Jessie Colby Oral History Interview

Jessie Colby

NPS

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
WITH
JESSIE COLBY

NOVEMBER 21, 1985
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

INTERVIEWED BY PAM SMOOT
ORAL HISTORY #1985-7
This transcript corresponds to audiotapes DAV-AR #3083-3085

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.
Jim Williams reviewed the draft of this transcript. His corrections were incorporated into this final transcript by Perky Beisel in summer 2001. 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

A long-time resident of Independence, Missouri, Jessie Colby (March 1, 1901-September 20, 1995) recalls various contacts that she had through the years with the Trumans. Soon after moving to Independence in 1921, Colby worked in county elections when Harry Truman was elected to the county court. Her husband Harold had contacts with Mr. Truman through the Ararat Shrine. And Mrs. Colby recalls her association with Bess Truman before World War II when both were officers in the local needlework guild. Like many other Independence residents, Colby saw and exchanged greetings with Mr. Truman during his morning walks.

Persons mentioned: Lucas Choplin, Rufus Burrus, Randolph Hearst, Harold Colby, Ray Colby, Ralph Depew, Harry S Truman, Bess W. Truman, Margaret Truman Daniel, Bud Knoepker, Karl Knoepker, Madge Gates Wallace, Archibald Stevenson Carmen, Mike Westwood, Roger Sermon, Tom Pendergast, Ermile Doshi, Mouvant Doshi, Grace Schulenberg, May Wallace, and Chuck Haynes.

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH
JESSIE COLBY

HSTR INTERVIEW #1985-7
STEVE HARRISON: This recording is being made as part of the oral history project at Harry S Truman National Historic Site. We’re recording today in the conference room at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. We are interviewing Jessie Colby. The interview is being conducted by Pam Smoot, historian with the National Park Service in the Midwest Regional Office, Omaha, Nebraska. Today’s date is November 21, 1985. My name is Steve Harrison. I’ll be operating the recording equipment during this interview with Mrs. Colby.
PAM SMOOT: We’re going to talk about Harry.
JESSIE COLBY: Oh, we are?
SMOOT: Your friend Harry, okay?
COLBY: Yeah.
SMOOT: Steve, Jessie brought some things here with her. I wonder what we’ve got
here.
COLBY: Well, I’ll show them to you.
SMOOT: We’ll wait until Steve gets to look.
COLBY: Oh, there I am in the army in Boston, in front of the . . . in the Boston
Common. Oh, I don’t know why I’ve got all these things. That was my
passport picture for 1937, and here’s a picture of the U.S.S. Missouri that
nobody has got pictures of like that. The chief petty officer of the
electricians, he was an electrician on the U.S.S. Missouri, and he was an
Independence boy, and we were good friends and he sent me that. Now,
here I am right here. I was always the shortest one in the rank, see? And
here I am, right down here. [chuckling] Now that was way back in 1942.
2
SMOOT: She used to be a WAC [Women’s Army Corps], Steve.
COLBY: The first class of WACs. You know where we slept? In the horse stables.
They didn’t have any barracks built. And they washed out the stables and
painted them and put our bunks in there and put poles up for our clothes,
and that was where we slept. [chuckling]
HARRISON: Where was that?
COLBY: Fort Des Moines. It was the only training place for the WAC. That was the
WAC. Well, well, well . . . I wish I had had time to . . . I don’t know what
I’ve got here. Oh, that’s about Luke Choplin. He’s one of our old
neighbors. It’s something about when the Trumans came home on vacation
or something. And here I was in USA Today, and then there’s a write-up on
the back but not much. This is Rufus Burrus, and I sure got it on him. Now,
I’ve known him ever since before he got married, and Rufus is no young
chicken. He’s about eighty-eight years old now, but always he’s the high
mogel. He comes over here . . . You know Rufus Burrus, don’t you? You
know, he’s always so cocky and so on. So I met him up on the square.
We’re good friends. He always salutes me and I salute him, you know?
[chuckling] I said, “Well, Rufus, ever since I’ve known you, you’ve always
been the top dog in everything. Now,” I said, “by gosh, once I’ve got it over
you.” I said, “Have you seen our pictures in the USA Today? I’ve got a
better picture than you have!” [laughter] Oh, he got a big kick out of that.
Now, my husband was a Shriner, and he was in the Harry Truman
class of Shriners when they were elevated to . . . See, in 1945 . . . He was a
Shriner until 1980. And where is he?
HARRISON: Right there?
COLBY: Right . . . Well, wait a minute now. Yes, that’s Harold right there. Now,
3
that was all the Harry Truman novices, you know, into the shrine. That was
the class. They called that the 19 . . . what is it, forty . . . ?
HARRISON: Nineteen forty-five, yes.
COLBY: The 1945 Harry Truman class.
HARRISON: It was November 16.
COLBY: Yes, it was a while back, but he was proud of that. Yep, and you know all
the years I knew him, I never once called him Mr. President or Mr. Truman.
He called me Jessie, and I called him Harry. [chuckling]
SMOOT: So, Jessie, would you tell me your full name, please, and what your address
is, and when your birth date is?
COLBY: All right. Jessie Mildred Carmen Colby. [chuckling] Carmen was my
maiden name. I was born in Weston County, Wyoming, and I was one of
the very first white children. They’re practically sure, we don’t have
documentation, but I have the reputation of having been the first white
female child born in Weston County. My dad was with the Home Stake
Gold Mine Company. And . . . now, what else would you like to know?
SMOOT: I would like to know how long you’ve lived in Independence.
COLBY: I have lived in Independence since 1921. However, when I was a child, my
dad got into a row with Randolph Hearst and quit the Home Stake Gold
Mine and went into the ranching business. And he had a ranch in
Wyoming, and he used to take trainloads of cattle back East to the big
package companies, big meat companies: Omaha, Chicago, Kansas City,
Buffalo, I think Pittsburgh and several different places. I think New York
City had a packinghouse then, I’m not sure.
But, anyway, on the way going there, he got to thinking about his
childhood. And his father was killed in the northern army, the Yankee
4
Army, and his mother died shortly after his father was killed. And, my
mother’s father was a Confederate soldier, and he was killed in the
Confederate Army, and his wife died two years later and left my mother an
orphan, so her aunt and uncle raised her. But my father was nine years old,
and in those days people didn’t take care of their orphans as they do today.
And he went up to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, one of those suburbs, and
he with other young boys picked the slate out of anthracite coal as it came
down the belts. And they worked there till they were around thirteen or
fourteen years old, and they struck gold out in the Black Hills, Wyoming,
or, I mean, South Dakota. Well, they heard about it, and they got all excited
about this gold field. So the three of them hitchhiked or bummed their way
on freight trains clear across to Edgemont, Nebraska. That was as far as the
railroad went at that time. So they got off—that was as far west, I guess, or
that direction anyway. They got off at Edgemont, Nebraska, and they
walked all the way through the remaining part of Nebraska and up through
Wyoming and over to South Dakota, and went to work in the gold mines.
Then they worked for a coal mining outfit at Cambria for a while. Well, all
three of them made their mark on the history of that part of Wyoming.
SMOOT: Jessie, when did you first meet Harry Truman?
COLBY: Well, I guess about 1918 or 1919, somewhere along there. I can’t remember
where it was, but he got married not long after I met him. And I can’t
remember whether it was at a Masonic dance or where it was, but I know
that I knew him, because I just remember that I met him before he got
married, just a little time before. And I never did know Bess until after I
was married in 1921.
My husband and I lived with his mother in the Colby residence. His
5
father was a sales manager for the American Elevator and Machine
Company, and he was gone an awful lot of the time, so Mother Colby and
her two sons Ray and Harold lived at the house on North River Boulevard.
And then when I got married, Harold and I had an apartment all arranged
for and everything, where we were going to live over in Kansas City.
[Harold’s] Dad came home, and Mother and he just had a fit because we
were going to pay rent when they had that big house and plenty of room, so
we let them talk us into going there to live. So we lived with them all our
married life until Harold and I . . .
Well, his mother fell when she was ninety-one and broke her hip. She
was in the hospital from November 2 till way up in the middle of April, but
she was a very stalwart soul. And a year from the time she fell and broke
her hip, she was walking with a walker, with the aid of those four-prong
cane walker things. Well, then she couldn’t do housework very much. She
would run the carpet sweeper, but she couldn’t do too much, and we had
help, of course. And when she came home from the hospital we had a
practical nurse with her, and then we had help, but I was working. I always
worked. I loved to work.
SMOOT: Did you ever work for Harry Truman?
COLBY: I never worked for him, no. I only worked for him in our precinct in a
political way getting people to vote for him. I did that.
SMOOT: Can you tell me about that?
COLBY: Well, I just went around to all of my friends and neighbors and said, “This
Harry Truman that’s running to be judge of the Eastern County Court is the
guy you ought to vote for.” That’s what I did, just went around and sold
him to people. [chuckling] And then, when the election came up, they asked
6
me to work at the polls. So I worked at the voting polls the first time he was
ever elected to public office as judge of the Eastern County Court.
SMOOT: Who asked you to work at the polls?
COLBY: A fellow by the name of Ralph Depew.
SMOOT: Who was he?
COLBY: Well, he was one of our neighbors. He lived there west of us on College.
While we lived on River, he lived west on College Street. But I don’t know,
I guess he knew Harold, I don’t know. But I remember this about Harry
Truman. I had met him. I didn’t know him, really know him, but when they
paved North River Boulevard . . . North River up to that time was just a
gravel road that went out to a road that went down to Sugar Creek, and
there was no 24 Highway at that time. And in the mornings, early in the
mornings before the workmen would get out to lay cement or whatever they
were paving that North River Boulevard, Harry Truman would go out there
and measure how deep the cement was that they were putting on and so on
and so on, and that’s been the best street in the whole doggone town. I don’t
ever remember seeing repair crews on North River Boulevard from what,
which is now 24 Highway out to Gill Street, out north to Gill. They paved
that first, and then I don’t know whether they went on . . . They did go on
to Cement City, but I don’t know if they did it all at that time or not, I can’t
remember.
But at any rate, Harold would be out in the front yard, or some of us,
you know, and Harry would come by and we’d talk and talk. He’d come in
and sit down and we’d have a cup of coffee and a roll or something. And
many, many times he came in. We always went out to the kitchen because
we always ate our breakfast in the kitchen. We didn’t have a breakfast
7
room, but we had a big dining room, but we always ate in the kitchen. And
he’d sit there and they’d talk and laugh and have a great time. Now that’s
my earliest real close memories of Harry Truman.
SMOOT: About what year was that?
COLBY: Oh, my gosh, it was in the early twenties. I can’t remember, but he was
judge of the Eastern County Court at the time. And he oversaw all the
paving of roads and so on, you know, and that’s why he would come out
there. He wanted that done right, and they did it right. And I’ll bet there’s
been less repair work done on that street than any street in Independence.
SMOOT: When Harry used to come by, what types of things did you guys talk
about?
COLBY: Oh, the topics of the day, and cute little stories and anecdotes, and what
they thought this ought to be done and that ought to be done. It was just
general, just general conversation of neighbors over the backyard fence.
That’s what it was.
SMOOT: Do you remember any of his stories?
COLBY: No, I can’t remember them. My good heavens, girl, that’s been a long time
ago. I can’t remember those stories. But I can tell you a funny thing that
happened in the later years. As the years went by and we had all those, we
had a housekeeper and we had a practical nurse with his mother all the time
. . .
SMOOT: Whose mother?
COLBY: Harold’s mother. She was bedfast from the time . . . You know, after she
got to be about ninety-six, she was bedfast. She lived to be 104 1/2. I’ll tell
you, I was traveling for years. I traveled for Interstate Storage Corporation,
and I could not come home . . . Well, when I’d come home I just could not
8
stay home. I was always with people, and I just had to be with people. So I
had a job downtown as a saleslady at the Emery, Bird, Thayer’s, and I
worked around and I enjoyed it. But I’d come home at night and they’d
have stuff piled up on top of the refrigerator. Those people working there,
they’d have stuff piled up on that refrigerator. And I told them not to do it,
and they’d keep doing it and keep doing it, and they’d do so many things
that just irked me, because I’m kind of a perfectionist after a fashion. I want
things taken care of, and I hate waste. And I tell you, it just breaks my heart
to see the way that America is wasting her resources. Anyway, it just got to
be so it was unpleasant for me and it was unpleasant for my husband, so we
decided that we would find a small apartment for me. Now, his brother and
his wife had a farm out on Holkey Road in Independence, and her father
gave that to them as a Christmas present one year. Now, there was two
daughter-in-laws [sic] living in the same house, you know? [chuckling]
And it wasn’t too pleasant.
So I had these friends that I had known since I was seventeen years
old, the Pillows [?]. They took music lessons at our house when I was
single—I mean, their daughter did. They had built an apartment in their
house for their daughter when their daughter was married, and she didn’t
stay married very long, so they rented it out. Well, it happened to be vacant
and I rented it, and I’ve lived there nineteen years now.
SMOOT: Is that right? Jessie, do you remember when you first met Bess Truman?
COLBY: Oh, gosh, no.
SMOOT: Or where you met her?
COLBY: I have no idea where I first met her, but I know that our big interest together
was in the Women’s Needlework Guild of America. And it was an
9
organization of women all across America that collected clothing for poor
children. The clothing had to be new, it could not be worn, it couldn’t be
secondhand, and you had to have two of every garment that you donated.
Of course, in that day it wasn’t everybody felt like they could donate two
new garments, but we had quite a bunch, quite a nice club in Independence.
One year—now I can’t tell you the year either—it must have been in
the twenties, probably the late twenties or early thirties—I was, Bess had
been president before me and then I was elected president of that club and
Bess was my vice president. Now, that’s when we got to be pretty good
friends, so I knew her quite well then. We used to meet each other and talk
a lot and I was in her home several times for club meetings, and maybe I’d
be going by and she’d be out on the porch and I’d go in and sit and talk a
little bit and go on about my business.
I remember something that’s kind of interesting concerning Margaret.
There was a tremendous amount of publicity that took place over the
kidnapping of a young boy from one of the big motorcar dealers over in
Kansas City. And if I remember right—I can’t remember that boy’s name. I
thought it was Hickman, but that wasn’t it. But it was a big kidnapping
story in all the papers across the country. And Margaret was going to
Bryant School down there by where I live, you know, where we turned
there? Some people—I don’t know who they were—they threatened to
kidnap Margaret. Because Harry was very much in politics at that time, and
they were threatening to kidnap Margaret. And every day, some of the
family, either Mrs. Wallace’s brother or sister-in-law, or she or somebody
working around there or Harry took her to school and went and brought her
home. She was not allowed to get out with the other kids very much
10
because they didn’t want her kidnapped. And I remember that real well, and
she went to the Bryant School at that time. That was the Hickman . . . I
believe it was Hickman. No, that’s not it. Well, you’d have to go way back
in the Kansas City history to find out, but the man was a motorcar dealer
and he was a very, very successful, very successful motorcar company,
probably one of the biggest agencies in Kansas City.
SMOOT: Jessie, you mentioned earlier about Bess being your vice president?
COLBY: Yeah?
SMOOT: Where were the meetings held?
COLBY: Well, we used to meet at . . . we didn’t have a whole lot of meetings. We’d
meet at somebody’s home, in homes. We never met in a hall or anything
like that. But we would solicit this clothing from friends, and from, all the
members donated to the club, new clothing and so on.
SMOOT: Did you ever have a meeting in Mrs. Truman’s home?
COLBY: Gosh, I can’t remember. We had a meeting in Mrs. Ott’s home. Now Otts,
you know, were very prominent people in Independence. Mrs. Ott lived on
Waldo, and we had a meeting there once, but I can’t remember whether we
ever had a meeting there or not.
SMOOT: Did you ever have any other type of activities at Mrs. Truman’s home?
COLBY: No, not especially, because they were in a different crowd, different group
of people than Harold and I. We were quite a bit younger than they, in the
first place, and then our interests were so much different. Harold and I were
great dancers in ballroom dancing. That’s when people really danced. They
didn’t hop around like grasshoppers as they do today. We waltzed and twostepped
and one-stepped, and schottische and foxtrot and all that, which
you gals, you people don’t know a thing about. [chuckling]
11
In all the years that I knew Harry, he always was so nice. He was
very outspoken, but he was really a down-to-earth, good American fellow.
The boys that served under him in old Battery B [sic] just loved him. They
really did. Harry Truman could do no wrong in their eyes. And I think the
very fact that he got into politics was probably because some of them
wanted him to. Because he was successful. We know that, don’t we?
[chuckling]
Anyway, I wanted to tell you something that was kind of cute, I
thought. After he came home, retired from the presidency, he and Mike
Westwood, who was his bodyguard . . . You’ve probably heard of Mike
Westwood. Well, they used to come up Delaware to Maple and walk
uptown.
Well, always having been in the business world, I just could not sit at
home. I had to get out and do something. Well, anyway, these friends of
mine that owned a store, the Knoepker store uptown, kept after me and after
me and after me to come up there and work. And I still would spend almost
an hour going to work every morning and an hour coming home at night,
going over to the city to Emery, Bird’s. One day in July it was hot as it
could be. I guess it was in July. It was hot and, I don’t know, things just
didn’t go right for me that day, and I came out to catch my bus to come to
Independence and I missed the bus. Then it was so hot, and I got on that bus
and I thought, “What a silly fool I am to spend two hours a day going and
coming to work, and going home at night and walking . . .” I walked eight
blocks down home every night. So I thought, “Well, I just am crazy when I
could go up to Knoepker’s, and I know they’ll pay me as much money as
I’m making over here, and I won’t have all this long drag.” Well, it so
12
happened that the week or two before that I had been up to Independence
and ran into Bud Knoepker. He was Mr. Karl Knoepker’s son and
namesake and we all called him Bud. I met him, and he said, “Jessie, when
are you ever going to quit that job over in Kansas City and come work for
us?” And I said, “Oh, Bud, I don’t know.” I said, “I’m very happy where I
am and I’ll just stay where I am. But if ever I do decide to quit working
over there, I’ll let you know. I’ll come to you first if I want to work.”
SMOOT: Jessie, when you worked on the polls for Harry, did you get paid?
COLBY: No. Oh, no. If you worked as a clerk . . . I worked in the polls and I worked
on the election, you know. I don’t remember whether I was a clerk or a
judge or what. I was something, but yes, we got paid for that. Today they
do, too, you know.
SMOOT: Do you remember how much you got paid?
COLBY: I have no idea. I don’t think it was enough to set the world afire, probably
$12 or $15, I don’t know, but you worked from seven o’clock in the
morning till nine o’clock at night.
SMOOT: Where were your headquarters the first time you worked on Harry’s
campaign?
COLBY: I showed you there, right on White Oak and River Boulevard, the second
house west of River Boulevard on White Oak on the north side of the street
there, where I said the house had been torn down? That’s where I worked
for him.
SMOOT: Were you ever involved in any fund-raising campaigns?
COLBY: No, I don’t think I was. I don’t remember of it. I started to tell you about
being with Mike Westwood. Well, Harry and Mike would come up to
Maple and walk up the street, and lots of times I’d be walking up to the
13
store. I went to work at Knoepker’s then, and I’d be walking up there and
I’d say, “Hi, guys!” We’d talk a little bit, and I’d go on. One morning they
came around the corner, and I was late and they were a little later than
usual. I came around the corner and they got up about seventy-five feet east
of Delaware and I flew by, said, “Hi, guys!” and away I went, and Harry
said, “Jessie! What’s the matter with you? What are you in such a rush
for?” I said, “Well, I’m late, I’m going to be late, and then I’d get fired.” He
said, “Oh, hell, nobody’s going to fire you!” [laughter] Now, that’s right.
SMOOT: Steve’s got to change the tape.
[End # 3083; Begin #3084]
HARRISON: Okay, for good behavior you can start talking now.
COLBY: Okay. Now what was I going to tell you about? What did I end with?
HARRISON: You were talking about Mike Westwood and going past Mr. Truman.
COLBY: Oh, yes, so I stopped and I talked to them a little bit and then I flew on and
went to work. But every morning when we would meet each other we’d
exchange the pleasantries of the day, and they went on about their business
and I went on to work. [chuckling]
My husband was in the Harry Truman Shrine class. I think now I’ll
tell you about that. It was the Ararat Shrine, Truman, Harry S. Truman class
of Shriners. That’s when they were elevated to being Shriners, November
16, 1945. And they had the biggest class they ever had. Look at how many
there were, and Harold was one of them. He worked on that Shrine Club
like crazy. Well, Harold and he were real good friends. By this time,
Harold had owned the Independence Food Distributing Company for a
number of years. He was always into something. And he handled all kinds
of cheeses and all kinds of peanut butter—well, Skippy peanut butter and
14
Koolaid and all kinds of cheeses, especially imported cheeses, from all over
the world.
SMOOT: Did he ever give Mr. Truman any gifts?
COLBY: I don’t know. He probably gave him a piece of cheese or something.
[chuckling] I don’t know.
SMOOT: Did Mr. Truman ever give him anything?
COLBY: Yes, one time. I don’t know what the occasion was or how Harry happened
to give it to him. Oh, I do, too. Harold went uptown to do something. He
had some kind of business uptown, and Harry was then a senator. He had
won the senatorial seat, and I guess he was up there cleaning out his office
or something, I don’t know what, but Harold was uptown and he went into
the courthouse for something. He met Harry, and Harry was coming down
with some papers and stuff and this gavel in his hand. He says, “Here,
Harold, you want my gavel?” And he handed it to Harold. So we had it. I
gave it to this boy that we raised, but it wasn’t signed or anything and you
can’t prove it. But I know that it was Harry Truman’s gavel that he used
when he was judge of the Eastern County Court. [chuckling]
Well, what I was going to tell you, he used to go . . . Bess and Harry,
now Bess did all the driving. Harry never did drive the car—I never saw
him drive it anyhow. They had a Chrysler, and they traded at a little market
out on East College called Jacobson’s Market. And they went out there
every whip stitch to buy groceries, and invariably Harold would be out
there delivering something to the grocery. Bess would go in and do the
shopping, and Harry and Harold would stay out there and talk and talk and
talk and talk. They’d tell stories to each other, and I expect some of them
were a little shady, knowing both of them. [chuckling] And Bess would
15
come out and she’d say, “C’mon, Harry, let’s go.” And he’d say, “Just a
minute! Just a minute!” And he’d say, “Harold, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
Then she’d say, “Harry, c’mon, we’ve got to get home!” “Oh, wait a
minute, Harold. Just a minute,” and he’d start toward the car. “Just a
minute, Harold, I want to tell you something else.” And he’d tell Harold, or
he’d start to the car and Harold would say, “Wait a minute, Harry, I want to
tell you something else.” [chuckling] And that’s the way it would go on,
and Bess would get so mad she could shoot them both. [laughter] Because
she was spicy, you know. But I know they spent many, many, many, many
moments, and perhaps hours, out there talking. That was quite a, Harold
would always come home and say, “Well, Harry and I had a good visit this
morning,” or something like that. [chuckling]
But did I tell you about him always coming out to test the cement and
coming in and having breakfast?
SMOOT: You sure did. I’d like to know if you ever introduced any of your friends to
Mr. Truman.
COLBY: Oh, I don’t think I ever did. No, I just don’t . . .
SMOOT: Did he ever entertain any of your friends before?
COLBY: No, of course, I had oodles of friends, but they were . . . I’ll tell you
frankly, most of them were Republicans, and we were Republicans. Colby
family was always Republican until Harry Truman. First Harry Truman and
Roger Sermon, now we were . . . It wouldn’t have made any difference.
We voted for the man most of the time, the whole family did and always
had, but they leaned toward the Republican Party. But Roger Sermon was
perhaps the most outstanding mayor and did more for Independence than
any mayor we ever had up to that time or since! We always voted for
16
Sermon, and we always voted for Harry. If Harry’d run for to be man in the
moon, we’d have voted for him. [chuckling] We had a great time.
SMOOT: Did you ever have any company come visit you in Independence from
India?
COLBY: Oh, yes! That’s a nice experience we had in 1967, I think it was. Yes, it was
1967, I believe it was, I had a trip around the world with a group of
Independence people. And we went by ship all around the world, and we
got to India, to Bombay. Of course, we had been all through the Philippines
and down to Australia, New Zealand, and around to India, and we got to
Bombay, and we spent a wonderful time around there. But before that when
we were in Ceylon, I took a plane and went up to see the Taj Mahal and
then flew to Bombay and got there before the ship did.
SMOOT: Did any of the people that you met in Bombay ever come here to
Independence to visit you?
COLBY: Oh, well, I was going to tell you. Well, while we were in Bombay, I was
introduced to Ermila Doshi [?], and Mouvant Doshi [?] was the port
authority of Bombay. He was the head man of that port, and she was
superintendent of all the schools in Bombay. They were both Hindu
religion.
Well, she was coming to America, and I don’t know whether it was at
the Indian government’s expense or our expense. At any rate, she was
making a survey of all our different types of schools all across the nation.
Well, she started at Washington, D.C., and went to New York and up to
Boston, across to Detroit, and all the principal cities where the big
universities and the big schools were and where they had good primary
schools and intermediate schools and high schools. She went clear all over
17
the country. She was way out on the West Coast.
Well, they found out when she went to Washington, D.C., who her
husband was, that he was the port authority of Bombay. The War
Department got word of it, and he was responsible for facilitating the
movement of our troops to the China-Burma-India theater of war during the
Second World War. And as an act of appreciation, our government called
him, or they gave him an invitation to come to America at the American
public’s expense to make a survey of all our port cities. And he went from
New York up to Boston and across Boston over to Detroit . . .
SMOOT: Did they come here to Independence?
COLBY: Well, no, this isn’t a port city. They came here as my guests, but he went to
all the ports, Detroit and Chicago and all the places across. And when they
got to Chicago, I had kept in touch with Ermila—that was his wife—all the
time. When they got to Chicago, I called them up and invited them to come
and spend some time at my home in Independence. I was still living at 806
North River. So they accepted and they came in on the train, and Ermila
had on her first pair of shoes and her first coat. She had never, they wear
those sandal-like shoes, and being in India she had never worn a heavy
coat, and in Chicago you know you have to have some shoes. She couldn’t
hardly stand those shoes. Well, I’ll never forget. Harold and I went down to
meet them.
Well, I did a little bit of fixing up, you know, for my guests, and I
bought some new things, and my mother-in-law said, “I don’t know what
you’re going to all that trouble for, they’re just people.” [chuckling]
SMOOT: What happened after they got here?
COLBY: Well, this is kind of funny. My husband and I went down to the Union
18
Station. They came in on the Santa Fe train from Chicago, and it was in the
evening and there were a lot of movie people on that train, for some reason
or other. Harold felt kind of self-conscious, I guess, but I went right up to
the door to meet them because I wanted them to see me right away, wanted
her to see me, because I didn’t know her husband then so very well. But,
anyway, the place was just filled with celebrities from the movies. And we
went into Fred Harvey’s to get something to eat, and Ermila had on a red
sarong . . . Not a sarong. Oh, what do they call those they put around them?
Well, she had on a red outfit with all these beautiful jewels, and she looked
like a doll, and she had a red dot right in the middle of her forehead.
Mouvant was dressed like a regular American businessman. Well, we went
into Fred Harvey’s, and they had a lovely dining room there, and people
just went ga-ga over her with all those beautiful . . . They call them
bangles—they’re bracelets, you know. She had rubies and diamonds and
emeralds and everything, because she came from a wealthy family and so
did he.
SMOOT: Did you ever introduce either of them to any of your friends here in
Independence?
COLBY: Oh, yes. We came home, and Harold’s mother had already gone to bed, and
Ray and Gertrude lived on the farm at that time. So the next morning we
got up and had breakfast, and Mother just fell for them. She thought they
were great. And they were just the loveliest people. They had such
impeccable manners and they were nice people.
SMOOT: Who else did you introduce them to?
COLBY: That was Sunday morning. So we all got ready and I took them to church,
and I introduced them to the entire congregation of the Watson Memorial
19
Methodist Church, which is now Christ United Methodist Church. Well, we
took them around to see all the sights. I had a friend, Grace Schulenberg [?]
was my buddy when I went on that trip around the world, and so we took
them to see the Nelson Gallery of Art and to see Kansas City, everything of
note in Kansas City that we could think of.
Then it was in the paper. There was a little notice in the paper that
these people were visiting me and who they were. Everybody who had
anybody at all come to see them would drag them over to see Harry
Truman, and he’d come to the door and he’d shake hands with them and
say, “It’s very nice of you to call, thank you,” and that would be it. He’d
shut the door unless they were somebody that he knew something about,
you know. And I thought, “Well, I’m not going to pester him.” Every Tom,
Dick and Harry takes their guests over to see Harry Truman, but I did bring
them over here to the library before.
Then one night my telephone rang and I answered it, and it was Harry
Truman. He said, “Jessie! What’s the matter with you?” I said, “Nothing’s
the matter with me, why?” He said, “This is Harry Truman,” and I said, “I
know it.” So he said, “How does it happen you haven’t brought these
people over to meet me over to the library?” And I said, “Well, we’ve been
up past there. We were going to come in and look over it a little later.”
“Well,” he said, “I think you’d better bring them over. I want to meet these
people.” So I said, “Well, when do you want me to bring them?” He said,
“Oh, how about 10:30 tomorrow?” and I said, “Okay.” So, at 10:30 the next
morning, we were over here with Grace Schulenberg. I don’t know, do they
still have his reception room back there that they had at that time? I guess
they do, where the piano is? At any rate, I brought them over and the guard,
20
the sergeant at the desk there, he took my name and then he called Mr.
Truman and Harry came out and greeted us. Then he asked us to come in
the parlor and sit down. And we went in the parlor and sat down and they
talked and talked and talked. I thought they were never going to quit
talking! And I said, “Well, gee whiz, we’ve got to get out of here and get
something to eat.” It was about one o’clock, close to one o’clock. He said,
“Oh, no, you’re not going out to eat. I’m going to have something sent in
for you.” So he did. [chuckling] And I don’t even remember where he got
it, but I know we ate back there in his little place.
SMOOT: That was very nice of him to meet your friends.
COLBY: Yes. Well, that was a wonderful thing to do, because, see, all the men that
worked on the docks, everybody that worked at the port of Bombay was
under Mouvant Doshi. And all those teachers . . . And they have different
kinds of schools. They have what they call the Jakarta schools, and they
have religious schools, and they have some other kind of schools. They’ve
got three or four different kinds of schools. But think of the teachers and the
people that were under her, and she told everybody about having met
President Truman. Well, you never heard . . . That’s one time I kept my
mouth shut. They talked and they talked and they talked, and they had a
great time.
SMOOT: Did she ever tell you what her impression of Mr. Truman was?
COLBY: Oh, yes, she thought he was . . . She just thought he was the nicest person.
She couldn’t imagine anybody being in the high position that he was in
being so down-to-earth, you know? Just like the rest of us. And he was. He
never was high-hat. I don’t think he ever flaunted his position or anything
over anybody. He was a “live and let live” sort of fellow. He was just a, if
21
you ever have seen his little house where he was born down in Lamar,
you’ll wonder how in the world they all lived in that house, because it’s
hardly big enough for two people, let alone three or four. [chuckling]
Of course, Mary Truman was an Eastern Star sister of mine. I belong
to the Eastern Star, and she used to come out here an awful lot to our . . .
She belonged out at Grandview where their farm was, you know, but she
used to come out here to our Eastern Star meetings every once in a while. I
knew her real well. She was a real nice lady, but just like all the rest of us.
After all, she was just a person like you and me, with a heart and a mind
and a soul, and he was the same way. And he could be very, very cordial.
And Bess was very nice to me always, but Bess was a little bit more .
. . shall I say, she could tell you off if she wanted to. That’s what I mean,
you know? She was very stern sometimes, but she was a nice lady, she
really was. I thought an awful lot of Bess, and I think she thought a lot of
me.
But, you know, I have to tell you something. I’ll never forget, I came
home . . . See, I used to get home about every other weekend for three or
four days when I traveled for that big company in the East. See, I traveled
for years for the Interstate Storage Corporation, and I’d get home every
once in a while like that. Now what was I going to tell you? Something.
SMOOT: I think it has something to do with Bess.
COLBY: I can’t think what it was now. Oh, the house, it had to do with the house.
Well, after he got elected president . . . Well, I’ll tell you, you would never
know, except for the architecture, that house is the same house today that it
was then. Because it was so sadly in need of repair and upkeep, and there
was no fence around it and the lawn was deplorable. It was the worst lawn
22
on Delaware. It had plantings all over it and dandelions and chickweed and
everything else. It wasn’t a nice lawn at all! And the sidewalk was all
rickety and rackety along there, and their porch was a sight! Some of the
boards were loose, and I wouldn’t have wanted to walk across that porch.
Now, really, I went around to the veranda part there before he got to be
president. When he got to be president, the army came in there and whim,
bang, bing, boom, up goes the fence and they planted a nice lawn and they
fixed the porch. They really fixed it up. But it was in sad repair, it really
was, when he got to be president. But, of course, after he got to be
president, boy, they started fixing it up. The army did it! [chuckling] I
remember that real well.
I remember something about Mary Margaret that was kind of cute. It
was Christmas time and I was home, and she was . . . oh, I imagine she was
twelve, maybe twelve or thirteen, somewhere . . . She was out in front
trying to hang up a Christmas wreath on the front door, and I was walking
uptown because I always walked uptown. I very seldom took a cab uptown.
I nearly always walked and I never did learn to drive. I couldn’t drive a car
a half a block today. I don’t know a thing about a car. Anyway, she says,
“Jessie, would you come in and help me?” And I went in and helped her
hang the Christmas wreath on the front door. [laughter]I thought that was
kind of cute.
Oh, I didn’t tell you about what Harry did when I was in the army!
SMOOT: Tell me!
COLBY: Well, I was in the army and I was in communications in the army post
office. And I came in to work one Saturday morning, and here on my desk
is a manila colored envelope with an engraving of the White House up on
23
the corner of it, on the opposite side of the stamp. I looked at that, and I
thought, “My gosh, what’s this?” And I opened it, and here it was an
invitation to the christening of the U.S.S. Missouri. It’s somewhere. I’ve got
it somewhere in some of my belongings, but I’ve got so much stuff, honey,
it would be a job to hunt it.
SMOOT: Maybe one day I’ll come down and help you look for it.
COLBY: [chuckling] Well, anyhow, it said that I was to be a guest at the christening
of the U.S.S. Missouri. So I thought, “Well, gosh, guess I’ll go.” And it told
me the date and everything, so I took the letter and I went into the colonel’s
office, and I said, “Well, Colonel Eagleton, you’d better get somebody to
take my place a week from Saturday because I’m not going to be here.” He
said, “You’re not? Are you going on furlough or sick leave or something?”
I said, “No, look at this.” And he read it and he said, “My gosh.” Harry
Truman had torn a little piece of paper, just taken it off like that, and written
on there, “You’d better be there. Harry,” on the bottom of it. [chuckling]
And that was on the card of the invitation.
SMOOT: So did you go?
COLBY: Did I go? Well, I didn’t want to go over to Brooklyn by myself. I didn’t
want to go by myself very much, but there was a little girl in the outfit who
had never been out of Pumpkin Center. And she was born down at Fort
Scott, Kansas, and I don’t think she’d ever been fifty miles away from there
when she joined the army, and the first thing they did was send her to New
York. She was a darling little girl, but she didn’t know from anything. So I
said, “Scottie”—we always called her Scottie, she was so tiny— “Scottie,
how would you like to go to the christening of the U.S.S. Missouri with me
today?” “Oh,” she said, “well, I’d love it!” And I knew she would. So I
24
took her and I said, “Now, I have no idea whether you can get in to the
christening or not, but at least you can see something of Brooklyn and see
the Brooklyn Navy Yard.”
So we went over there and ended up at the gate, the entrance, and we
had to dig our dog tags out because everybody had to be identified. They
had navy personnel and Marine personnel lined up according to rank all the
way down to the ship. And you’d go along and you’d show him your
invitation and your dog tags and he’d pass you to the next one and so on
and so on. Finally, I got down to the steps where they had a platform to the
side of the ship, because the christening platform itself with the secretary of
war and the Trumans and three or four . . . there was only about . . . not to
exceed eight people up there because it was a small place. It was much
smaller than this room.
Mary Margaret had on a Mouton coat, and while she can be very
attractive, she didn’t look so hot that day. Her hair was stringing down, that
blonde hair, and she could not break that bottle. She had a heck of a time.
But this is the funny part. When I got down to this christening stand,
then there was another stand by the side of the ship. And law me! All those
people up there were generals and admirals and their ladies in mink and
diamonds and orchids—you never saw such a display of splendor! And
here comes two little short WACs, and they did give me the look-over.
They really looked at me. They wondered, now, what is that up here for?
And all of a sudden, Bess was standing over on the platform and she saw
me and waved, and I waved back to her, and it just separated just like this.
“Sergeant! Sergeant! Now right here’s a nice place. Now, Sergeant, you
can sit here. Oh, Sergeant, here’s a good place.” [chuckling] And I’ll tell
25
you, it was something! [chuckling]
SMOOT: So did you get a chance to talk to the Trumans after the christening was
over?
COLBY: Well, just a little bit because they had a lot going on that day. I just spoke to
them and raised my hand to them and went on. But I’ll never forget that.
Boy, I’ll tell you, those admirals’ wives, you know, oh, they thought they
were the hottest stuff in town. But when Bess waved at me from over there,
they just separated just like this. “Now, Sergeant, right here’s a good
place.” But they were kind of pushing us to the back all the time, you know,
and getting in front of us and being haughty. And when she waved at me,
boy, they just went whoosh! [laughter] That was kind of fun, you know?
Kind of put them in their place. But, anyway, it was fun.
SMOOT: Jessie, did you ever have coffee or tea in the Truman home when you
visited on occasion?
COLBY: Oh, yes, I’ve had a cup of tea up there. I never did drink coffee very much,
but I’ve had a cup of tea with her. She had nice china, and we’d just sit
there and talk a little bit. I never was, you know, just real, real, real chummy
with her, because she was older than I was and her interests were different.
Harold and I were great on dancing, ballroom dancing, and bowling and
stuff like that, you know.
SMOOT: What room did you and Bess have tea in?
COLBY: In the living room.
SMOOT: You had tea in the living room?
COLBY: And sometimes in the kitchen.
SMOOT: In the kitchen. What color was the kitchen, do you remember?
COLBY: Oh, gosh, I can’t remember. I just can’t remember. It’s just faint in my mind
26
that it was either light gray or white, and I can’t remember. Gosh, girl,
that’s a long time ago! [chuckling]
SMOOT: On your periodic visits to the Truman home, did you ever meet Mrs.
Wallace, Bess’s mother? Did you ever meet her?
COLBY: Yes.
SMOOT: What was she like?
COLBY: She was just a little grandmotherly kind of a lady, just a nice, sweet, old
lady, just very quiet and very nice. And I know, do you know Mrs. [May]
Wallace?
SMOOT: No, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Wallace yet.
COLBY: Well, she’s nice. She’s really nice. I called her up and told her I was going
to do this. [chuckling] And she thought it was great. She’s quite a lady.
SMOOT: The first time you met Bess’s mother, what room in the house were you in?
COLBY: In the living room. In the living room. And I used to walk past sometimes
at night when I was walking a lot, and I’d see . . . Harry always sat by the
window on the north there, by the north window, with the floor lamp, sit
there reading the Examiner or the Star or something, lots of times.
SMOOT: When you first met Mrs. Wallace and you were sitting in the living room,
what was she doing?
COLBY: I don’t remember. I really don’t remember. I just remember . . . I think I
went there . . . something to do with the club, but I never knew her real
well, but I knew Mrs. Truman pretty well.
SMOOT: Steve’s got to change the tape.
[End #3084; Begin #3085]
COLBY: . . . much, something about my travels, I think. See, I’ve been in over 100
countries. Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, where is it? Well,
27
something in here was . . . there was something that I said . . . Oh, [reading]
“Jessie Colby, eighty-four, who remembers Truman as just Harry, joined
the Women’s Army Corps in 1942. ‘I knew I could do something for my
country, and I got to be a sergeant in nothing flat.’” [chuckling] That’s
what it says. Then someplace it says something else about me, what I said.
I don’t know. Oh, nothing great, but I thought it was kind of nice that they
had my picture in here.
SMOOT: I think so, too. You should be very proud.
COLBY: Oh, I’m not proud. I’m just an ordinary gal, that has had a very long life.
HARRISON: [chuckling] I guess.
COLBY: I’ve been rich, I’ve been poor, I’ve been in between. I have never had to
sleep on a park bench, and I’ve never gone hungry, and I’ve never been out
in the cold in the winter without good warm clothes. And I consider myself
a very fortunate person in all the wonderful people I’ve known.
Because at one time when I was in northern Italy I went through a
friend of mine who knew the countess who owned the Villa D’Este. Now,
the Villa D’Este is the former Italian royal palace, but it was sold to this
countess after World War I when the Italian government was so broke.
That’s where I gained entrance through this friend to go there. He told me,
he said, “I don’t know whether she’ll take you in or not, but I will call her
by phone this afternoon and I will give you a letter of introduction. It will
be in your box at the hotel when you return this afternoon.” So I went
down there and she welcomed me with open arms. Now, that is the palace
where Napoleon lived with his illicit love, the countess, the Polish countess,
and where his illegitimate son was born, and, also, Catherine the Great
spent lots of time there. And her boudoir and Napoleon’s rooms were not
28
supposed to be open to the public. But one night, after the dance out on the
terrace and everybody had gone to bed, there was a knock, knock, knock at
my door. And I went to the door, and here’s the countess with two candles
in her hand, and just, “Shh! Shh! Shh!” And she took me downstairs, all
through Napoleon’s rooms that were left just as he left them, just as they
were when he was there, and through Catherine the Great’s boudoir and
room. And that was quite a treat.
SMOOT: Oh, I can imagine.
COLBY: Can you imagine that? But am I not fortunate?
HARRISON: I think so.
COLBY: I’ve had a great life.
SMOOT: When you and Bess Truman were sitting in the living room, where in the
room did she sit, do you remember?
COLBY: Oh, gosh, I think she sat on the east . . . to the east there. I can’t remember.
You know, I never paid any attention. I never thought I’d be doing this or
I’d have made notes. [laughter]
HARRISON: Is there anything that struck you about the inside of the house at all at that
time?
COLBY: Well, it was a typical house of that period of people of wealth, that had
money. Now, by far it was not the finest home in Independence of that era.
The finest home was the old Swope mansion that the RLDS church tore
down. That was a mansion! You know, the Swopes were somebody.
HARRISON: And when was it that you visited Bess in the home then, about?
COLBY: Oh, gosh, it wasn’t a set-up thing, you know. I’d just drop in. Well, when
we’d have a club meeting or something there. I’d say that was in the late
twenties, early thirties, about in that period. And she was just a nice
29
neighbor, you know? We were just like neighbors. Just like if you lived
next door to me and I had something real good to eat, I’d say, “Come on
over and have a piece of pie.” You know, it was that sort of thing. No
formality. I never was to any formal parties at her home.
HARRISON: You mentioned that the Trumans used to do their grocery shopping at
Jacobson’s . . . ?
COLBY: Market, on East College.
HARRISON: On East College. Do you recall, for any reason, any other stores in
Independence that they shopped at?
COLBY: No, I don’t. Well, Emery, Bird’s and Bundschu’s was a well-known store,
and I imagine that Harry bought clothes at one time at Casper and
Chimfessle [?], but they were out of business years and years and years ago.
But they would patronize Independence people.
HARRISON: What about at Knoepker’s?
COLBY: Well, I don’t know whether they ever did much shopping at Knoepker’s or
not. Knoepker’s wasn’t quite their speed. They went for quality, you
know, and at that time . . . Knoepker’s ended up the last few years a very
good store, but in the old days they were very cheap. You know, it was
kind of like a cut-rate store, but it wasn’t. They bought stuff and sold it real
cheap, you know.
HARRISON: One of the people that we talked to said that Mrs. Truman liked to get some
of her clothes at Harzfelds.
COLBY: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, Harzfelds was her favorite shopping center. It was mine,
too. I always liked Harzfelds better than . . . Well, I liked Emery, Bird’s. If
you were buying linens or household things or anything, Emery, Bird’s was
fine. And Emery, Bird’s had nice ready-to-wear, too, but Harzfelds had the
30
good clothes. Wolff Brothers, too, but yes, Harzfelds were . . . And I loved
to shop at Harzfelds. In fact, my trousseau came from Harzfelds when I got
married in 1921, Columbus Day, October 12! [chuckling] So, you see, I’m
a flag-waver, don’t you? [chuckling] Oh, dear!
HARRISON: You were talking about your father earlier. What was your father’s name?
COLBY: Arch, Archibald. No one ever called him that. It was Arch Stevenson
Carmen, C-A-R-M-E-N. His grandmother was an opera singer. Now,
Carmen is a Spanish name, but his grandmother was an opera singer and
sang in the opera in London, and went to Madrid to sing in the opera down
there and met a Spanish grandee or a Spanish nobleman of some kind and
married him. And is name was Carmen, and that’s where my name comes
from, see?
HARRISON: Pam asked you your birth date, and you got to talking about Weston
County. So now tell us what your birth date is. [chuckling]
COLBY: March 1, 1901. So March 1, 1986, I’ll be eighty-five years old. How do you
like that? [chuckling]
SMOOT: I don’t think you told us what your address was either.
COLBY: Now?
SMOOT: Yes.
COLBY: Well, now I live in an apartment with this friend that I have known since I
was seventeen years old, and it’s 822 1/2 West Maple in Independence. It’s
up there by the old high school. You know where that little stone bungalow
is between River and Union on the north side of the street?
SMOOT: We went past it yesterday afternoon.
COLBY: Two big lots . . . They’ve torn out two big houses there, you know. The
RLDS church is tearing them all out. They want to make some kind of a
31
deal. They’ve got some kind of a plan. But the house I live in is the only
one, I think, in the block that doesn’t belong to the RLDS church, and my
landlady is not going to sell to them.
SMOOT: Well, I only have one other question for you. You stated earlier that you
would have voted for Harry no matter what office he would run for.
COLBY: That’s right.
SMOOT: Why?
COLBY: Why? Because he was so forthright and so honest. And if ever anything
described him, it’s “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” He
could stand on his own two feet, he was learned, he read all the things that
were informative, and he was honest. He was really honest. Now, he was
mixed-up for a good many years . . . Pendergast was a good friend of his,
but Harry never did a doggone thing that was dishonest because of
Pendergast. I know that. I just know he never did. But he was something
else. [chuckling] He wasn’t afraid to cuss a little bit and tell a snappy story
to the men—I don’t think he ever did around women. But he and my
husband were two of a kind: a spade was a spade with them. And they
would get out there at Jacobson’s and Bess would say, “C’mon, Harry, let’s
go home.” “Just a minute! Just a minute!” “C’mon now, Harry, let’s go
home. It’s getting late.” “Oh, just a minute!” and Harold would say, “Just a
minute, Harry. I’ve got to tell you this . . .” And that would go on maybe for
an hour. [chuckling]
HARRISON: You mentioned about them driving. Who was it who drove again?
COLBY: Bess did all the driving.
HARRISON: You never saw Harry drive?
COLBY: I never saw Harry at the wheel of that car. Now, he might have sometime,
32
but I never saw him at the wheel of that car. They had a big Chrysler. They
bought it from Chuck Haynes, who I knew very well, too.
HARRISON: What period of time would that have been?
SMOOT: Or do you remember what color the car was?
COLBY: Black. It was always a great big black Chrysler, the big one.
HARRISON: And that would have been after they came back from Washington?
COLBY: After, yeah. After they came back from Washington, yeah. They might
have bought it while they were in Washington and just let it be here when
they’d come home. But Harry and Harold used to sit in Lodge together, and
they were buddy-buddies. Oh, I’ve got the cutest thing to tell you.
SMOOT: About Harry?
COLBY: After Harry won the election and he came to Independence, Harold and
Ray were going down the North River . . . I don’t know where they were
going, but they were going someplace, coming down North River, and the
cars were just going down to . . . coming up Lexington and going down to
the railroad station, scads of them. And Ray said, “Gosh, Harold, Harry
must be coming in town.” They said, “Well, let’s go down. We’ve never
gone down to meet him. Let’s go down and meet him.”
Well, my husband was six-foot-three or four and his brother was
taller. They were tall, fine, Danish-German. Their mother was a fullblooded
German and their dad a full-blooded Dane. Now that’s some
mixture for you, but they were tall and stalwart, fine-looking men, and they
towered above the crowd. When they got down there, here’s all these
people. I guess they were in the truck. I don’t know what they were in, but
anyhow, they got out and they were walking around there, and they were
standing up close to the car because you never knew what somebody might
33
do. They might have had merchandise on there, too, I don’t know. But,
anyway, Harry and Bess came out the back of the observation car, and he
looked over and he saw Harold and Ray and he says, “Hi, Colby brothers!”
[laughter] That shows the meter of the man, you know? Don’t you think?
He never forgot his old friends.
No doubt about it, when he got into politics, Pendergast probably
helped him. Pendergast at one time was a saloon keeper. I don’t know, I
never saw Harry take too much liquor—I never saw him drink, even. You
know, we weren’t social friends, we were just neighbors, you know. We
didn’t go to the same parties. We weren’t in the same crowd. They were in
a different crowd entirely, and they were older than we were.
See, I was just past twenty and Harold was about twenty-two. He was
twenty-two in September when we were married the twelfth of October. So,
you see, we were quite a lot younger than they, and our friends were
different kids we’d gone to high school with and various friends. There
were fourteen couples of us who ran around together from 1921 to 1937.
Never did we have a big real rough fight. We didn’t always agree with each
other, but we never had arguments, we never fussed, nobody ever got mad.
Nobody ever got in a fight, and we had a wonderful time and we always
entertained in our own homes.
And one time I’ll never forget, I decided to have a party on
Decoration Day, because everybody was off work Decoration Day. Well,
our living room is eighteen feet long and thirty-two feet wide, and the
dining room is eighteen by eighteen, and I had thirty-two guests and seated
every one of them, because we took the tables and put them this way out of
the dining room and clear down the whole length of the living room. I had
34
everything done in pink and white, and I gave orders to all the girls that if
they had a pink or a white dress to wear it, because I wanted everything
pink and white. I hand-painted all the nut cups. I hand-painted the
invitations with pink roses, and we had a big window seat. You know how
a window seat is, don’t you? We had that, and I had that banked with pink
and white peonies, and I had ivy going down the table with pink and white
roses all the way down. [chuckling] It was a party. Oh, and Mother Colby
and my mother started cooking at eight o’clock that morning, and they
cooked all day long. And we even had ice cream with a rose. In those days,
you could buy ice cream in the brick with a flower or an emblem in the
center of it. They’d fix them somehow. They don’t do that anymore, but I
had white ice cream with a pink rose in the center of it and had angel food
cake with pink icing. Everything was pink and white, and it was a beautiful
party, and I seated all thirty-two of them. I had a Samoyed dog. Do you
know what a Samoyed is?
HARRISON: No.
COLBY: Well, they’re northern, they’re Arctic-type dogs. Jack was so white. Now,
this sounds crazy, but he was so white across the driven snow, if he hadn’t
had a black nose you’d have had to look two or three times to see him in the
snow. He would just eat snow like he was just crazy for it. And I tied a
great big pink satin bow on him and put him down in front of the fireplace,
and all night long he laid there just like this with his head down between his
paws. Now that’s the kind of parties we used to have. Kids wouldn’t
appreciate a party like that now, you know. But we had a good time.
HARRISON: Yes, it sounds good.
SMOOT: So, Jessie, we’ve really enjoyed talking with you.
35
HARRISON: Yes.
SMOOT: Steve, do you have any more questions?
HARRISON: No.
SMOOT: It’s really been a pleasure.
COLBY: Well, I hope I’ve given some insight into the family, how they were. We
were just . . . you know, just like I’d see you on the street and I’d say . . . I
don’t know what your name is, but I’d say, “Hi, Steve.” You’d say, “Hi,
Jessie, how are you doing? The world all right?” [chuckling] Something
like that, you know, and that’s the way it was.
SMOOT: And Steve would love to take your picture.
COLBY: Oh, you would?
SMOOT: Yes, Steve would love to take your picture.
COLBY: Oh, dear me! Well, you’d better have me standing up. I look awful sitting
down, I’m so short anyhow.
SMOOT: This chair will swallow you up. [tape is turned off]
COLBY: . . . Valeria?
SMOOT: Yes.
COLBY: Has she been . . . ?
SMOOT: Yes, I talked to Valeria on this past Monday.
COLBY: Oh, did you? I’ll bet she could tell you a lot of things.
SMOOT: Oh, she told us a lot of things. Do you want me in this picture, Steve, or do
you just want to get Jessie?
HARRISON: No, you can be in there.
COLBY: Well, now, you see, she would have an entirely different . . .
SMOOT: Do you want to smile? We’ve got to smile.
COLBY: Okay. [chuckling]
36
HARRISON: I’ll take some more, too. You guys keep visiting.
COLBY: Okay.
SMOOT: Oh, we’re just visiting.
COLBY: Do I have to have this thing on me? They’ll think I’m wounded. [tape is
turned off] Well, one time Harry and Mike Westwood, his bodyguard, were
walking up North Liberty, and they were up by that Catholic church. And a
little girl was going to school over at the Catholic school, and Harry spoke
to her, and the little girl just rushed on by and haughtily got out of the way.
Mike said, “Say, young lady, don’t you know who that is? Don’t you know
who you’re talking to?” He said, “That’s the President of the United
States.” And she just looked at him and went on; it didn’t make any
impression whatsoever, she didn’t care. [chuckling] I thought that was cute
[pause]. That was about 1926 is when that needlework guild, when I was in
that needlework guild. You got it?
HARRISON: Do you remember any other people who were in that group?
COLBY: Oh, gosh, Mrs. Rowe. She was a teacher here in this high school. And, oh
golly, Mrs. Ott was in it, and Mrs. Ott’s sister that lived on the corner of
Union and Waldo, and I cannot think of her name. I never knew her
husband, but she was formerly an Ott. Oh, gosh, I can’t remember. I think
Miss Wallace was in it, I’m pretty sure. I couldn’t swear to it, but I can’t
remember all that stuff. Good heavens, I didn’t think I’d ever be telling
anybody about all this. [laughter]
END OF INTERVIEW
37