Reathel Odum Oral History Interview

Reathel Odum

NPS

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH REATHEL ODUM

OCTOBER 10, 1988
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

INTERVIEWED BY NORMAN REIGLE
ORAL HISTORY #1988-2
This transcript corresponds to audiotapes DAV-AR #4086-4091

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.
Reathel Odum 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

Reathel Odum [1909-2006] was Bess W. Truman’s personal secretary from 1945 to 1953. Odum discusses living in the White House, Madge Gates Wallace, guests of the Trumans during the presidency, and visiting the Truman home in Independence.

Persons mentioned: Bess W. Truman, Vietta Garr, Margaret Truman Daniel, Niel Johnson, Madge Gates Wallace, Harry S Truman, Stuart Symington, John Snyder, Greta Kempton, Roberta Vinson, Fred Vinson, Perle Mesta, Fay Gardner, and O. Max Gardner.

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH REATHEL ODUM

HSTR INTERVIEW #1988-2

REATHEL ODUM: . . . I lived in the White House for a while, and then I took a small apartment. And without knowing, I got silverware that was used every day in the White House called “Minuet.” I’ve forgotten who makes it, but I thought that was an interesting coincidence.
NORMAN REIGLE: What’s the pattern here?
ODUM: This looks like “Fairfax.” Now, I may be wrong. I don’t know too much about china..
REIGLE: You know that. That’s what it is.
ODUM: Is it really? And the girls of the Junior Service League I met last night said that the flowers are furnished fresh every day.
REIGLE: That’s right. Every few days we get fresh flowers.
ODUM: Oh, well, these are beautiful.
REIGLE: Well, the Junior Service League of Independence has taken it on as a project to keep as a tribute to Mrs. Truman. Through donations and through interest on the fund, we have been able to maintain it for five years now. We keep it fairly healthy.
ODUM: Better take pictures before I start crying. [chuckling]
HARRISON: Did you have any meals when you stayed here?
ODUM: Did I what?
HARRISON: Did you have meals in the house when you stayed here?
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ODUM: Oh, yes.
HARRISON: Did you eat here at the dining room table, or where?
ODUM: I can’t remember being in this dining room. Maybe I just ate in the kitchen or something. Perhaps we did. And I’ve forgotten whether Vietta was the maid. I knew Vietta, of course. But I may have just eaten back in the kitchen.
REIGLE: _______ take a peek in.
ODUM: Yes, now I remember.
REIGLE: The way it works out, we let visitors come up through here, and then they can wander around.
ODUM: Oh, yes, a good idea. Yes, I can just see him sitting there.
REIGLE: Margaret’s helped us. Here is the one place we had to do. Most of the house was just exactly the way we found it, with the exception of this table here, and Margaret helped us put that in order the way she thought it would be.
ODUM: Oh, yes. As I remember, the day I came he had books stacked up about as high as I am on each side.
REIGLE: Oh, yes. We think it does look a little bit neater than it used to.
ODUM: Yes, it is neater.
REIGLE: But some of the books were taken out for safekeeping with the library, and many of them are stored at the library and so forth. I think ultimately we’ll probably “de-neat” this a little bit. [chuckling]
ODUM: Yes. Well, I think you’ve done a wonderful job, and I am so glad that they gave it to be shown. Thank you, let me follow you because . . . [walking 2
to another location]
HARRISON: The cord won’t reach that far. We’ll come back.
??: If you would want to talk with Miss Odum, Niel Johnson is interviewing her this morning. This afternoon I’m going to take her back to Haroldine’s to have a nap. I’m going to take her to dinner, and she’ll also be over at Haroldine’s in the morning. She knew—she calls her Vietta—Garr quite well, and she saw a lot of Mrs. Truman every day. So I don’t know.
REIGLE: It would be good to . . . Unfortunately, this morning . . . [tape is turned off]
ODUM: Now what do you do here? Is this still the carpet treatment or . . . ?
REIGLE: This is the historic carpet. Now, we’ll have visitors go as far as we are in here.
ODUM: Oh, I see, yes.
REIGLE: But we don’t let visitors walk into here under normal circumstances. If you’d like to step on through and go back in here, I’d be happy to . . . You’re not a visitor, you’re a guest. You’re a friend. [chuckling]
ODUM: Oh, that’s right, yes. The girls were complaining last night about that divan. They seemed to think that needed covering. Are you going to ever do that?
SHAVER: It is covered. [laughter]
ODUM: It is kind of dingy, isn’t it?
SHAVER: It is. This one was upstairs, I guess, in the sun room at the White House, and Mrs. Truman just put a slipcover over it. But she put it there.
ODUM: Maybe someone would donate a slipcover for it. [chuckling] Now this 3
was the Trumans’ bedroom, wasn’t it? I’ve forgotten where Margaret stayed when she was here.
REIGLE: Well, their bedroom is upstairs.
ODUM: Oh, was it?
REIGLE: No, her room was upstairs.
ODUM: Oh, well, I thought that.
REIGLE: This room was generally the room . . . Well, this was where Mrs. Wallace stayed in the last few years.
ODUM: Oh, I see.
REIGLE: Then the President moved down here for the last few years when he could no longer negotiate the steps.
ODUM: Oh, yes.
REIGLE: In about the last four or five years, then Mrs. Truman came down here, too. Of course, this is the room she passed away in, so we do not show this room to the public.
ODUM: Oh, I see. Well, yes.
REIGLE: And for one reason, we’ve taken the hospital beds and stuff out of here, so this room is not open to the public.
ODUM: Yes. This is a picture of Margaret during her concert days. That was a picture we used in publicity purposes.
REIGLE: That’s a very good picture, I think.
ODUM: Yes. I like that picture of him very much. I like that of her, too. I used to work for him when he was in the senate and as vice president. Then, when they went to the White House, he asked me if I’d be her personal secretary, 4
which I did.
REIGLE: I imagine those were pretty exciting times.
ODUM: Yes, indeed, and they went fast.
HARRISON: You spent quite a bit of time with Mrs. Wallace?
ODUM: Yes, I did. They brought her to the old Blair House and I used to sit with her a lot. She liked a little room there, we called it “the glass room.” There was beautiful glassware in there and she’d sit there in the daytime and I’d visit her a lot and stay with her when the family went out.
HARRISON: What are your memories of her?
ODUM: I liked her very much. She liked to take some of us out to a place called Mrs. K’s. It was a place sort of at that time rather in the country, but now that’s all grown up, and she liked to go there. Then we would talk and she would tell me about Independence. Then, when we were in the White House, I had a bedroom across the hall from her, so I visited her every day in her room. Mrs. Truman and I shared a little . . . oh, a small office together right off my bedroom. Then, if both President and Mrs. Truman were away, after I moved away from the White House, I’d come and stay and be a companion or company for Mrs. Wallace.
REIGLE: I see. Where are you originally from?
ODUM: I’m originally from southern Illinois, but I was working in Saint Louis when I met Mr. Truman. So then it didn’t seem to matter whether I was an Illinoisan or . . .
REIGLE: Or a Missourian? [chuckling]
ODUM: Of course, he was senator, that’s right. Then I worked for Senator 5
Symington, and I think it was the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, complaining about some of his help not being from the state of Missouri, and he said, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to that.” [chuckling] So we didn’t. Oh, and here’s Mr. Snyder. I was working for him at the time he died. This was a portrait that Greta [Kempton] painted of Mr. Snyder. He loved Bess Truman, and she liked him, too.
SHAVER: Yes, he was quite a gentleman.
ODUM: She would call on him when she needed anything that she couldn’t get somewhere else. Well, I think this is delightful. Let me just take a look here.
HARRISON: Oh, yes, take your time there.
REIGLE: There’s a couple of portraits over here, if you want to step in.
ODUM: Oh, all right, if I may.
REIGLE: On the piano.
ODUM: Yes?
REIGLE: This one is Roberta Vinson [Mrs. Fred Vinson]?
ODUM: Yes, and I remember we used to call her “Mommy Vin.”
REIGLE: Mommy Vin?
ODUM: Mommy Vin, yes. I know I rode with Mrs. Vinson and Mrs. Perle Mesta back from Pittsburgh when Margaret sang. Mrs. Mesta, had a car and chauffer, and we stopped at a . . . a fast food place for lunch, and Mrs. Mesta had all of her jewels down in her bosom, and I thought that was so funny! But she was a very down-to-earth, very friendly woman.
REIGLE: Were they pretty close friends with . . .?
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ODUM: That is Mrs. . . . Oh, what was her name? Lived down South.
REIGLE: Gardner?
ODUM: Yes, Gardner, right. Fay Gardner, I think it was.
REIGLE: What was her relationship with the Trumans?
ODUM: Well, I think her husband, O. Max Gardner, before he died, he was appointed to an ambassadorship, and I’ve forgotten now to which country, but they never did go because he died. They were in the Treasury—that’s it—under Mr. Snyder, and used to come to receptions and things of that sort held in the White House.
REIGLE: Did she ever just visit? I mean, were they like personal friends or was it more official?
ODUM: Well, I don’t remember, but now they could have in the evenings or other occasions. I just don’t quite remember that. But I do remember her.
REIGLE: And what about the Vinsons? Were they personal friends or a bit more?
ODUM: They were friendly, yes. But there again, after I moved from the White House, I didn’t know guests that would come in in the evening. Then I went up and stayed with Margaret in New York for about two years and we’d just come down to Washington on weekends.
REIGLE: Now, when you stayed here at the house, upstairs here in the guest bedroom, when was that?
ODUM: Well, I can’t remember, because Margaret sang in Kansas City and we stayed at the Meuhlebach Hotel. Now, whether or not we came out here at that time, I just don’t remember. See, that’s been over . . . about thirty-five years ago, and this poor old lady is getting a little dim on facts. Well, I 7
think we’d better leave before your guests . . .
REIGLE: We’ve got more time if you want.
ODUM: No, this is fine, and I certainly do appreciate your taking the time out . . .
END OF INTERVIEW

Please visit Miss Odum's Oral History Interview for the Truman Library!

You may also wish to read Miss Reathel Odum's oral history interview that she did for the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum.

You can access it by clicking here.

And you can see the finding aid for the Reathel Odum Papers at the Truman Library by clicking here.

Autographed portrait of Harry S. Truman. Signed, "To Miss Reathel Odum, with kindest regards and appreciation for her efficient, faithful public service, and with best wishes for a happy and successful future. White House, Jan. 17, 53. Harry S. Truman." Original photo is stored in oversize file.
Date(s)
ca.
1953

Truman Library