Maxine LaRoe Oral History Interview

Maxine LaRoe

NPS

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
WITH
MAXINE LAROE

AUGUST 2, 1991
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

INTERVIEWED BY JIM WILLIAMS
ORAL HISTORY #1991-15
This transcript corresponds to audiotapes DAV-AR #4351-4352

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.
Maxine LaRoe 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

Maxine LaRoe, librarian at the Independence branch of Mid-Continent Public Library, often assisted Bess W. Truman during her frequent visits to the library. LaRoe discusses the books chosen by Mrs. Truman, and she remembers Mike Westwood’s presence in the library. LaRoe also describes the funeral of Harry S Truman, local patrons’ reactions to seeing Bess W. Truman in the library, and her sons’ experience with Bess W. Truman as a driver. Persons mentioned: Bess W. Truman, Ross LaRoe, Harry S Truman, Mike Westwood, Robert LaRoe, Lyndon B. Johnson, Sue Gentry, Ethel Mae Tiffy, Margaret McMillan, Mildred Gable, Jeanne Fann, James Leathers, Mike Manners, Margaret Truman Daniel, John F. Kennedy, May Wallace, Bill Carnes, Carolyn Southern Carnes, Vietta Garr, Judy Lembcke, Erle Stanley Gardner, Valeria LaMere, Edward R. Murrow, Jack Benny, and Maurice Chevalier.

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH MAXINE LaROE

HSTR INTERVIEW #1991-15
JIM WILLIAMS: This is an oral history interview with Maxine LaRoe. We are at the
Truman Library on the afternoon of August 2, 1991. The interviewer is
Jim Williams from the National Park Service, and Scott Stone from the
National Park Service is running the recording equipment.
Well, Mrs. LaRoe, thank you for coming by today. Could you
tell me first a little bit about where you grew up, when you were born,
and that sort of thing, how you made it to Independence?
MAXINE LaROE: I’ve lived here in Kansas City area always. I was born in northeast,
Kansas City, graduated Northeast High School, and I’ve always lived
in Independence, except for two years in Massachusetts. I worked for
the Mid-Continent Public Library and was there from 1965 until 1979.
WILLIAMS: Were you trained as a librarian?
LaROE: No. Now, I’ve had some library courses, but I do not have a master’s
degree in library science, no. I was what they call a clerk, just a clerk there.
But we work on the front desk, check the books in and out, and do all the
clerk-type duties, the filing and the card catalogue and that sort of thing.
WILLIAMS: Did you have any contact with the Trumans before you went to work at the
library?
LaROE: No, never did. Except we voted for him. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: You hadn’t seen them around town?
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LaROE: Oh, well, yes, we had seen them around town. I’d seen Mr. Truman in the
Halloween parades, and he would ride sometimes in an open car in the
parades, and we’ve seen him on his walks and that sort of thing. But to
know him and to approach him, we never had.
WILLIAMS: I didn’t know they had Halloween parades.
LaROE: Sure, every Halloween. Well, I guess they still do. When my children were
going to William Chrisman and played in the band, they had to march with
the band. They had the high school bands, the Truman High School band
and the Chrisman band, and all the politicians that were home at the time
would ride in the cars that the car dealers had, the fancy new convertibles.
[chuckling] Oh, it was quite, quite festive.
WILLIAMS: What was the route of the parade?
LaROE: Well, they went . . . oh, I can’t remember exactly all the streets. They did
go around the square to the Truman home, and I think in later years maybe
up here by the library or up over on 24 Highway some way, but I don’t
know the exact route of it now. That’s been a lot of years ago.
WILLIAMS: But that was a big event in Independence?
LaROE: It was a big event. What they were trying to do was to have something for
the kids to do so that they weren’t getting in trouble doing bad things on
Halloween.
WILLIAMS: Tricks.
LaROE: Tricks. [chuckling] Yeah, real tricks.
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WILLIAMS: How long have you been married?
LaROE: Forty-six years, to Robert.
WILLIAMS: Robert LaRoe.
LaROE: Uh-huh.
WILLIAMS: And you have children?
LaROE: Two sons. I have a son who is a professor of economics at Denison
University in Ohio, and another son who is working on his master’s at
UMKC now.
WILLIAMS: I think when I talked to you on the phone you mentioned one of your sons
had a run-in with Mrs. Truman.
LaROE: [chuckling] Well, yeah, and my husband and I were trying to figure out just
about when that would have been. Now my son was born in ’48, and he
was probably just . . . oh, sixteen, seventeen. His driver’s license wasn’t too
new, and both the boys were in the car. The older boy Ross, of course, was
the one driving. And this lady backed out of a parking space on the square
and she dented the fender of our car. [chuckling] Well, the boys were more
concerned with the dent than with anything. They thought that they were
going to get in trouble when they got home. So they called me at work and
told me what had happened. They found out when she got out of her car
and came over to inspect the damage that it was Mrs. Truman who had
backed out and hit them. I was talking to my son last night—he’s in
Massachusetts right now—and he reminded me that it was the Bethel Body
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Shop on Truman Road that Mrs. Truman told him to take the care. She said
to him at the time, “That’s where I send all of my repairs.” [laughter] And
when he took the car in, they weren’t surprised to see him at all when he
said that Mrs. Truman had backed into him. So, bless her heart, I guess she
had a little problem with that Chrysler at that time.
The only thing he had to write on was his pink learner’s permit, and
it was pretty ragged from having been folded and in his wallet for a long
time. But she wrote her name “Bess Truman” on that, and her home
telephone number, her silent telephone number. He was to go over and talk
with them at Bethel and call her. And he did, and she was just lovely to
him on the phone, and told him to go and get the car fixed. It cost $7, so it
wasn’t a very large dent. And like my sister-in-law said, “anybody else
would have painted a red circle around it and said, ‘Mrs. Truman did this.’”
[chuckling] But we chose to get the car fixed anyway. But he’s always
remembered that. And in his album of his memoirs he has that pink slip.
She was really nice to him about it. There are many stories about her and
how nice she was to people.
WILLIAMS: And you said that was the Bethel Body Shop?
LaROE: Bethel Body Shop. Yes, I’m sure that’s right. Bethel Body Shop on
Truman Road. I don’t even know if it’s still in existence.
WILLIAMS: So the Trumans were regular customers there?
LaROE: [chuckling] Well, I think they were. I think she drove a lot longer than he
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did maybe, because Mike [Westwood] used to drive him every place. Mike
came with Mr. Truman, when he came home from Washington. But she
still continued to drive. However, when she came to the library, Mike
always brought her in later years.
WILLIAMS: And you started to work at the library in 1965?
LaROE: Sixty-five, yes.
WILLIAMS: Where was the library located then?
LaROE: It was on Osage, 211 North Osage.
WILLIAMS: So, not far from the square then.
LaROE: Not far from the square. Well, let’s see, how can I tell you? There are
some offices in there now, I believe some county offices in that building
now. It was a big old building, and Mrs. Truman loved to come in there.
You know she liked her mysteries. There were little stickers on the mystery
books, like a skull. And at the time when I started working there and began
to know Mrs. Truman, the mysteries were all in one section. Well, then
someone decided that all the books should be arranged together . . . the
fiction should be arranged alphabetically by author. So you could still
distinguish the mysteries by the skulls on them, and like science fiction had
a crazy zigzag thing on it, and the westerns had the W, and you could still
pick them out. But she didn’t like that at all. She liked all of her mysteries
in one place so she could find her favorite authors. I think, though, that it
stayed that way for a little while, but I think they finally changed it back.
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Not maybe because of her, but they changed things around frequently.
WILLIAMS: They changed it back then?
LaROE: I don’t think they did on a permanent basis. No, I think they left the
mysteries in with the fiction. Well, now, I want to change that a little bit.
They have changed it and re-changed it, and I don’t know how it is right at
this moment.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever work at the library where it is now, the present location, right
across the street?
LaROE: Yes, I helped them move. And the day of Mr. Truman’s funeral, it was real
slow, of course, at our library. No one was in the public library, so all of us
that could, just walked across 24 Highway and stood on the hill over here
and watched all the cars come in to the Truman Library. And we happened
to have a very good vantage point where some of us from the Mid-
Continent Library were standing. The Johnsons’ car, then-President
Johnson went by with his family, and we got some real close looks at some
of the dignitaries. That was quite a day.
WILLIAMS: What was Mrs. Truman like as a library patron?
LaROE: Oh, we all just loved her. She really was a nice lady. Had probably the
bluest eyes, like I told you, that I ever saw, and she was just . . . she was a
real smiley lady, in spite of the fact you never see her smiling in a
photograph. I mean, if she had a chance to duck behind somebody she
would. She didn’t like to be photographed at all. But she would come in,
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and she always had a big smile. She was always just real pleasant and real
nice.
She one day—well, maybe more than once, but once I remember in
particular—where she stood in line. We had groups come from the
school—that would come in the school buses. And of course, you’d get a
bus load of those kids in line waiting to check out their books, and here’s
poor Mrs. Truman way back at the end of the line. So somebody rescued
her and brought her up front and said, “Is there anything we can do to help
you?” And she said, “Well, I just want to pay my 2-cent fine on my
overdue book.” Now, can you believe that? And most people it would
make their day if they thought they could slip a book in that was late. In
fact, many of the schoolchildren brought their parents’ overdue books and
just stacked them all up with their things. But not Mrs. Truman. She stood
there and she wanted to pay her fine.
She did like her mysteries. She never wanted any special treatment.
She wanted to go look for her own books, as long as she was able, but her
arthritis got the best of her there toward the end and she had to have a little
bit of help. And then at the very last of it there, when she could no longer
even come in the library, she would trust us to pick out books. And we’d
stack them up, and good old Mike Westwood, would come and pick them
up and he’d return them.
But another thing she would do . . . Like I say, she never wanted
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any special treatment, she just wanted to be like everybody else. This one
day she didn’t have her library card, and she had all these books she’d
chosen and she didn’t have her card. I said, “Well, Mrs. Truman, I’ll check
them out for you on my card.” And once she let me do that before for just
one or two books or something special, but this time she said, “No, I’ll just
go home, and I’ll find my card, and Mike will come back and get the books,
if you’ll just set them back for me.” [chuckling] So I said to her as she was
leaving, “Look in your coat pocket.” And she just turned around . . . and
smiled, [patting her side] kind of like that. So when Mike . . . Because of
that coat that hangs in the Truman home over there I got in trouble! For
touching it. That’s where she kept her library card. We’d seen her just
reach in her pocket and get it so many times. So when Mike came back in
just a few minutes, he said, “That’s where it was, in her coat pocket.”
[chuckling]
WILLIAMS: That’s the herringbone overcoat.
LaROE: Yes. And I just . . . well, I was with this group, and we’d been through the
Truman home, so many times, and I guess I just . . . well, I wasn’t bored
with the tour, not at all, but we had company and we were taking them
through, and just as I went by, I just kind of patted the coat, and I said, “My
old friend,” you know, or something that way. And boy, they got me back
on that plastic runner in a hurry. [chuckling] And I realize, you can’t touch
it. I told Sue that story. She sits right in front of me in church. She goes to
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our church, too.
WILLIAMS: Sue?
LaROE: Sue Gentry, I told her that story, and she laughed, knowing Mrs. Truman
and knowing me as well as she does, you know, and she just laughed and
laughed and laughed. She put it in her column one time about how I got the
whistles blown at me. I don’t think they were really whistles, but it was
just, “Let’s stay on the plastic.”
WILLIAMS: We try to be nice about it.
LaROE: Oh, they were. They didn’t try to embarrass me. We liked her because she
was as she is. I mean, she was just one of us.
WILLIAMS: How often did you say she would come into the library?
LaROE: Oh, about once a week. Just about once a week. It’d be kind of fun at night
to drive down Truman Road past the home, and you could see the light on
there, and the lamp and the chair, and you knew right where she sat, and
you knew she was sitting there reading her books, because that light would
be on.
And the poor dear, one day she came in, and I said something to
her. I said, “Did you see the article in the paper this morning?” It was
something that I thought she’d be interested in, and she said, “I haven’t
been able to get out in my yard and get my paper yet.” She said, “The
street’s just full of people.” They were all standing over there, waiting for a
glimpse of someone, I guess, and she couldn’t even get out to get her paper.
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[chuckling] And that wasn’t her thing. I mean, she didn’t want to be
noticed.
WILLIAMS: Did she have a certain day when she would come? Would you always
know that . . .
LaROE: No, I don’t think she did. I think she’d just come when she needed new
books to read.
WILLIAMS: So it wasn’t like, “Well, it’s Tuesday, Mrs. Truman will be in”?
LaROE: Mrs. Truman will be . . . No.
WILLIAMS: How many books would she check out usually?
LaROE: Probably ten. That was what the limit was at that time on the card, and
she’d . . . Well, those little mysteries, you know . . . Of course, now, she
did read some other things, too. I think one time she sort of resented people
saying that she just read mysteries. And that really isn’t true. I mean, she
did read other things too, but she did enjoy the mysteries.
WILLIAMS: What were some of the other things?
LaROE: Oh, she liked to read some of the biographies about some of the people, the
important people at the time, the prominent people. And she liked current
things. She was a sharp lady. She was a real sharp lady.
As much as we all saw her, if you saw her outside the library, you
still didn’t approach her, because Mike was just right there. And even
though he’d know you too, you still didn’t feel that you should go up to her.
I mean, we were all a little in awe, you know? I remember one day on my
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noon hour I’d gone down to what used to be Milgram’s on 24, down
there—it’s Food Land or something now—and all of a sudden, this little
lady came up and took hold of my arm, and she says, “Have you looked in
the meat counter?” And she was telling me something she had seen that
she thought looked really good—they had something at that time—it was
Mrs. Truman, and Mike was standing there just grinning. But had I walked
up to her, that would have been a different thing. Well, that’s what his job
was, was to protect her.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever get the feeling she was checking out things for Mr. Truman?
LaROE: No, not really, because, see, by this time . . . I mean, he didn’t . . . he wasn’t
really . . . When did he die?
WILLIAMS: Seventy-two.
LaROE: Oh, was it ’72? Well, I don’t remember her checking out things for him.
Now, Mike has probably come in and checked out things for him, or maybe
. . . I don’t know anything about his library habits, but he has come to the
library with her, and we’ve seen him, waiting in the car. And if we’d
happen to walk by, you could just wave or something, and he would just . . .
he didn’t know who, but he’d wave, you know, at anyone.
WILLIAMS: Did he ever come into the library?
LaROE: On occasion, he would come in.
WILLIAMS: Would he browse?
LaROE: Yes, just kind of browse around. Our librarian at this time was Miss Tiffy,
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Ethel Mae Tiffy, and she was a little lady, a quite elderly lady, and she’d
take care of him, when he’d come in. And another lady that used to come
in our library a lot, her husband was the curator here for a while, and I can’t
think what her name was.
WILLIAMS: Perry?
LaROE: No, I don’t believe that was it.
WILLIAMS: That’s the only one I . . .
LaROE: Mrs. Brooks—she came in quite a lot. Miss Tiffy always helped her.
WILLIAMS: Did Mr. Truman have a library card?
LaROE: I don’t know. I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: You never saw one?
LaROE: If he didn’t, he could have had the whole library, as far as we were
concerned. [chuckling] But I never saw his card. But Mrs. Truman did,
you know, and she . . . Well, like you know it’s in the Truman Library.
When we went from one sort of a check-out system to another and
everyone had to re-register, she just does what everybody else is supposed
to. I mean, she doesn’t say, “Well, get it from my records.” Never took
advantage of her position.
WILLIAMS: So I can’t even dig up a little dirt on her and say that she was—
LaROE: You can’t. Not from me you can’t. [chuckling] I thought she was really . . .
It’s just too bad we don’t have more souls like her. She was really a nice
lady.
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WILLIAMS: But she would keep books out overdue on occasion?
LaROE: Once in a while she would. She’d forget, you know, or they’d get mixed in
with some others or something. She had quite a sense of humor. One time
in Independence they got real busy tearing up every street, and it seemed
like they tore them all up at the same time. They didn’t bother to finish one
and then go on to another; everything was torn up. And she’d walk over
that debris to get into the library. We were still on Osage at that time before
we came out here to Spring Street, and she’d walk over that to get in the
library. And then this one day she came and, by golly, they’d torn up the
sidewalk, too, in front of the library. She came in and . . . she plopped her
books down, and she said, “Now, why do you suppose they’re tearing up
the sidewalks?” [chuckling] And I just said to her, “Well, I think they just
ran out of streets to tear up.” That just seemed to hit her just right, and
every time she’d come in, for the next two or three times, she couldn’t even
look at me. I mean, she’d look at me and then she’d get tickled, and I’d get
tickled, and we’d both have to do something else. I mean, she was a really .
. . she was a fun person, you know, and a nice, nice lady. Well, she would
have had to have been, and had a sense of humor to go through what she’s
been through.
WILLIAMS: You were talking about Mike Westwood protecting her. Would he come in
with her?
LaROE: You bet.
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WILLIAMS: And follow her around?
LaROE: Well, he wouldn’t always follow her around, but he would stand . . . like
maybe he would stand at the end of the aisle. He didn’t crowd her at all.
And he felt she was on pretty home ground in the library.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever see him head anyone off that was heading in her direction?
LaROE: Well, many times I’ve seen . . . yes, I’ve seen him go closer to her, just in
case . . . However, no one in the library really ever bothered her, but I’ve
seen him on the street, and he was very protective of her.
WILLIAMS: What would he do? Would he just step in the way?
LaROE: He would just kind of step in between them, and take hold of her, so that
they knew that they weren’t going to get any closer. But I don’t think
anyone had anything against her. I think maybe they just wanted maybe an
autograph, maybe something. I don’t really know.
But she was a part of everything. I mean, if anything was going on,
she wanted to be a part of everything. She just was a really nice person to
have around, that you could enjoy.
And like I was telling you on the phone, this one day I was just so
excited because my son was coming home. He was working on his
doctorate at that time, and he was going to be coming home. The next time,
the next week when she was in, or whenever it was, she asked me, “Did
your boy get home all right?” I mean, she remembered little things.
WILLIAMS: So you would visit with her when she’d come in?
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LaROE: Oh, yes, she would stand, and she would visit with you and talk with you
about things. If you had something she liked especially, she’d say, “My
that’s pretty,” or “You look nice,” or “Your hair looks nice that way.” I
mean, she was just . . . she was at home in the library. Well, we’d all been
there a long time, you know, most of us. At that time, we didn’t change
jobs like people do now so much, and I guess she felt pretty much at home.
WILLIAMS: About how many people worked in the library at that time?
LaROE: Now? Oh, at that . . . Well, let’s see, I don’t know about now, but at that
time I think probably on the circulation desk there were probably maybe
seven of us was all. I think they have more than that now. They have a
larger library and more circulation, but there were probably only about
seven of us then, but not at the same time. Our schedule varied. And then
we had two reference librarians: Miss Margaret McMillan and Miss Lear at
that time was reference librarian there, and then Miss Tiffy, who was
branch librarian. That was in the upstairs, the adult, and then the juvenile
section was downstairs, and Mrs. Truman never went down there. She
always, you know, was upstairs. But really, no one paid too much attention
to her. I mean, everybody was always glad to see her and spoke with her,
but they always wanted her to be comfortable.
WILLIAMS: You never saw her check out books for her grandsons or anything like that?
LaROE: No, I don’t remember her ever doing that. And I don’t remember Margaret
ever coming to the library.
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WILLIAMS: Would you say that you knew her any more or less than any of the other
circulation librarians?
LaROE: Oh, no, I don’t think I knew her any better. I think we all knew her about
the same. Like the lady’s name I gave you. She would visit with her, too,
and talk with her. Another one of our ladies, when Mrs. Truman could no
longer come in, would check in some of the new books and things, and
she’d say, “Oh, I think Mrs. Truman would like this,” and she’d help put
back some of the books.
WILLIAMS: Who was that?
LaROE: Her name was Mildred Gable, and she now lives in Florida. I thought
about it. You know, I would have liked to have had her talk with you
because she was real good, too.
WILLIAMS: And the lady’s name you mentioned, just so I have it on tape, is Jeanne
Fann.
LaROE: Jeanne Fann. Jeanne was very good. But there were others there that she
spoke with, too, that . . . helped her when they could, did little things. We
all did.
WILLIAMS: Do you remember where Mr. Truman sat out in the car?
LaROE: Right in front of the door. Mike always would park just right in front of the
door to the library.
WILLIAMS: Would Mr. and Mrs. Truman ride in the back seat together?
LaROE: Well, no, generally he’d ride up front and she’d ride in the back. He’d ride
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up with Mike, you know, and she would most generally be in the back. But
now, I can remember him sitting in the back, too, sometimes when he’d be
up there. And I don’t know why that was; whether it was easier for him
getting in and out, I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Did things change any after Mr. Truman died, as far as how often she
would visit the library?
LaROE: No, not as long as she could. You know, when the library first moved to its
present location on 24 and Spring here, it was an old A&P store, and it has
just been completely renovated this last year. But as an old A&P store, it
had a revolving door. This was when we first had moved in there, before
we really even had everything all settled. And poor Mrs. Truman, she just
got bumped a little. She was moving slowly, and she was very dependent
on her cane at this time, and she just . . . She just got bumped just a little,
you know? But it was enough so that we all told Mr. James Leathers, who
was the head administrator of all Mid-Continent branches, and that
revolving door was out of there in no time at all. But she didn’t get to come
much after that because she was pretty disabled with her knee. But she did
come a few times, and she was glad to see that that door was gone.
[chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Mike Westwood would come in sometimes by himself and pick things up?
LaROE: For her, yes, and return them. Now, Mike would stand there and wait to
pay a fine if there were overdue books. He’d stand there, and he’d say,
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“You better check those.” And, you know, we’d check the date, and he
wanted to make sure that she didn’t owe anything.
WILLIAMS: And his stepson worked at the library?
LaROE: Uh-huh, Mike Manners. And Mike, like I was saying, was a debater. Of
course, he’s a lawyer now, so that kind of figures, right? But he was a
debater. We had a periodical room, just a small room, and with a big,
meeting-type table. And this one time I happened to be doing something in
there, I was looking up something for someone, and Mike Manners was
sitting in there at the table and he was studying with some of his fellow
debaters. He had this stack of magazines, Time magazine, and they were
looking for whatever their topic was. And someone of the librarians came
in and was looking for a special issue of Time, and she said, “Mike, are
those the library copies?” And he said, “No, these were loaned to me by a
friend.” And it just dropped at that. Then, the next afternoon when we
found his magazines still sitting there—he was going to use them again—
they all said “Harry S Truman” on them. [chuckling] And Mr. Truman had
given them to him . . . But he never elaborated. Well, he was over at their
house with Mike Westwood all the time, you know, from the time he was
small, so he was great friends with Mr. Truman, enough so that he could
take those books and this, and get them autographed for me.
WILLIAMS: Do you know if he still lives around here?
LaROE: I don’t know where Mike lives. I only know that he’s a lawyer now.
19
WILLIAMS: He might be a good person to talk to.
LaROE: Oh, he would be wonderful! Because he would know about both of them
from being in their home so much.
WILLIAMS: I didn’t realize he would tag along with Mike.
LaROE: Oh, yes, he was in the home, and very good friends with Mr. Truman, too.
But I have just no idea where Mike is. Now, he would have graduated from
high school the same year as my boy, like in ’66 probably, so he’d be fortythree
or four.
WILLIAMS: He’d be in his forties.
LaROE: Yeah, it doesn’t seem possible to me, but that’s what he’d be.
WILLIAMS: Okay, let’s see, Mrs. Truman, would she . . . You were talking about a
friend of yours who has letters. Did you ever receive anything like that, or .
. .?
LaROE: Yes, I received a . . . oh, a couple little things. But like I said, they’re in my
boy’s book with his pink learner’s permit with her name on it. [chuckling]
I don’t know if he still had the bill from Bethel or not; but I just gave those
books to him when he was home this June, or I could have brought those to
show you. I had a thank you for the condolences, when Mr. Truman died,
and maybe a thank you for sending her a birthday card or when she was ill
or something. And most of the time . . . Now, the condolence cards were all
the edged-in-black type things that were sent out by the hundreds, I’m sure,
but the other little personal things, like the little card there, you know, she’d
20
do those, take care of those things personally. Mike Westwood told us that
when we were so thrilled with the flower, we said, “You be sure and tell
Mrs. Truman that we love our flower. We take real good care of it.” And
he said, “Do you know she went in and picked that out herself?” She
wasn’t going to trust anybody else to do that. And she sent many of them.
WILLIAMS: Did she know you all on a first-name basis?
LaROE: She did at the time, but I’m sure . . . Well, not all of us, but those that she
worked with, that she would see the most often. Part of those seven people
that I was telling you about were part-time, and they would come in at night
and things, so she would know us. And we never wore name tags, so it
would be just . . . you know, she would just hear us talking to each other or
something. But she did at the time. She’d know enough to say, “Well,
Cleo did that or told me about this.” Or Mrs. Gable, she did know her by
her last name. She’d say, “Mrs. Gable has some books put back for me,” or
something.
WILLIAMS: I think we need to change, and we’ll have a few more questions.
LaROE: I don’t think I know much more. I wrote some things down I wanted to tell
you, too, and I think I’ve about hit on all of them.
[End #4351; Begin #4352]
WILLIAMS: You brought a floral card with you. Could you tell us about where that
came from [see appendix, item 1]?
LaROE: Well, every Christmas Mrs. Truman would send, as she would put it on the
21
envelope, “To the girls at the front desk,” because that was the checkout
desk, and they were the ones that checked her books in and out, and, really,
her contact with the library, and she would send us a beautiful floral plant. I
mean, if it was a plant, it was always a huge one. It was always just very
attractive and very pretty. And Mike Westwood told us that she always
went in and chose them herself, and she’d say, “Now, I want this one to go
here and . . .” And so she had sent with it a handwritten note that said,
“Merry Christmas, and thank you,” or something like that. This one, the
one that I brought you the card for, was a cyclamen plant, and it just . . .
Well, it had so many of us taking care of it, and plants, I think, sort of thrive
on oxygen, and there were certainly a lot of people talking in the library,
and the lights all the time, because the lights were on night and day. It was
like that plant lived in a greenhouse, really. And they always lasted, you
know, a real long time. And whenever she would come in, she’d sort of
look it over to make sure that it was still looking okay. She was very, very
observant of everything in the library, all the changes, and she liked to see
progress.
WILLIAMS: Would she ever suggest books that you might want to purchase for the
library, or anything like that?
LaROE: Now if she did, I doubt it, because she was not presuming at all, you know.
But if she did, she would have spoken to Miss Tiffy, our librarian, probably,
because we didn’t have any kind of authority there at the desk. I mean, we
22
could take suggestions and things, but if it was anything that was going to
get anywhere, they’d have had to go to Miss Tiffy.
WILLIAMS: As far as you know, did Miss Tiffy buy more mysteries than she might have
because she knew Mrs. Truman was there?
LaROE: No, I don’t really think so. Miss Tiffy went to the same church as the
Trumans, and she knew Mrs. Truman through the church, and she . . . No, I
don’t think she did. They always had a big budget for fiction, for the
mystery books. But if there was something special or new . . . Miss Tiffy
would always check in all the nonfiction books, and if there was something
special or something new, she’d stack it up there, and she’d say, “The next
time Mike or Mrs. Truman come in, why . . .”
And it’s kind of funny, you know, in the book pocket of each book
is a book card that they put your checkout number, and if anyone was very
observant . . . Well, I don’t know that there would still be any of those
books still around maybe even now, but it used to be kind of funny to look
at those cards and it would just say “Mrs. T” on there. Because for some
reason, either she wasn’t able to get there with her card, or Mike didn’t
have it . . . Now, Mike would let us check them out once in a while without
it, you know, but . . . We’d never put “Mrs. Truman,” but we’d just put
“Mrs. T.” But I’ve come across that so many times. My job there was
sending the overdue notices. And I never had to send her any, but I had a
lot to do with the cards of the books that were still out, and I’d see her name
23
on it somewhere up the line somewhere: “Mrs. T.” [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: And she would send a plant then every year at Christmas?
LaROE: Every year. She did that for a number of years.
WILLIAMS: Do you ever remember her coming in and commenting about a particular
book, that this one was just wonderful, or would she ever do that?
LaROE: Sometimes there would be some she didn’t like, and she would think . . .
maybe it was a little racy or something, you know, and she wouldn’t . . .
She might call that to Miss Tiffy’s attention or something. She might make
some remark, but she never fussed about anything, really. She just might
make an observation. And she’d stay in the longest time. I mean, she’d
really look those books over before she took them home, [chuckling] make
sure it was something she wanted to read.
WILLIAMS: How long?
LaROE: Oh, she’d stay maybe sometimes twenty, twenty-five minutes, in there. She
wouldn’t just come in and just grab them off the shelf. She would be very
selective in what she chose. And here would be little kids crawling around
on the floor, around her, and other people standing around, and people just
standing and looking at her and wondering, “Is that really her, or isn’t it?”
You know, “Is it, or isn’t it?” It never bothered her. She’d just still keep
standing there looking at our books, you know. [chuckling] She was not
impressed with his position at all.
WILLIAMS: Did she seem to have a favorite author?
24
LaROE: Gosh, I can’t remember. I really can’t remember who her . . . Now Millie
Gable, the one who’s in Florida, might, but I can’t remember her having a .
. . There were so many mystery authors, and so many of them written by
the same author under different names, pseudonyms, and I don’t remember
that she had a favorite one. But I can see her so plainly in that coat and in
those black kid gloves coming up to the library.
WILLIAMS: When Margaret started writing books, did that subject ever come up?
LaROE: No. Wouldn’t that have been after she was . . . She probably didn’t come
in the library very often . . . well, I don’t think she came in at all the last two
or three years I was there. You know, she just wasn’t able.
WILLIAMS: Margaret’s book . . .
LaROE: The first one?
WILLIAMS: The Harry S. Truman book came out soon after he died, and then she
started writing the mysteries, but I just wondered if maybe Mrs. Truman
had ever commented about it: “Do you have any of Margaret’s books?” or
“Have any of you read them?” or anything like that?
LaROE: No, she never did. I would have loved to have had her autograph in here.
But even seeing her as much as I did, I didn’t feel that that I should ask. I
thought that was overstepping, to ask her to sign it. And we all, like I say,
we were in awe and we respected her privacy a lot. But I don’t know,
Margaret . . . she never discussed Margaret or said anything about
Margaret—to me anyway.
25
WILLIAMS: Did she ever mention anything going on at the house, if a celebrity had
been there or anything like that?
LaROE: Oh, yes, we kidded her. You know, we’d say, “We saw your picture on the
front page this morning,” or something that way when someone was there. I
think even Mr. Kennedy was there one time, and that didn’t please her too
much. [chuckling] Oh, and there had been a lot of people there at the
White House—I mean, at the summer White House, as they call it there.
But no, she would never comment. She’d just say, “Yes, isn’t that just
wonderful?” [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: She wouldn’t complain.
LaROE: No, she didn’t complain. She did complain because she couldn’t get into
her yard to get her paper. That sort of bothered her because she felt she
didn’t have any privacy. And of course Mrs. Wallace lived right back
down behind her, and they were real good friends.
WILLIAMS: Do you know May Wallace very well?
LaROE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: You go to the same church.
LaROE: Yes. Of course she’s not able anymore to go, but yes, I’ve known her . . .
We’ve belonged to that church since 1947, so I’ve known May a long, long,
long time, and her family, her sister and family.
WILLIAMS: How would you describe May Wallace? We are in the process of
purchasing her house.
26
LaROE: Oh, are you really?
WILLIAMS: To add to the park, so we’d like to find out more about her.
LaROE: She’s a real nice lady, too, and a real sharpie, up until the last few years.
Well, I don’t know that he’s able anymore. Have you interviewed Bill
Carnes?
WILLIAMS: I’ve thought about it. I haven’t called him.
LaROE: Bill’s been sick. He’s had a nervous breakdown, I understand, and he’s
been real, real sick, so I don’t know how . . . But May’s sister is Carolyn
Carnes, and their father used to be the editor of the Independence
Examiner—I’m sure you know that. Okay. They have been up there
forever. In fact, my husband was a pallbearer for Mr. Carnes when he died.
Bill called and asked him if he would be. May came to the wedding
reception of our youngest boy fourteen years ago. I mean, we’ve known
them for a long, long time. Of course, Mrs. Carnes is gone too now, but
Bill has been very solicitous of May, takes her back and forth to church and
everywhere.
WILLIAMS: Is that the main contact you had with May was through church?
LaROE: Was through church, that was all. I’ve been in her home a few times, but
then generally with church stuff.
WILLIAMS: She wasn’t quite the reader that Mrs. Truman was.
LaROE: No. No, she didn’t come in the library as much. But she was a real
gracious lady, too. A real nice lady.
27
WILLIAMS: When the Secret Service kind of took over, I guess, or when Mike
Westwood retired, did that change anything, as far as Mrs. Truman’s trips
to the library?
LaROE: No, but the Secret Service men would come and get books for her. No, she
didn’t come with them, that I recall, and I don’t remember just when Mike
retired. But they were in the house, you know, right across the street,
upstairs? And they would come. Of course, you’re not supposed to notice
them. [chuckling] They’re supposed to just blend into the woodwork. But
we finally did recognize a couple of them because they would come with
regularity to pick up books for her.
WILLIAMS: Did they look like Secret Service agents?
LaROE: I don’t know what Secret Service agents look like, [chuckling] but they
were just kind of nondescript. They weren’t flashy in any way. But, boy, it
was hot up there in that little garret-type place where they had to spend so
much time, and such a dull routine because nothing was happening over
there across the street, you know. But they would, they came for, oh,
maybe a couple of years and got books for her, as I recall.
WILLIAMS: And how would those be checked out? Would they have her card?
LaROE: No, I think probably that’s when we did the “Mrs. T” thing. I was just
trying to think here, because she never would let us check them out without
her card, and that may have been when we did that, because she wasn’t able
to keep track maybe of things. And her lady that lived at home with her
28
there—oh, she liked her so much. What was her name? Yetta?
WILLIAMS: Valeria?
LaROE: No, the lady that lived with Mrs. Truman. Their cook. She was their cook.
WILLIAMS: Oh, the cook, Vietta [Garr].
LaROE: Vietta. Oh, she liked her. She liked her so much, and she was about the
only one she’d talk about at the house. She’d say something about, “Oh,
Vietta said this about this or that or the other,” or something.
WILLIAMS: Just kind of small talk?
LaROE: Yes, just pass the time of day about her. She was very dependent on her.
She liked her. She was a lonely lady after he died, you know. She couldn’t
get out and really mingle with everybody. She wasn’t able, and she was
unapproachable so far as . . . I mean, just a few could go to see her. She
was a very, very lonely lady.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever deliver books to their house or pick them up there?
LaROE: I never did, no, and I don’t think anybody else did either because she
always had either the Secret Service or Mike.
WILLIAMS: And did she ever mention Mr. Truman at all?
LaROE: Oh, sure, yes, she’d talk about him.
WILLIAMS: What would she talk about?
LaROE: Well, she’d just say, “Well, you know, Harry said this, and Harry said that,”
just like any of us would talk about our husbands. [chuckling] I don’t think
she ever thought he was anything real special. She just talked about him
29
just like you just would talk about someone, your mate, someone you lived
with. Never anything derogatory. I never heard her say anything mean
about anyone.
WILLIAMS: Just like how he was feeling or that kind of thing?
LaROE: Mm-hmm, or if there was something current going on, she’d say, “Well,
you know what Harry said?” She’d say something like that, just some little
small type of thing.
WILLIAMS: So he had opinions on things.
LaROE: Oh, sure he did. You bet he did. [chuckling] Yeah, and she did, too. She
did, too.
WILLIAMS: And she wasn’t real shy about then talking about it?
LaROE: Not when she’d get acquainted with you, but I would imagine that in a
crowd she would be very shy. I would imagine she would. She wasn’t the
aggressor that Mr. Truman was, by nature. She was a timid little . . . well,
not really timid either. I mean, I think she’d probably hold her own, but she
. . . I don’t think she’d be the one to open a conversation, let me say, in a
group. And I imagine it was just . . . Washington was awfully hard on her.
It just wasn’t her thing at all.
WILLIAMS: And that’s what really impressed you about her was that she just seemed to
blend in with everyone else?
LaROE: Mm-hmm, she just was hometown people. That’s what she was. She
didn’t want to be above the rest of the world. She just wanted to be what
30
she was.
WILLIAMS: Did you ever hear stories from people that had worked there before you
about how long she’d been coming into the library, or . . .?
LaROE: No, I don’t know, and I don’t even know . . . I know she’d come in for a lot
of years before I started working there. And of course he would have been .
. . let’s see, ’52, is that his last year? So, see, that would have been . . . She
would have still been a celebrity in her own hometown even then. But I
don’t remember anybody talking about anything that she . . .
In fact, when I first went to work there, she came in this one day,
and I wasn’t aware that Mrs. Truman came in there. You know, I’d never
seen Mrs. Truman before—I mean, up face-to-face—and here we were just
standing like this. And I was really surprised, and I just kind of stared at
her, and she just kind of stared back. And then I said, “Well, hello.” And
she said, “Well, hello.” But I don’t think she . . . Oh, I don’t know, she
would never be the aggressor in anything, I’m sure, in a society like
Washington, D.C. She’d rather stay home and read her mysteries, I’m sure,
than go to some of those things that she had to go to. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: How much can you tell from someone by what they read, as a librarian?
LaROE: Oh, I don’t know. We could make up lots of stories about what we thought
they were going to do with some of the material they checked out. But I
think you can tell whether they are really wanting to improve their mind or.
. . Of course, I knew now that she read mysteries, she wasn’t going to go
31
out and shoot somebody and try to hide it or anything. But when you get
into some of the nonfiction stuff, about how to assemble bombs, and all this
and that sort of thing, you just think, I wonder where he lives? I’m going to
stay away from there. [chuckling] And you can kind of guess. But
generally at that time our circulation was really good, too, and we . . . you
didn’t really have time to look much at what they were reading. You know,
you were just checking them out as fast as you could, and you just didn’t
really have a lot of time. And the phone rang constantly, and you just
didn’t really have that kind of time to analyze much, except some of your
special people.
WILLIAMS: If she had about ten books a week, did you get the impression that she
would read all of them, or . . . ?
LaROE: Oh, I think she did, unless she just maybe didn’t like it. But I would be
overwhelmed with ten books a week.
WILLIAMS: I would be, too.
LaROE: [chuckling] But she had help, Vietta was there and she did the housework
and everything, and she had a little more leisure than she’d had for a long
time, and I think she just enjoyed them. And I think she was a rapid reader,
and she could enjoy them.
WILLIAMS: You mentioned earlier that she would make her way through the children
sitting on the floor, and things like that.
LaROE: Yeah.
32
WILLIAMS: Would she ever stop and visit with people in the library?
LaROE: Not often, no, unless it was someone she knew.
WILLIAMS: Or stoop down and say hello to a child, or anything like that?
LaROE: I don’t remember that she did that. She could have, but I don’t remember
that she did that. But, see, they were active in their church, you know, and
so they knew a lot of people. It’s really too bad Father Lembcke’s no
longer here because he would have known . . . he could tell you a lot of
really interesting stories, and he used to come in the library a lot. Now, if
he and Mrs. Truman would meet in there, why, you know they’d have a
big, long conversation or something, or anyone that she knew from the
church. And she knew a lot of people—she had a lot of friends in it—but,
gosh, they’d lived here forever, you know.
WILLIAMS: I hope to interview Judy Lembcke this coming Sunday.
LaROE: Oh, do you?
WILLIAMS: That’s another question I can ask her about: going to the library.
LaROE: Mm-hmm. Now, I remember when he married her. Of course . . . well, I
can just remember when they got married. [chuckling] She’s quite a bit
younger than he was.
WILLIAMS: That’s kind of the impression I got. She’s still working.
LaROE: And they had a baby, I remember, before he died, but the baby was quite
tiny. He died so suddenly, you know—I mean, he just was gone in a hurry.
But he was a great guy. It’s just too bad you can’t interview him.
33
WILLIAMS: Well, I’m looking here at my sheet, and I . . .
LaROE: Have we covered it?
WILLIAMS: I think so. There’s probably something I’ve missed, something about
checking out books, I’m sure. Scott, can you think of anything?
SCOTT STONE: No, I can’t. I’m the silent partner.
WILLIAMS: Not even one question, huh?
LaROE: I’ve probably worn you both out. I haven’t had a chance or anybody to talk
about Mrs. Truman about for a long, long time, and I liked her, [chuckling]
so I just really—
WILLIAMS: Well, I’m very interested in their reading habits. Because the last two
summers I’ve worked here, part of the time I would do research on the
books in the study in the home, and I think most of those were probably Mr.
Truman’s. He would get thousands or hundreds a year, and that may be
one reason he didn’t go to the library because people . . .
LaROE: Every edition he got a copy of, sure. That’s probably the reason he never
had to go. But I think he was . . . He was a brilliant man, he really was,
and he was very well-read, and I think he kept up with things long after he
retired.
WILLIAMS: That’s the impression I got. And Erle Stanley Gardner, the Perry Mason
mysteries, I think they got every book that Erle Stanley Gardner had ever
written. And I was quite surprised to find that Mr. Truman seemed to like
mysteries—maybe not so much, but he liked mysteries, too. You always
34
hear that he liked biography and history, but he seemed to have a lighter
side to his interests, too.
LaROE: Oh, I’m sure he did. Nobody could just read all that heavy stuff all the
time. But I know that he was up on current affairs, and that he kept up, and
I think they subscribed to a lot of magazines. I know they subscribed to
Time, [chuckling] and probably lots and lots of other things, too. I wonder,
the books are still over there in their house, are they?
WILLIAMS: They’re scattered all over. Most of them, of course, are in the little library
there. But they go from the basement to the attic, here and there. They had
so many, and most of them didn’t even make it to the house. They’re over
here at the [Truman] Library. Of course, they’d always be sent here to his
office, and then he would take things home, is the impression that I got. Of
course, Mrs. Truman’s nurses talk about reading books to her. Did any of
them ever come in to the library for her?
LaROE: I don’t remember any of them coming in, but . . . I can’t remember who . . .
Now, one of them did.
WILLIAMS: She had a companion, or a woman that would take care of the business.
LaROE: There was someone who came, because I know she told me one time, she
was talking to me about Mrs. Truman and she said, “Do you have any idea
how lonely that poor woman is?” And I said, “Well, I imagine she is just
terribly lonely all day, day after day.” And often she couldn’t even . . .
Well, she got so, I think, that she didn’t even want to go out to the kitchen
35
to eat. And I can’t think who this lady was that was telling me all about
that. And she was telling me about how she kind of teased her and got her
to get up. I think she just kind of gave up, you know? But she was telling
how she got her to come out to the kitchen and eat with her, you know,
instead of eating in her bedroom there, when they made the bedroom
downstairs, you know? But I can’t think who that was. It’s way back . . . I
can’t remember yesterday, really, a lot of time. [chuckling]
WILLIAMS: Valeria La Mere was her companion.
LaROE: Was that the one?
WILLIAMS: She came on in ’77, I think, and kind of ran the household. It may have
been her, and it may have been a nurse or something.
LaROE: It may have been, I don’t remember. I don’t remember that name, but she .
. . Oh, I can remember one funny thing when Edward R. Murrow came out,
you know, to do an interview there at the Truman home. Do you remember
how he used to do? Do you remember any of the Edward R. Murrow
things?
WILLIAMS: No. I’ve seen the “Person to Person” show.
LaROE: Have you seen the one he did on the Trumans?
WILLIAMS: Uh-huh.
LaROE: Yeah? Well, when he was out there and they were setting up all those
cameras and things, [chuckling] she was a nervous wreck. They were just
making a mess out of her house, you know. [chuckling] And it was really
36
funny, and we could hardly wait to see it on television, to see what
happened. And bless her heart, I think she kind of sits there like a ramrod
through the whole thing, you know. [chuckling] She just wanted that over
with, and in a hurry. But they even had Vietta on that, I think, as I recall.
WILLIAMS: Did she ever mention Jack Benny?
LaROE: No, I can’t remember that she did. I can remember, anything she said about
. . .
WILLIAMS: The Johnsons. President Johnson visited several times. Did she ever say
anything about them?
LaROE: No, she never made any . . . not that I can’t remember anything that she
said.
WILLIAMS: How about Maurice Chevalier?
LaROE: She never talked about any of them, but I’m sure they knew a lot of them,
you know. But she never did talk about them.
WILLIAMS: Well, I guess that’s all. Thank you very much.
LaROE: Well, you’re welcome. I enjoyed it immensely.
WILLIAMS: I enjoyed it, too. Thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW

Photocopy: floral card and envelope addressed to “The girls at the front desk, Mid-
Continent Library, 24 Highway,” from Bess W. Truman, in Mrs. Truman’s handwriting,
along with the care tag for the cyclamen plant. Courtesy of Maxine LaRoe

NPS files