiar.
C. WALLACE: I don’t remember it.
WILLIAMS: So this chest of drawers wasn’t over here.
C. WALLACE: No.
WILLIAMS: But the closet . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah, there wasn’t a closet like that. He used a little closet right there on the other side there.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, there wasn’t a closet. That was added on later. Well, you can see the framing. It’s all different. Not really that different. This was my room when I came back to stay.
WILLIAMS: In the summertime?
C. WALLACE: This, I think, was George’s room at one time.
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D. WALLACE: George’s room when he was a child. You haven’t gotten into that. Who lived where when they were all here?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I wasn’t here.
D. WALLACE: Which was Frank’s room, which was George’s room, which was Fred’s room?
C. WALLACE: I wonder why they put that there?
D. WALLACE: You’re finding out.
WILLIAMS: Be careful. This is where Mr. Truman fell.
C. WALLACE: Well, I’m not going to try.
D. WALLACE: That’s the same, that strange mirror with the . . .
C. WALLACE: Everything’s the same, except the bathtub is modern.
WILLIAMS: And that’s where the tub was with the legs that you painted.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, and this is a new facility there.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, it was wallboards up about three feet.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, up to here it was wood, and then . . .
WILLIAMS: Just plain?
C. WALLACE: Wallpaper.
WILLIAMS: And the commode and everything are in the same location?
C. WALLACE: Right there.
WILLIAMS: That sink, these closets were here?
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: You’d paint those, too, when you were painting the—
C. WALLACE: Those closets were not there.
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D. WALLACE: No, they were added. You’re right; it was just the window.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, just the window.
WILLIAMS: Was the board just plain board or . . .
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
D. WALLACE: The same stool that’s been there all . . . Remember?
C. WALLACE: That stool?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, the same one.
WILLIAMS: The little four-legged stool.
D. WALLACE: The same one.
WILLIAMS: What’s it for?
C. WALLACE: To sit on.
WILLIAMS: When you’re . . .
D. WALLACE: I guess putting your socks on or taking them off.
C. WALLACE: I guess. It depends how many . . .
D. WALLACE: And there was never a gas thing in the wall like that. Electric, that was added.
WILLIAMS: We have heard that Mrs. Wallace used the storage room way back when as her sitting room.
D. WALLACE: Here?
WILLIAMS: And this was kind of their part of the house when the Gateses were here.
C. WALLACE: Well, that we wouldn’t know.
D. WALLACE: If the light’s on back here, can I go back?
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DAGE: I can take you back with a flashlight. I don’t think we have a light.
C. WALLACE: If you want to take him back, take him back.
D. WALLACE: No, there’s nothing in there to see anyway.
WILLIAMS: Junk.
D. WALLACE: It’s a junk room.
WILLIAMS: But as far as you know, it was always junk.
C. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And you wouldn’t use that staircase much?
C. WALLACE: Up here?
WILLIAMS: In the back.
C. WALLACE: No, that’s different up there.
D. WALLACE: Not really.
C. WALLACE: Well, why does it go to nothing and then turns?
D. WALLACE: That’s because the wall, the roof is there. The door to the attic.
WILLIAMS: The door is to the right.
C. WALLACE: Well, I don’t remember that.
D. WALLACE: It turns to the right and goes around.
C. WALLACE: I never went up there much.
WILLIAMS: Was the attic fan here then?
C. WALLACE: Where?
D. WALLACE: No, that was added. That was added in about ’44 or ’45. It was added when we were in Denver, because all it was was just, you know, a fan going to a swamp cooler, I think. Because it was here then when I was
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here in ’46, ’47, and ’48.
WILLIAMS: Were you up in the attic much?
C. WALLACE: Never went up there, no. The last time I went up there was when May and I came over after Bess died, and I told you we went through the house, and we went up there to see what was up there. Just nosy. And that’s where we saw all the closets that had been built, and there was boxes and boxes of hats of Uncle Harry’s. What are you doing with all those hats?
WILLIAMS: We’re cataloging them and keeping them.
C. WALLACE: How many? Oh, there were just all kinds of hats.
WILLIAMS: Now, is this where George and Harry . . .
D. WALLACE: Fell down.
WILLIAMS: Could you tell that story?
C. WALLACE: What?
WILLIAMS: They were moving furniture or something.
C. WALLACE: I never heard that story. Somebody tell it to me.
D. WALLACE: You told it the other night.
C. WALLACE: I did not tell that.
D. WALLACE: Harry and George were moving something up there. You’ve told me the whole thing. One of them slipped and came down. That’s when George broke his ankle.
C. WALLACE: Did I tell you that? Did I tell it to you?
D. WALLACE: You told it to me. You talked about it the other night.
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C. WALLACE: I never did, David! You’ve got me mixed up with somebody else.
D. WALLACE: Absolutely not.
WILLIAMS: But there was a story. Do you know . . .
D. WALLACE: They were taking something up here. Mother said what it was last night. I don’t remember what they were doing.
WILLIAMS: I heard it was a big chest or something.
D. WALLACE: George was on the bottom end and slipped or something and came down and broke his ankle.
WILLIAMS: Was this before the presidency?
D. WALLACE: Oh, yeah.
WILLIAMS: Way . . .?
D. WALLACE: No, it was about ’39, ’40, somewhere in there.
WILLIAMS: And George was over helping out?
D. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
WILLIAMS: That was typical?
D. WALLACE: Mm-hmm.
C. WALLACE: That was not the sofa that was down in the parlor. It’s too big. I think that was always there. I don’t know where that sofa came from. Do you remember seeing that up here?
WILLIAMS: It’s kind of low-backed, too. But there was a desk over here?
C. WALLACE: A big table.
D. WALLACE: Yeah, a big round table.
WILLIAMS: What was it used for?
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C. WALLACE: Just what you see there.
D. WALLACE: Well, no, she used this for a work desk. It was just used for a table thing. Just a table. It wasn’t a desk desk.
WILLIAMS: A work table?
D. WALLACE: This is where she wrote her checks and everything and letters and all.
WILLIAMS: So there wasn’t as much furniture out here in the hall?
C. WALLACE: I don’t think there was anything against that wall.
D. WALLACE: Well, where was that thing?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I’m beginning to wonder. I don’t know. And I can’t find the one that was in the parlor, so I don’t know where anything is.
D. WALLACE: Mother, let me go down in front of you.
WILLIAMS: I think we’ve about run out of house.
C. WALLACE: Hmm?
D. WALLACE: Let me go down in front of you.
C. WALLACE: All right. Here.
WILLIAMS: What have we missed?
C. WALLACE: I don’t know. I’ve never seen so many pictures of Margaret in my life.
WILLIAMS: Was it ever spooky in the house with all the creaks and noises?
C. WALLACE: No. You get used to those things, Jim, I think.
WILLIAMS: So that night the burglar was here, Fred ran across from your room?
C. WALLACE: You see how you’d run right across, knock on their door. He said, “Harry, there’s somebody trying to come in.” And he was trying to come in . . . was it that door or the dining room window? I think it was
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the dining room window.
D. WALLACE: It was the dining room door.
C. WALLACE: And he said, “Where’s the gun?” And you’ve heard the rest of the story. Uncle Harry said . . . well, what was it? “The gun’s downstairs, and the bullets are in the attic.”
WILLIAMS: Did you have many firearms around?
C. WALLACE: I never saw one anyplace, no.
D. WALLACE: What vent did that chain open? That thing down there.
WILLIAMS: I think it’s to the coal.
D. WALLACE: It opened something because I used to play with that.
WILLIAMS: It was the regulator for the furnace, what we hear.
C. WALLACE: Sit right there. Don’t move. No, I’ll sit here.
D. WALLACE: No, we can’t.
C. WALLACE: Oh, we can’t sit on everything, can we? I might not ever get up again.
D. WALLACE: Oh, yeah, Mother? What was this thing, this little slanty thing right here [under the stairs in the foyer]? Remember, that was there. Watch your head. Oh, God, I remember I used to stick my finger there and get it stuck back in the hole.
C. WALLACE: What in the . . .? Yeah, what was that? You’re sure that’s . . .
D. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s always been there.
C. WALLACE: God knows. Somebody had a brain wave or something.
D. WALLACE: No, it probably was something coming through there.
C. WALLACE: What would you say it is?
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WILLIAMS: I’d say probably a pipe or some kind of duct maybe into the bathroom there or the bedroom.
C. WALLACE: Bathroom?
D. WALLACE: Yeah, bathroom.
C. WALLACE: Yeah, that’s over there.
DAGE: We’ve been asked if Mother Wallace did the needlepoint. Did Mother Wallace do that type of needlework that’s on the chair?
C. WALLACE: I think at one time she did, but as long as I knew her I never saw her do any.
WILLIAMS: But she did do regular sewing and mending?
C. WALLACE: She used to sew. And I have heard her say that when she had her babies she had to make their little shirts and their nightgowns and things. In her day, you didn’t go to a store and buy things, evidently. I wasn’t around. Have you heard that story, too?
WILLIAMS: Would you ever do entertaining in here besides family? Have people over?
C. WALLACE: Well, I used to when I first came out here. That little group I told you about would come when I’d have my turn, but not too often.
WILLIAMS: Nothing like the whole neighborhood would come in?
C. WALLACE: Oh, no.
WILLIAMS: Open house?
C. WALLACE: No, no, no.
WILLIAMS: Was that because of Mrs. Wallace mostly?
247
C. WALLACE: I just don’t think we ever did that sort of thing. I think the only thing I can remember is Bess would have her bridge club. And then Helen Wallace would come and see us, and sometimes the Platte City people, but that was about it.
D. WALLACE: Why don’t we continue this with Mother sitting down.
C. WALLACE: No, I’m fine.
D. WALLACE: No, you’ve got to go down a flight of stairs and you’ve got to get up two flights. So, I mean, you’ve got to sit down.
C. WALLACE: A flight and two flights? I’m fine. Really, I am.
D. WALLACE: You can sit in the car, Mother.
C. WALLACE: Okay, I’ll sit in the car.
WILLIAMS: Can we take some pictures of you and David here in the house?
C. WALLACE: If you want to.
D. WALLACE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: We’d like to do that.
C. WALLACE: I don’t like pictures being taken of me because I take awful pictures, but . . . [tape turned off]
WILLIAMS: Thank you for coming out and visiting with us these two days.
C. WALLACE: Well, while I’m on tape, thank you very much, too, for being so nice to us. And Pat, and you. Connie?
DAGE: Carol.
C. WALLACE: Carol. Well, that’s pretty close.
WILLIAMS: Connie is the other one.
248
C. WALLACE: And Scott.
STONE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Right. Connie was here earlier.
C. WALLACE: Well, thank you. We’ve enjoyed our visit, and it’s been so nice of all of you. I just feel like we’ve known each other forever.
WILLIAMS: That’s nice. I feel like I know you because I . . .
D. WALLACE: Keep calling.
WILLIAMS: Well, that and I read about you as I do research.
D. WALLACE: You keep calling.
END OF INTERVIEW

Christine (Meyer) and David F. Wallace, Jr., Oral History Interviews

Christine and David Wallace: August 25, 1991 Photo Identification Session #1

Christine and David Wallace: August 25, 1991 Photo Identification Session #2

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE AND DAVID F. WALLACE, JR. PART I: PHOTO IDENTIFICATION SESSION

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Christine and David Wallace: August 25, 1991 Photo Identification Session #1

Christine and David Wallace: August 25, 1991 Photo Identification Session #2

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE AND DAVID F. WALLACE, JR. PART I: PHOTO IDENTIFICATION SESSION

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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE AND DAVID F. WALLACE, Jr.

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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE & DAVID F. WALLACE, JR.
PART II – DRIVING TOUR

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE & DAVID F. WALLACE, JR
PART II - DRIVING TOUR

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE WALLACE & DAVID F. WALLACE, JR.
PART III—SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW & HOUSE WALK-THROUGH